There's a new number one single as 24KGoldn and Iann Dior's Mood climbs to the top. Pop Smoke climbs to number one in the albums chart.
Mood gives 24KGoldn and Iann Dior a number one single. Pop Smoke climbs to the top of the albums chart.
Most style guides for newspapers, magazines and other publications will insist that any sentence beginning with a number should spell out that number. That is why a sentence might start with, for example, “The year 2020…” instead of “Twenty-twenty….” which looks rather clumsy or “2020…” which breaks the rule. Reporting the news that 24KGolden has climbed to number one presents the need for a similar piece of creativity which is what I have just done. Mood, which features Iann Dior, climbs to the top of the chart in its fifth week in the top forty and is a first number one for both participants.
The rise of 24KGoldn to number one means we are spared another week of WAP topping the chart. Cardi B and Meghan Thee Stallion slip to number two after a three-week run at the summit. Headie One, AJ Tracey and Stormzy spend a third week at number three with Ain’t It Different. Paul Woolford, Diplo and Kareen Lomax climb one place to number four with Looking For Me. Pop Smoke and Lil Tjay’s Mood Swings also climbs one place, to number five.
This week’s highest new entry, at number ten, comes from Justin Bieber. Holy is Bieber’s 49th top forty hit in a chart career now into its second decade. It features Chance The Rapper for whom it is a sixth top forty success. Four of Chance’s previous top forty hits have also featured Bieber (and other artists in some cases); they include his only top forty hit not to reach the top ten. The one Chance The Rapper hit not to include Bieber was with the equally ubiquitous Ed Sheeran (who has, of course, collaborated with Bieber) instead.
Sam Smith enters at number 22 with Diamonds, a song that is rather more upbeat than much of Smith’s output. It is the third song called Diamonds to reach the top forty in less than a decade following entries from Starboy Nathan and Rihanna. The former ended a twenty-four-year wait since the last top forty hit of that name. This particular variety of Diamonds is Sam Smith’s nineteenth top forty hit.
A quick look at the midweek chart gave the impression that there was an untitled song by Sam M Huncho featuring Nafe Smallz. A closer look revealed that the song, a new entry at number 25, was actually called 5AM and the lead artist is M Huncho. Huncho and Smallz have collaborated before and seem to have developed a habit of alternating the identity of the lead and featured artist. Other hit songs to have been named after a time of day include Four In The Morning by Faron Young and 25 or 6 To 4 by Chicago.
When 20-year-old Bashar Jackson was shot dead in February this year, his total number of top forty hits, under the name Pop Smoke, stood at zero putting him on a par with his near-namesake Bashar Assad. With the appearance of What You Know Bout Love at number 27, Pop Smoke’s tally now stands at five. Assad is still on zero.
Singer Anne-Marie made her UK chart debut as the featured artist on Rudimental’s Rumour Mill in 2015. That song reached the dizzy heights of number 67 but she reached the top forty the following year, in her own right, with Alarm. By the time of her collaboration with Rudimental, the band had enjoyed a string of hits including two number ones and a role on Ed Sheeran’s best single Bloodstream. Rudimental and Anne-Marie reached the chart together again (with assistance from Major Lazer and Mr Eazi) with Let Me Live in 2018 but, once again, it fell short of the top forty. This week it is third time lucky as Come Over (which also features Tion Wayne) enters at number 32.
In the albums chart, the good news is that there was a close contest at the top. The bad news is that it was, effectively, a contest to see which new album’s sales were the least pathetic or, indeed, whether sales of all of them would be so dismal that Pop Smoke’s ten-week-old album would finish on top of the pile.
The new album that emerged as the front-runner was Ava Max’s debut set Heaven And Hell. Ava Max topped the chart with her first hit single, Sweet But Psycho at the beginning of 2019. The follow-up, So Am I, reached the top twenty shortly afterwards but then things went quiet for a while. She didn’t return to the top forty singles chart until May This year when Kings And Queens gave her a third hit. All three songs are on the album.
Pop Smoke’s Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon entered at number two in mid-July and has remained in the top six ever since, largely due to its continuing popularity on streaming sites rather than people spending actual money on buying the thing. That persistent (and inexplicable) popularity meant that it was well placed to make a renewed challenge for the top spot in a week when sales were even lower than normal. This week, then, was its chance.
Ava Max continued to lead the way in each of the updates throughout the week but, after seeing off all other contenders, Pop Smoke remained a threat. With Pop Smoke relying largely on streams which tend to be fairly evenly distributed throughout the week and Ava Max depending more heavily on real sales which are generally concentrated in the start of the week, particularly for a new release, Shoot For The Stars was always the favourite to win. At the end of the week, Pop Smoke did indeed triumph albeit with “sales” below 10,000. Ava Max enters at number two.
Rapper Potter Payper (that has the makings of a tongue-twister) doesn’t appear to qualify for a Wikipedia page yet. The publicist who described him as “renowned as an underrated legend” might claim that the absence of a Wiki page proves the point. Others may feel that the Spotify description is a prime example of hyperbole. Nevertheless, he enters at number three with Training Day 3. Training Days 1 and 2 both failed to chart.
Cat Stevens’ 1970 album Tea For The Tillerman contains two of his best known songs, Wild World and Father And Son. Neither of them were a hit for him at the time but he featured (under the name Yussuf which he adopted when he became a Muslim) on Ronan Keating’s version of Father And Son in 2004 and Maxi Priest had a hit with Wild World in 1988. The album itself reached number twenty. A fiftieth anniversary reissue enters at number four.
When a band splits, the former members sometimes go off and do their own thing or they might continue to tour playing their former band’s material. Others try a combination of the two. Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has recorded solo material of his own but has also staged live performances of one of the Floyd’s most successful albums, The Wall. He has even released two live albums featuring performances of The Wall, one of them - cliche alert - in Berlin.
Former bandmate Nick Mason has done something a little different. He has formed a band named after an early Floyd album, A Saucerful Of Secrets (released in 1968) and uses it as a vehicle to perform material from Pink Floyd’s early years before the release of Dark Side Of The Moon in 1973. Now it is his turn to release a live album, Live At The Roundhouse, recorded at one of Camden’s iconic venues. The album, featuring the Floyd’s two early hit singles Arnold Layne and See Emily Play as well as tracks such as Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, enters at number five. It therefore comfortably beats Roger Waters’ two Wall albums.
Doves’ The Universal Want tumbles to number 25 after a week at number one.
Hip-hop duo Run The Jewels’ fourth album, RTJ4, spent a week at number eighteen in June. Three months on they have released it physically and it returns at number nine.
Alicia Keys continues to be unable to repeat the success of her 2009 album The Element Of Freedom which reached number one. Her seventh studio album, Alicia, is at number twelve. Charli XCX is at number 35 with her fourth album How I’m Feeling Now. Keith Urban enters at number 24 with The Speed Of Now - Pt 1.
Matt Berry is best known as a comic actor, featuring in programmes such as The IT Crowd and Toast Of London. He has also released several albums including a rather odd collection of television theme tunes in 2018. That album included obvious choices such as Dr Who but also included World In Action, Are You Being Served and Blankety Blank. The IT Crowd theme (written by Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon) did not feature. Television Themes was the first of his albums to reach the top forty. His latest release, Phantom Birds, flies in at number 31 to give him a second.
Published on: 2020-09-25 by BuzzJack.com Suedehead2 || 18996 Views
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