Dua Lipa tops the singles chart for the first time. Ed Sheeran's ÷ remains on top of the albums chart.
Dua Lipa gets her first number one single. Ed Sheeran gets yet another week at the top of the albums chart, beating a 17-year-old Elvis Presley compilation.
Dua Lipa’s New Rules has been climbing the chart steadily since entering last month and this week it climbs to the very top to give her a first number one single. The Albanian singer made her chart debut in 2016 with Hotter Than Hell. Since then she has score two previous top ten hits, neither of which broke into the top five. It is the first number one by a solo female singer since Adele’s Hello back in November 2015.
Under the old riles, Luis Fonsi’s Despacito would probably still be at number one, taking its total to fourteen weeks. That would put it just one week behind Drake’s One Dance and Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around and level with QUeen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. However, in their wisdom the Official Chart’s Company have decided that it is perfectly OK to have a number one song that is neither the best-selling song nor the most popular and Despacito is at number six. It remains clear at the top of the streaming chart but has ow dropped to number three on the sales chart.
Each of the three songs to have knocked Despacito off the summit has lasted just a single week at number one. Calvin Harris’s Feels (with additional contributions from Katy Perry, Pharrell Williams and Big Sean) joins that list by falling to number two.
French Montana and Swae Lee’s Unforgettable is down one places to number three. DJ Khaled, Rihanna and Bryson Tiller fall one place to number four with Wild Thoughts.
Alecia Moore, better known as Pink (or even P!nk) made her UK chart debut back in 2000 when There You Go reached the top ten. She had her first number one the following year when she joined forces with Christina Aguillera, Lil Kim and Mya to record a version of Lady Marmalade, one of the worst songs ever written. Lil Kim and Mya have been absent from the charts for over a decade and Aguillera’s chart career is long past its peak. By contrast, Pink, who ha had two further number one singles, is still going strong. She enters at number five this week with What About Us.
You might expect the chart debut of someone called James Hype to be accompanied by fanfares and maybe even a series of street parties up and down the land to herald the arrival of a new superstar. That hasn’t happened. If More Than Friends, a new entry at number sixteen, is a fair reflection, let’s hope the hype ends here. The song, which is based on En Vogue’s 1997 hit Don’t Let Go (also rubbish), features Kelli-Leigh who also makes her chart debut.
After having at least one top forty single each year since his debut in 2010 Swedish producer Avicii drew a blank last year. This week the man known to his family as Tim Bergling is back with Without You at number 32. It should not be confused with the song originally recorded by Badfinger and taken to number one by Nilsson before being brutally murdered by Mariah Carey. Vocals are provided by Avicii’s fellow Swede Sandro Cavazza. He was also the featured vocalist on Lost Frequencies’ Beautiful Life which reached number one in the Flemish part of Belgium but has not been a hit in the UK.
Ten years after making their first appearance on the UK charts, Axwell ^ Ingrosso enter at number 38 with More Than You Know.
Ed Sheeran’s Shape Of You stays in the top forty for a 32nd week. It even climbs to number 23. Under the old rules it would still be in the top twenty.
On Wednesday of this week (16 August) the music world marked the fortieth anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. His death at the age of 42 came 21 years after he first hit the UK charts with Heartbreak Hotel. He had his first number one single in the UK in 1957 when All Shook Up seven weeks at the summit and went on to have a further fifteen chart-toppers in his lifetime. With the concept of downloads and streaming still some way off at the time, music buyers could only buy what was in the shops. That meant that the single Way Down, which wa struggling even to make the top forty, jumped straight up to number four before topping the chart the following week. It became his first number one for seven years.
A number of reissues topped the chart in 2005 to take his overall tally to 21 number one singles in the UK, more than any other artist. Inevitably there have been many compilation albums released since his death including two recent collections where his vocals were accompanied by new recordings by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Yet another new compilation was released this week to mark the anniversary. However, that collection is nowhere to be seen in this week’s chart. Instead the most popular compilation has been The 50 Greatest Hits which was originally released in 2000 when it peaked at number eight. This week it is back at a new peak of number two.
Ed Sheeran’s ÷ gets a sixteenth week at number one. Sheeran’s total of 32 weeks at the top of the albums chart still leaves him a long way short of Presley’s 66 weeks, not to mention The Beatles’ 175 weeks.
Glen Campbell’s Adios falls one place to number three. Rag ‘n’ Bone Man’s Human slips to number five.
After reaching the top ten with her debut album Animal Kesha crashed and burned with the follow-up, Warrior. That album could only limp in to the chart at number 60. This week she sees a revival in her fortunes as Rainbow enters at number four. Her current single, Praying, climbs eleven places to number 27 this week.
As well as the 40th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, this year also marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Diana. Although we are still a couple weeks from the actual anniversary we have been bombarded with stories about it in the press and on television and radio for at least the last two months. Rather less has been said about the death in the same car as Dodi Al Fayed with whom she was having a relationship at the time. Yes, this week’s most contrived link leads is to the arrival at number six of Dodie Clark, known simply as Dodie for her recording career. She makes her chart debut with her second EP You.
The Jarman brothers, collectively known as The Cribs, enter at number eight with their seventh studio album 24-7 Rock Star Shit. Their previous three albums peaked at numbers eight, nine and nine again which was very nearly an emergency.
Rapper Jamaal Fyffe made his albums chart debut with I Am Chipmunk in 2009. Since then he has dropped the Munk part of his name and is now know simply as Chip which seems slightly bananas. To extend the eccentricity he has called his third album League Of My Own II without releasing anything called League Of My Own. Regardless, there are enough people who remember him to get the album to number twelve.
Twenty-one-year-old Essex lad Jordan Cardy has chosen to record under the name Rat Boy, possibly to dissociate himself from anyone else called Jordan. Somebody then thought it would be a terrific idea to call his first album Scum. This particular scum has not risen to the top; it is a new entry at number fifteen.
When Martine McCutcheon was chosen to play Eliza Doolittle in a new production of My Fair Lady in 2002, it is fair to say that there were a lot of raised eyebrows among critics. After all, she was known for portraying a decidedly working class character in Eastenders. In most productions of My Fair Lady the part of Doolittle, a cockney girl who is taught to speak “like a lady” by English professor Henry Higgins, has been played by an actor with a posh accent, so this production marked a change from the norm. To the surprise of many, her performance was highly praised and won her an Olivier Award. Nevertheless, various personal problems have damaged her attempts to forge a successful musical career. This week she has released her fourth studio album, the first since Musicality in 2002. The album ,Lost and Found, enters at number seventeen.
Having seen Suede around fifty times I have, obviously, seen many other bands supporting them (or, in the early days, being supported by them). Among them are Mansun who were the support act in Guildford. They were one of the less impressive support acts for me but a lot of people liked them. Their singer, Paul Draper, has now released his first solo album, Spooky Action. It is a new entry at number nineteen.
A few weeks ago the arrival of Alice Cooper in the albums chart gave me an opportunity to mention Julie Covington’s version of one of his songs, Only Women Bleed. Another of her post-Don’t Cry For Me Argentina singles was a version of Richard & Linda Thompson’s I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. Richard Thompson started his recording career as a member of English folk band Fairport Convention in 1967. Fifty years on he has released a new collection of acoustic recordings following a first set in 2014. It is a new entry at number 24.
Published on: 2017-08-18 by BuzzJack.com Suedehead2 || 148684 Views
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