Truth Bombs
With a sales lead that suggests it is entrenched at No.1 until, well that's the interesting bit, That's So True gives Gracie Abrams a third straight week at No.1 on the Official UK Singles chart. She seems set to cap off a year that has seen female acts dominate like never before. This is now the 32nd week of 2024 in which a solo or female-led act has topped the charts (and I'm including Taylor Swift's Fortnight in this despite the presence of the decidedly male Post Malone on the credits). Granted the large bulk of these were Sabrina Carpenter, but they all count. And it is further worth noting that this is the 13th week in a row that a solo female star has been No.1.
The Top 3 is rounded off much as it was last week, Gigi Perez clinging on at No.2 with Sailor Song and Bruno/Rose living in the APT at No.3. This further entrenches the twiglet-like lady as the owner of one of the biggest K-Pop hits to date (even Gangnam Style didn't spend this long near the top end of the charts). Exactly which country we credit with her success is a tricky one though, Roseanne Park holds dual South Korean and New Zealand nationality, although she was born in Auckland.
Nearly Eighteen
As well as being the year of the woman, 2024 was also in its own way the year of the intense male solo rocker with the likes of Noah Kahan, Benson Boone and Hozier all landing themselves No.1 singles at one point or another. Also along for the ride was Sam Fender, first on the remix of Noah Kahan's Homesick (No.5 in February) and also thanks to his own 2021 single Seventeen Going Under which has spent most of the last two years mulling around the lower end of the charts thanks to online viral revivals. It made No.29 in June 2023 and No.35 in February this year to add to its Top 3 run in early 2022. So it seems only appropriate that he should put the exclamation mark on the year, boldly choosing the middle of November to unleash some brand new material. This may well be a masterstroke. The title track from his next album, People Watching sounds like a song out of its time (the damn thing is five minutes long and twice the length of most pop records of the moment) and bears more than a passing resemblance to The 1975 but it emerges with the biggest first week of his chart career to date, slamming in at No.4 to take over as his second biggest chart single so far. With KSI and Trippie Red dipping 9-11, Fender is the only British artist in the Top 10 this week. I keep speculating about what will emerge blinking into the sunlight in January 2025 when the Christmas songs melt away. Nobody anticipated Stick Season doing it this January. Should we now be keeping our eye on this one?
First Broken
But with two new entries to the Top 10 this week we are positively spoiled for that all too rare beast - a fresh new hit single. Tate McRae is no stranger to fighting for attention during the Christmas period, this time last year she was Top 3 with Greedy and the song was so big it ended up being one of only a tiny handful of non-festive songs to retain a place in the Top 40 throughout the madness. So as she slams into No.8 with new single 2 Hands she has too entered the post-Christmas conversation. Or maybe even the pre-Christmas one, who knows. Her fourth Top 10 single, it follows hard on the heels of No.19 single It's OK I'm OK which after 10 weeks is still loitering around and indeed climbs to No.28 this week. Both singles are taken from her forthcoming third album So Close To What which is slated for a February release (on the same day as Sam Fender's album as it happens).
Encore
No.1 on the albums chart with some considerable ease is the aptly named From Zero from Linkin Park as the veteran rock group complete their redemption arc as they emerge from the tragedy of the death of one lead singer to return renewed and, it seems, bigger than ever. A surprisingly large hit at streaming (because let's face it, until this year Tik Tok and Spotify kids have given guitars and drums a swerve) the album makes its mark on the singles chart too. The Emptiness Machine returns to the Top 10 after 10 weeks away as it rockets back to No.10 (all the 10s baby) while Heavy Is The Crown jumps back to No.21. The two pre-album singles are joined by one more cut - Two Faced arriving at a none more appropriate No.22. From Zero is Linkin Park's fourth No.1 album, their first since 2012's Living Things.
Moar
The parade of surprise new arrivals continues with Sabrina Carpenter's Short N' Sweet album spawning an unexpected fifth hit as the previously non-qualifying Juno takes over as her third permitted single and enters at No.24 after 12 weeks waiting patiently in the wings. This entry prompted by Espresso finally dipping out of sight. There's also more K-Pop action albeit on a smaller scale as at the third time of asking Jin from BTS lands a Top 40 single as Running Wild enters at No.25. The boy band star previously crept to No.61 with The Astronaut in November 2022 and No.44 with I'll Be There a couple of weeks ago. Bubble hits all.
Bit Militaristic
Mind you, K-Pop acts can easily hide in plain sight in many different ways. Fellow boy band Ateez remain strangers to the singles chart but over the past 18 months have diligently collected for themselves no fewer than four Top 10 albums. The latest of these is Golden Hour - Pt2 which enters at No.4 just over five months after its similarly titled predecessor also did so. Needless to say all of them have had the shelf life of a mayfly, but it is what the record books show that counts.
Even with its "week ending" date at the end of the month, this is still a chart from November. And so the grinch in me not only does not follow why the neighbours have their flashy lights up already nor why utter psycopaths are streaming festive songs in such numbers already. The Yule Log is now up to 17 Christmas songs, the way led inevitably by Last Christmas (No.16) and All I Want For Christmas Is You (No.17) - both songs celebrating their 30th and 40th anniversaries respectively. The more vintage Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree continues its bizarre 21st-century revival (it will almost inevitably end the season at the top of the Hot 100) and is also in the Top 40 already at No.34. All three hits are, I remind you, on permanent ACR. They are 3, 6 and 15 respectively on the unfiltered streaming chart.
Yes, the bloody Wham song was the third most-played track in Britain last week. I despair of some of you, I really do.
The final footnote of the week has to go to the compilations chart where, perhaps inevitably, Now 119 debuts at No.1. But the largely hit-free compilation (because there have been too few new ones of note since the summer to fill its grooves) sold a mere 9,759 copies. Time was when they sold in their hundreds of thousands.
