Lil Nas X remains at the top of the singles chart for a fourth week. London Grammar get their second number one album.
Lil Nas X’s run at the top of the singles chart extends to a fourth week as Montero (Call Me By Your Name) remains comfortably clear of all challengers.
There is little change in the rest of the top five. Justin Bieber, Daniel Caesar and Giveon remain at number two with Peaches. Joel; Corry, Raye and David Guetta take their Bed up one place to number three, swapping places with Polo G’s Rapstar. Riton’s Friday is up one place to number five.
There are three new entries this week, all of them at the lower end of the chart. On Tuesday (20 April), Les McKeown of the Bay City Rollers died at just 65. The second of the Rollers’ two number ones was Give A Little Love in 1975. This week, AJ Tracey has a new entry at number 29 with Little More Love. Seven of his previous fifteen top forty hits have reached the top ten but he has yet to climb to the very top of the chart.
Norwegian singer Aurora’s first chart success in the UK came courtesy of a major department store chain which employed her to sing a version of Oasis’s Half The World Away for their Christmas advert in 2015. It took her four years to return to the chart when she joined Ididna Menzel on Into The Unknown. Among the songs which she had released in the meantime was Runaway which featured on a 2016 EP. Thanks (almost inevitably) to TikTok, that song has gained a new lease of life and this week it enters the top forty for the first time at number 34.
The final new entry of the week provides a new addition to the list of confusing credits. Solid, new at number 36, is credited to Young Stoner Life, Young Thug and Gunna featuring Drake. Young Stoner Life, though, is not a person or a band. It is the record label. They were, perhaps, hoping that releasing an album credited to Young Stoner Life with various other artists performing on each track might fool the Official Charts Company into thinking that it was a standard album which would qualify for the albums chart. If so, the ruse failed as the album has, correctly, been designated a compilation album and has been consigned to the separate compilations albums chart. Drake’s participation berings his tally of top forty hits up to 62.
Olivia Rodrigo’s Deja Vu is the big climber of the week. It jumps fourteen places to number twelve. Ella Henderson and Tom Grennan’s Let’s Go Home Together finally makes it into the top ten at number ten. Grennan’s solo hit Little Bit Of Love also continues to climb, moving up to number seven. That makes it the third song about a little love to get a mention this week.
Once again, it is the albums chart which sees most of the action this week, starting with yet another new number one. This week it is the turn of Nottingham three-piece London Grammar with their third album Californian Soil. The album is not markedly different from their previous releases (If You Wait which reached number two in 2013 and Truth Is A Beautiful Thing, a number one in 2017) but why change a winning formula? It still makes for a good album.
It could be said that AJ Tracey also follows the dictum that there is no point in changing a winning formula but, to my ears, his particular formula is something that really needs to be changed. Clearly, other people disagree and his second album, Flu Game, is at number two.
This week’s “Oh, I thought they split up ages ago” award goes to The Offspring who released their tenth studio album Let The Bad Times Roll last week. It is their first album since 2012 and was recorded over a period of around five or six years. Let The Bad Times Roll is at number three.
Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia slips one place to number four. Justin Bieber’s Justice falls three places to number five.
Irish singer-songwriter Imelda May gets her fourth top ten album with Past The Hour at number six. Despite the success of her albums, she has yet to spend as much as a solitary week in the singles chart.
Back to the awards, and it is time for this week’s confusing name award. Is Greta Van Fleet a woman (possibly Dutch) or a collection of vehicles owned by a company called Greta Vans? The answer is no to both; they are a band from Michigan, none of whom are called Greta (or any other female name for that matter). They are at number eight. with their second album The Battle At Garden’s Gate.
This week’s best-performing reissue is Jethro Tull’s A, originally released in 1980 when it reached number 25. The slightly-belated 40th anniversary edition is at number 31.
After somehow being allowed to drop out of the top forty last week, The Weeknd’s Bl;inding Lights is back at number 40.
Last week’s number one, Taylor Swift’s rerecording of Fearless, falls to number seven. The Official Charts Company (OCC) reported last week that Swift had set a new record with three new albums going to number one in just 37 weeks, beating a record set by The Beatles who topped the chart with Help!, Rubber Soul and Revolver within 52 weeks in 1964-5. Not for the first time, this depends on how The Shadows are treated.
The starting point for The Shadows’ claim still to hold the record is straightforward. Their debut album, The Shadows, went to number one in September 1961. The following month it was knocked off the top spot by 21 Today on which they performed as Cliff Richard’s backing band. They did the same on the soundtrack to The Young Ones which went to number one in January 1962. Arguably, then, The Shadows had three new albums at number one within just sixteen weeks.
Then things start to get more complicated, as laid out by James Masterton in a piece he wrote on the subject. First, there is the perennial question of whether The Shadows’ performances as a backing band should be lumped in with their achievements in their own right. If you decide that they should be, it still isn’t simple. The record sleeve for 21 Today only credits Cliff Richard as does the label on the disc itself. However, The Shadows undoubtedly played on the album and are pictured on the sleeve. The sleeve for The Young Ones does include The Shadows in the credits, albeit in a font smaller than the one used for Cliff Richard. To add to the confusion, the OCC website credits the latter two albums to Cliff Richard alone in the artist section but credits both of them to Cliff Richard and The Shadows in its list of number ones. Individual readers can decide for themselves whether to give The Shadows the record.
Published on: 2021-04-23 by BuzzJack.com Suedehead2 || 10909 Views
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