Expectations Met
Look, I'm not a sage. Anything resembling a prediction of this fun little niche of ours is not based on anything other than guesswork. And I'm generally wrong more often than I am right.
But even if we acknowledge that what has happened this week is one of the two things I suggested in last week's Chart Watch might, just might happen. I still get to say "I told you so".
Olivia Rodrigo finds that the huge chart sale with which Drop Dead debuted last week was indeed unsustainable. Almost as if much of the attention paid to the single in its first week was due to people keen to discover if it did indeed measure up to the drama of her past hits, only to alas conclude that it did not. Not even the issue of a handful of variations of the song's video could prevent it from suffering a calamitous collapse in streams. While still enough to ensure Drop Dead is the No.2 single of the week, it joins the rest of the trailing pack in being some considerable distance behind the market leader.
Said leader is - naturally - Rein Me In. Not for the first time Sam and Livvy merely loaned the No.1 position to someone else for a week and now gently and gracefully reclaim it. The song begins its third spell at the top of the Official UK Singles chart by spending a ninth non-consecutive week at the summit. That's enough to draw level with one other celebrated male-female chart-topping duet: You're The One That I Want by John Travolta and, yes, Olivia Newton-John. The only song credited to a mixed-gender pair to have spent longer at the top is Umbrella, even though Jay-Z's presence alongside Rihanna on the 2007 hit was as a featured guest rather than an equal, his contribution to the track was fleeting and he wasn't even on the version you mostly heard on the radio. But it still counts, I guess.
In search of something new to say about Rein Me In after all this time, has anyone else noticed that the studio recording sits rather incongruously as the soundtrack to the track's video which features footage of live stadium gigs? You can believe that Sam Fender performed the song at St James' Park and The London Stadium in the same full voice he uses on the record. But Olivia Dean almost certainly did not step up to the mic to deliver her lines in the mellow honeyed tone that features on the studio recording. Fortunately, Fender's own YouTube channel contains the full uncut London performance of the duet from last summer, so we get to hear how it really sounded live. She's not a soul diva in the traditional sense but that tiny frame of hers still conceals a powerful set of pipes.
In. And Out.
Now for the real meat and gristle of this week's singles chart. Virtually every one of the acts with a "new" entry this week is not actually doing so with a new song at all. And in many cases, they are performing the celebrated chart hokey-cokey. Time to dive in.
Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj remain No.3 with the year's most unexpected revival to date as Beauty And A Beat continues to tantalise a whole new generation. But it is now the Canadian's only back catalogue track on the chart. Daisies at No.6 is joined by Yukon, originally No.12 last summer and which re-enters at No.27 by dint of overtaking Baby as its third most popular cut.
Similarly, Olivia Dean now has a different set of songs as her trifecta of primary artist hits. Man I Need remains the biggest despite an ACR encumbrance, still refusing to die as it creeps back into the Top 10 at No.9. So Easy (To Fall In Love), which is also on ACR, loiters at No.24 but now thanks to the release of a vinyl edition the pair are joined by another track from her Art Of Loving album. Baby Steps charts for the very first time at No.31 - ejecting last week's No.39 hit Nice To Each Other from the chart after its own four week comeback. It means seven of the album's 11 full-length tracks have now become chart singles at various points in its life.
Shake It All About
But it isn't this week's No.1 album. That honour goes to Noah Kahan whose fourth studio album The Great Divide becomes his second to make it to the top of the British charts. At one stage the apex predator Generic American Bloke thanks to No.1 smash hit Stick Season, Kahan found himself relegated to an afterthought in the genre when Alex Warren stormed to prominence. But he clearly still has his loyal adherents. The arrival of the album means he has the biggest of only two truly new entries to the Top 75 singles chart as Doors lands at No.12 to become his fifth Top 20 single. The two tracks that preceded the album's release also come storming back to prominence: the title track rockets 80-17 after originally peaking at No.10 in February, while second teaser cut Porch Light is now back at No.20 - one place behind the No.19 it scaled in March.
He's Complicated
Chart positions are often about numbers, but sometimes the stories behind the people involved are more complex—and occasionally, more unfair. Broadcaster Scott Mills is now one month removed from being treated quite disgracefully by his employers. Ejected from the Radio 2 breakfast gig based on unspecified allegations from when he was a young man working on local radio, and then as a consequence treated by the rest of the media as toxic. He's been wiped from other parts of public life with charity TV shows he participated in discarded never to be broadcast, stage appearances cancelled, and even motorway bridges bearing his name for a giggle rebranded in almost indecent haste. All without him provably doing anything wrong.
