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[ThePensmith]

Hello everyone...firstly my apologies that last Friday's chart is up so late. It wasn't intended to be but alas life rather got in the way these last few days, but here's my personal top 20 from last Friday for you now. The new chart will be up Friday evening as always I can assure you. Has Jodie Whittaker held on at the top with her Children In Need single? Let's find out...

THEPENSMITH'S TOP 20 SINGLES CHART
Week ending 22nd November 2019
© AM LIMITED 2019

1. (HNE) NOW UNITED - Legends
2. (2) DUA LIPA - Don't Start Now
3. (1) JODIE WHITTAKER - Yellow
4. (NE) BASTILLE - Can't Fight This Feeling
5. (NE) EMMA BUNTON - Coming Home For Christmas
6. (NE) MCFLY - Man on Fire
7. (NE) MCFLY - Pretty Girls
8. (3) GEORGE MICHAEL - This Is How (We Want To Get You High)
9. (4) NIALL HORAN - Nice To Meet Ya
10. (5) MARK RONSON FEAT. YEBBA - Don't Leave Me Lonely

11. (NE) THE VERONICAS - Ugly
12. (6) COLDPLAY - Orphans / Arabesque
13. (7) DJ SPOONY PRESENTS GARAGE CLASSICAL FEAT. SUGABABES - Flowers
14. (11) MCFLY - Touch The Rain
15. (9) RAK-SU - La Bomba
16. (10) WESTLIFE - My Blood
17. (8) MCFLY - Lucky Ones
18. (16) CAMILA CABELLO - Liar
19. (NE) LOUIS YORK - How Will I Feel
20. (12) THE WONDERLAND - Only One

Compiled from my own personal listening in the last seven days across streaming, digital and physical formats.

KEY

(1) - last week's position
(HNE) - highest new entry
(NE) - new entry
(RE) - re-entry

CHART COMMENTARY



Seven brand new entries, twelve records going down, and one doesn't budge. Just a typical November chart, then? Well not in the case of the very top end of this week's rundown anyhow, as even with the exposure from last Friday's BBC Children In Need appeal, Jodie Whittaker still slips two places to #3, meaning that once again we have a brand new number one.

Currently gearing up for their first headline tour, Now United score their seventh hit and third chart topping single this week as new release 'Legends' smashes straight in at the top of our chart, making the multi membered popstars the only act in what is left of 2019 to notch up three number ones inside this year.



It also represents a turnaround in their fortunes, as their last single 'Crazy Stupid Silly Love' could get no higher than #4 back in September. Their other chart toppers this year are 'All Day', which was released one year ago to the day and hit the top on its eighth week in January, and their double-a-sided 'Párana / Beautiful Life' in June. Their other big hit this year was their #2 hit 'How We Do It' with Badshah back in March.

Dua Lipa remains locked down at #2 for a second week with 'Don't Start Now', at the very least displaying a great rate of consistency. In just three weeks since it debuted at the top of our chart, it's already amongst the top 30 biggest singles of 2019 on our chart and could be higher yet by year's end.

Onto the remainder of this week's top 5 then, and if you needed any sure sign that Christmas is fast approaching, you need only look at this week's second and third highest new entries. And just two weeks after their latest original single 'Another Place' floundered at #13 (it falls thirteen places to #31 this week), Bastille finally get a shot in the arm singles success wise and return to a top 5 berth at #4.



The source of this sudden upturn in fortunes is from the most predictable source of all where early wintertime hits are concerned. For their spirited cover of REO Speedwagon's 1984 hit 'Can't Fight This Feeling' is the soundtrack to the new John Lewis Christmas advert that premiered last Friday. The now famously weepy ads from the upmarket department store has produced mixed successes on our chart. The biggest to this date are still my 2010 and 2013 Christmas chart toppers by Ellie Goulding with 'Your Song' and Lily Allen with 'Somewhere Only We Know' respectively, but most others have failed to make even the top 20, so Dan and chums can consider this a success for both them and John Lewis, even if it has taken a cover version to do so. Mind, one of their other big hits - 'The Night', which got to #2 almost six years ago in December 2013 - was a reworked cover of a Corona hit from 1994.

A festive song of a very different kind enters at #5, from a lady who knows all about producing them. Well, she did have three consecutive UK Christmas number ones as part of the Spice Girls after all. Capping off a fantastic year which saw her tour again with the girls around the stadiums this summer, plus a new solo album 'My Happy Place' and her first two top 5 hits in over 12 years, Emma Bunton now adds a third to the pile with her original seasonal song 'Coming Home for Christmas'. If you're wondering if it's been too early to talk the C-word just yet, just allow yourself to bask in this one. Deliciously heartwarming.



Mark your watches people - McFly performed their long awaited comeback show at the O2 Arena on Wednesday this week to a rapturous reception and a packed house. Which can only mean that the end of their long campaign of weekly releases of all the 'Lost Songs' from their shelved sixth album from 2013 that started back in September has now reached its end. The final two new 'lost' songs - 'Man on Fire' and 'Pretty Girls' - both enter at #6 and #7.





Admittedly my predictions 10 or 11 weeks ago of an all McFly top 10 by mid-November did indeed prove wide of the mark, with their first single in the schedule 'Touch the Rain' only going the distance and spending three weeks at number one (it's down three at #14 this week), however, every single one of their previously unreleased new songs since then have all been top 10 hits, however short or long their overall tenure may have been. And if you're wondering if an actual new album is on the way then you're in luck as they will be starting work on that in January and going on tour again in spring next year. It's good to have them back.

Now for one of those curious cases that can only strike once this time of year hits. Chiefly, following up your unexpected chart topper in a lesser starred manner. The Veronicas, you will remember, scored their first number one back in April with 'Think of Me'. But it would appear that that kind of achievement is beyond their new release 'Ugly', which misses out on the top 10 by the narrowest of whiskers, debuting at #11. Mind you, '4ever', the follow up to their 2009 top 3 debut 'Untouched' didn't get very far, only making #17 in October that year.



Mind, they are having it a bit better than some other girl groups of late. It would appear that both Four of Diamonds and Unperfect are on the rack and ruin. The former's new single 'Long Way To Go' becomes their first single to miss our top 20 this week, entering at #27, whilst the new muses of Xenomania in Unperfect are struggling to have their fellow new discovery Paige Cavell's levels of success, with new single 'Poppin' Off' doing exactly that, slipping 27 places to #72 from it's #45 entry point last week.



Still, things are looking slightly rosier for Louis York, who now have a sixth top 20 hit to their name. 'How Will I Feel' is the second single from their 'American Griots' album, and follows their #12 hit from September, 'Don't You Forget', entering at this week's #19.



FLASHBACK TOP 10

Your chance to see how my personal top 10 was looking on this week in the last 20 years. This week in 2002: now reduced to a six piece, S Club score their ninth number one with 'Alive', plus classic hits from Jennifer Lopez, Nelly and Kelly and DJ Sammy



1. (HNE) S CLUB - Alive



2. (NE) JENNIFER LOPEZ - Jenny From The Block
3. (1) NELLY FEAT. KELLY ROWLAND - Dilemma
4. (2) DJ SAMMY FEAT. YANOU & DO - Heaven
5. (3) SUGABABES - Stronger / Angels With Dirty Faces
6. (4) LAS KETCHUP - The Ketchup Song (Asereje)
7. (5) COLDPLAY - The Scientist
8. (6) KYLIE MINOGUE - Come Into My World
9. (7) BIG BROVAZ - Nu Flow
10. (8) SHANIA TWAIN - I'm Gonna Getcha Good!