Amazing sales for Oasis! Doesn’t look like that will be bettered for the rest of 1997……..

!

7 new entries in the Top 10, but none as good as this one which just missed out at #11!

Coolio and Gala were my favourites of that week, I still love both a lot and they really take me back to that summer.

I didn't expect just how gigantic a legacy Freed From Desire would leave though, I still hear it everywhere, all the time, especially now it seems to soundtrack every major sporting event.

The Oasis single is overblown and I've never been keen on it, I really only enjoyed Stand By Me from that album.

Also not big on the MJ single, not one I ever hear or even hear people talk about now.

Wow huge sales all round!

And did Ultra Nate increase sales again? Gala a classic obviously too!

7 hours ago, gooddelta said:

Coolio and Gala were my favourites of that week, I still love both a lot and they really take me back to that summer.

I didn't expect just how gigantic a legacy Freed From Desire would leave though, I still hear it everywhere, all the time, especially now it seems to soundtrack every major sporting event.

The Oasis single is overblown and I've never been keen on it, I really only enjoyed Stand By Me from that album.

Also not big on the MJ single, not one I ever hear or even hear people talk about now.

Yeh it’s the Nanana chorus which people love in the Gala song I think!

I seem to have completely forgotten that I'll Be There For You was a hit twice. Never knew it had different artwork second time around either.

I was an insanely massive Friends fan, so how this passed me by....???

Congrats to Oasis getting those massive sales with such a piss-poor song. I was the biggest fan from day 1 but they already started losing me as a fan here, last thing I bought from them too same as dandy said.

Pitiful top 10, so many entries and all so bad maybe except Gala.

and yes too bad the fabulous Risingson by Massive Attack made it to #11 :/

I don't mind the Oasis song, although in full it does go on a bit!

I still like 'Freed From Desire', although it being hijacked as a football song has taken the shine off a little bit.

'C U When U Get There' is absolutely marvellous.

Shame 'Risingson' just missed, although up to that point it was their highest charting single and they're not really a singles band anyway.

26TH JULY

So this certainly wasn’t on the cards! After selling a jaw dropping 377,000 copies last week it was widely expected that Oasis would remain at No 1 but they suffer an almighty 67% sales decrease to register 122,000- still impressive but not quite enough to retain the top spot. Instead Puff Daddy & Faith Evans return to the summit even though they lose 19% sales themselves to 124,000 and slipping past at the death, it’s the fifth week in a row that the track has scored a six figure tally, a degree of consistency not seen “Wannabe” last summer and “Killing Me Softly” if you only consider the first four weeks of chart life. It’s also the fourth track to return to the top since Mr Blobby broke the 24 year drought back in 1993 and since then both the Fugees and Baddiel/ Skinner/ Lightning Seeds turned the trick last year. The track has also sold 708,000 copies in that time frame as it powers to No 2 on the YTD chart with only No Doubt ahead of it but they will be overcome within a few weeks doubtless.

With all the action really being between the top two it left the remainder of the top 5 to re-arrange themselves, Gala and Coolio swap places with sales of 61,000 and 49,000 (both down) and Ultra Nate is on the move up again 8-5 (45,000). “Free” has now sold 307,000 copies in total, impressive for a record which has never been in the top 3 and remains in the top 10 as we speak.





Highest new entry of the week goes to the Seahorses who are back with a second hit single “Blinded By The Sun”. Culled from the “Do It Yourself” album it has helped turn around the album’s performance moving 21-13-15 in recent weeks after its peak at no 2, meanwhile the single arrives at No 7 (36,000).

So onto what many had predicted would be the chart battle of the week- Robbie Williams Vs Gary Barlow both with new singles out. In the end Gary Barlow breaks his string of chart toppers and enters at No 11 whilst Robbie wins the battle coming in at No 8 (33,000). Of course some proviso’s need to be put on the two singles, Barlow’s single comes from an album (“Open Road”) which is available already whilst Williams is yet to release his solo album which is due in the Autumn, and Williams’ “Lazy Days” was available for £1.99 whereas Barlow’s “So Help Me Girl” was £3.99 everywhere but history won’t record that. For the promo Williams got day release from rehab and he continues to mount up the press columns in a way that Barlow could only dream of.

You may not have heard of US duo Changing Faces or of Cassandra Lucas and Charisse Rose, but you’ve doubtless heard there vocals as they were long time backing singers to Sybil. Their first album provided the hit single “Stroke You Up” which was written by R Kelly and gave them a US #3 hit but it missed out here at No 43 in 1994, but with the forthcoming second album now ready they’ve returned to R Kelly who has again delivered the goods with “G.H.E.T.T.O.U.T”, already a US #8 hit it now enters at No 10 (29,000) to mark their arrival.

Sash! hold at No 6 (43,000) and Michael Jackson descends 5-9 (32,000).

This week sees Boybands Boyzone and Backstreet Boys go head to head with non album singles- surely Puff Daddy & Faith Evans can’t hold out?


1- I’LL BE MISSING YOU- Puff Daddy & Faith Evans (124,000)
2- D’YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN?- Oasis (122,000)
3- FREED FROM DESIRE- Gala (61,000)
4- C U WHEN U GET THERE- Coolio Featuring 40 Thevz (49,000)
5- FREE- Ultra Nate (45,000)
6- ECUADOR- Sash! (43,000)
7- BLINDED BY THE SUN- The Seahorses (36,000)
8- LAZY DAYS- Robbie Williams (33,000)
9- HISTORY/ GHOSTS- Michael Jackson (32,000)
10- G.H.E.T.T.O.U.T- Changing Faces (29,000)

I'm away for the weekend so the thread will continue on Monday evening- we'll play catch up again!

The Puff Daddy song really was huge!

Blinded By The Sun & Lazy Days are both tunes!

I kinda like Lazy Days, not top tier Robbie but decent single.

not a fan of Seahorses, might even be the most overrated band of the 90s :/

That's a pretty dead week

At the time I really liked both the Gala and Coolio songs, the latter probably hasn't aged very well but at the time the classical music sampling sounded really fresh. Freed From Desire is just really fun, fortunately I don't spend much time at sporting events so I can still just about hear the original instead of blokes chanting it

does anyone know what happened with Duran Duran at this point?

They released the single Out of my mind, which I really really liked and it was on the Saint movie

and did pretty well, #21 I think

but then the parent album Medazzaland was cancelled and never released?

that's weird coming from one of the biggest UK bands of the 80s and also who started the 90s pretty good with Ordinary World etc

Ecuador, Freed From Desire and Free are really the ones I still listen to this day <3

I am totally shocked finding out Free being such a huge Top 10 hit with consistent run and sales week after week!!!

Edited March 14Mar 14 by Addy!

Free really has been such a consistent seller! I still think it’s a great house track but it really feels quite rare for a track to sell such similar numbers for an extended period of time

Yeh that was 6 weeks was it between 40-50k?

1997 really had a lot of gigantic #4 hits