Compare this to the late Michael Jackson who of course still makes people lots of money. So in spite of ongoing allegations and ever more lurid tales of his alleged sexual misconduct towards minors during his lifetime he remains a marketable brand. Hence the release a week ago of the dramatised biopic Michael which has at least attracted due criticism for its sanitisation of his life story but which has not only become a box office success but inspired a renewed surge of interest in the back catalogue featured in the movie.
In the first instance that propels an intriguing spread of his albums back to prominence alongside a brand new collection. Michael - Songs From The Motion Picture enters at No.4 on the albums chart. One rung behind is the hits collection Number Ones which becomes a Top 10 album again for the second time this year. At No.8 is Thriller, at No.13 Bad but then also at No.14 is another compilation The Essential.
Streams of his music mean a trio of chart comebacks for his most famous hits. Rocketing to No.13 on the singles chart is Billie Jean - lifted from Thriller and a No.1 hit in 1983, it has previously returned to No.11 in 2006 when part of a weekly re-issue program of CD singles of his most famous cuts and then No.10 in 2009 in the aftermath of his death at the age of 50. Incidentally, this latest arrival of a former chart-topper means that fully 10 of the current Top 40 singles (10%) are current or former No.1 hits. Of varying vintage.
Then at No.22 we have Beat It - also from Thriller - and which made No.3 first time around in 1983, No.15 as a CD release in 2006 and No.19 after his death three years later. One place down at No.23 is Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough, this one a cut from his Off The Wall album which was No.3 first time out in 1979, No.17 in 2006 and No.38 in 2009.
Science Part
Jacko has many times in the past done extraordinary things on the charts, and this week strains the chart rules on where streams are allocated to albums to their limits. Essentially, a stream of a track is allowed to count towards two albums at once - the original studio collection on which it appeared and then one Greatest Hits collection featuring that same track. If there is more than one Hits compilation around with the same track in common to both, then the streams go to the one with the biggest direct sale.
And this is why three Jackson collections are kicking around the Top 20. The movie soundtrack is the biggest seller and so grabs the streaming credits for the songs it contains. Number Ones is the second biggest but is only allocated streams for the tracks that don't feature on the soundtrack. Meanwhile, The Essential brings up the rear, being purchased the least and only credited with streams for the songs that feature on neither of the other two. You can work out for yourselves which they are if curious.
The albums chart in general has since the start of the decade been clogged up with vintage hits collections from the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Abba, Elton John, Oasis, Queen and others. All thanks to the way they are credited with streams of the tracks they contain. And they benefit from this more than the studio albums on which the famous songs appear due to the flattening rule which sees streams of the two biggest tracks from an album reduced to the average of the remainder. That is why Bohemian Rhapsody contributes more to streams of Queen's Greatest Hits than it does A Night At The Opera. I've spent six years contemplating writing an entire post on this but have still yet to find a way to make it truly interesting. Maybe I'll get an AI to set it to music.
Ella Ella Ella
Anyway, shall we end with a few words on some actual contemporary hits? Ella Langley's Choosin' Texas has reverted to stalling in place again and is No.16 for the third time in four weeks, having reached a to-date peak of No.13 a fortnight ago. Ejected from No.1 on the Hot 100 by Olivia Dean last week, you suspect it too will be back there once more in a couple of days' time. Langley is also No.4 in America with a second hit Be Her, a track which has failed to take off here and is this week No.53 a fortnight removed from its peak so far of No.50. But the country star now has a third British hit too as Morgan Wallen duet I Can't Love You Anymore debuts at No.68.
Meanwhile Bebe Rexha's New Religion is once again not a Top 40 hit, down this week to No.49 despite some commercial stations insisting it is the "biggest track in the nation" after it placed prominently on their entirely made up Big Top 40 syndicated show.
But finally keep an eye out NEXT week for a probable surge in Zara Larsson's Midnight Sun. After literal weeks of speculation the remix featuring PinkPantheress has finally dropped. And you never know that may propel the single to its highest peak yet - at the very least beyond the No.19 it sits at this time around.
Or of course it may not. We've established I'm not a sage. Just a guy who wants to say "I told you so" again next week.
