Posted January 6, 200817 yr Leon spends a third week at the top an otherwise fairly uneventful top 10 2007 X Factor winner Leon Jackson has scored a third week in control of the UK singles chart with his Mariah & Whitney cover version, and debut single, When You Believe. He still has a week to go to match the four weeks at the top managed by Shayne Ward and Leona Lewis but he held a large sales margin over his competition this week at least, despite losing his place atop the iTunes download chart. US rap artist Soulja Boy was the only mover in the top 7 this week with Crank That moving up to a new peak of No.2 with a top 10 chart run of five weeks looking like this; 10-3-5-3-2. The song was the biggest selling single of 2007 in the US and has sold an incredible 2,909,263 digital copies alone over there. Leona Lewis spends an 11th week in the UK top 3 with Bleeding Love, which topped 800,000 sales this week and has almost surpassed the total sale of her debut single A Moment Like This. She should pass this milestone in the next seven days and will be the first ever reality show winner to outsell their debut single with another single. Leona has so far moved 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-3-2-3 in the UK top 3 and equals Rihanna’s Umbrella as the second longest running top 3 hit of this decade. In pole position is Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie which moved 3-2-1-2-2-3-1-1-1-1-2-2 in a twelve week top 3 residency in 2006. Timbaland and One Republic’s Apologize has finally topped the iTunes chart this week and this helps it to maintain its No.4 position in the official chart this week. It has spent an impressive twelve weeks in the UK top 10 so far. Take That’s Rule The World has been one of their biggest selling singles ever and despite never topping the chart, stalling at No.2 for four weeks behind Leona, the song has so far spent eleven weeks in the UK top 10 moving 2-2-2-2-3-4-5-7-7-5-5. Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse increase their weeks in the top 10 tally to thirteen weeks with Valerie which stays at No.6 while the final non-mover in the top 10 is Call The Shots by Girls Aloud at No.7. The single has so far spent seven weeks in the top 10. Their only other single to spend this long in the top 10 was their debut single Sound Of The Underground in 2002/2003. Should they remain top 10 next week it will become their single with the most longevity. Canadian act Nickelback first hit the UK top 10 in 2002 with the huge selling No.4 hit How You Remind Me. Chad Kroeger, the band’s lead singer, scored another No.4 hit with Hero in the same year while their last visit to the UK top 10 as a band was Someday which peaked at No.6 in 2003. Rockstar becomes the band’s 4th UK top 10 hit this week after moving up another eight places to No.8. It has now had the following top 40 chart run: 34-20-21-19-22-25-25-15-8. The last single to take such a long time to reach the top 10 was the late 2000 re-release of Toploader’s Dancing In The Moonlight which finally reached the top 10 on its 13th week in the chart. T2 and Jodie Aysha slide a place to No.9 with the garage anthem Heartbroken which has had a total of six weeks in the top 10 while Alicia Keys returns to the top 10 with her single No One which had already spent five weeks in the top 10 before dropping out a few weeks ago. This means that incredibly in this week’s top 10 every song other than When You Believe by Leon Jackson has been in the top 40 for seven weeks or more with most spending a lot of their chart run in the top 10. There are also four songs that have passed the ten week mark; Leona Lewis, Timbaland, Take That and Mark Ronson. This statistic shows how the UK chart has slowed dramatically down in the last twelve months. The top 10 this week includes six Brits, three Americans and a Canadian act. There are a few significant moves in the remainder of the top 40 this week which is nowhere near as static as the top 10. Rihanna reaches a new peak of No.12 with the fourth single from Good Girl Gone Bad, Don’t Stop The Music. It has therefore beat the peak of the third single Hate That I Love You, which reached No.15 a couple of months ago, and should reach the top 10 in the coming weeks despite a physical release still being some time away. Swedish DJ Jonas Erik Altberg, better known as Basshunter, gets the highest new entry in the top 40 at No.14 with Now You’re Gone. The song, which was originally called Boten Anna and sung in Swedish, was a huge No.1 hit in most of Scandanavia and a top 10 hit in Germany. It’s a pop trance hit in the Cascada mould and should shoot into the top 10 this time next week as it receives a physical release on Monday. Sugababes are back up a place with Change at No.16 while About You Now is down a spot to No.13. Scouting For Girls’ Elvis Ain’t Dead is one of a few songs to climb to a new peak this week as it soars nine places to No.17. Their last single She’s So Lovely is still in the top 40 this week at No.33, climbing two places. Britney Spears has had a turbulent week this week, losing custody of her two sons for the time being after refusing to hand them back to her ex-husband Kevin Federline. Her new single, Piece Of Me, has however climbed to a new peak of No.19 from No.46 last week and is the second top 20 hit from Blackout after the No.3 success of Gimme More. She has never missed the top 20 in her career and only two other singles failed to go top 10, Don’t Let Me Be The Last To Know (No.12, 2001) and I Love Rock & Roll (No.13, 2002). Mika rounds off the top 20 with his fifth hit single from the million selling Life In Cartoon Motion. Relax Take It Easy was a huge hit all over Europe last year and gets a UK release after his previous four single all reached the top 10 in the UK. It was initially planned to be a double a-side with Lollipop, which was a download hit early in 2007 and has sold over 50,000 copies in the UK despite never being released. Lollipop does appear on the single but only as a b-side. Booty Luv climb eight places to reach a new peak of No.21 with Some Kinda Rush. Nadia and Cherise used to be in UK hip hop act Big Brovaz but since launching Booty Luv in late 2006 they have had three top 20 singles and a top 20 album. Kate Nash is the next act to reach a new peak. Pumpkin Soup got off to a sluggish start climbing only to No.40 after its physical release. It has however picked up some momentum recently and after climbing to No.39 last week, it moves a further sixteen places in the right direction to No.23 this week. Timbaland’s former No.1 single The Way I Are is back up three places to No.24 while Ruby by Kaiser Chiefs shoots back up eleven places to No.27. It is one of nine current or former UK No.1’s in the top 40 this week. Flux has been Bloc Party’s longest serving single ever and has spent eight weeks in the top 40 so far, moving back up three places to No.28 this week. White Stripes are new at No.30 with Conquest, their third top 40 hit in the last year, though the other two were released on CD while this one was only available physically as a seven inch. Plain White T’s move back up a place with Hey There Delilah at No.32 while their second single Hate (I Really Don’t Like You) has finally started to make a small impact, climbing to a new peak of No.84 this week and only nine places away from wiping out their current status as a one hit wonder. A few of 2007’s biggest hits make a return to the top 40 at the back end of the chart this week due to various reasons. Kate Nash’s Foundations was a No.2 hit last summer and re-enters the top 40 at No.34 this week after promotion on ‘best of 2007’ shows. This effect also causes Mika’s Grace Kelly to jump back into the chart at No.35. The song had a five week run at No.1 almost exactly a year ago. Take That performed a live New Year’s Eve concert last week which was screened on ITV1 and has boosted all of their singles this week. It causes Shine, a No.1 in February last year, to re-enter the top 40 at No.36 this week. Over in the album chart this week, sales are understandably dramatically down after Christmas, but this causes many of the biggest hits over the festive period to slide as people begin to buy the albums they actually wanted for Christmas. Westlife’s Back Home slides 2-11 as a result. Radiohead are the album chart victors this week. The influential British band are no strangers to the No.1 album spot though this album was initially released as a ‘pay-what-you-like’ download last year. Take That reap the rewards of a successful concert appearance and a price tag of £5 or less with Beautiful World which moves back up a place to No.2 this week. After seven weeks at the top of the chart, Leona Lewis finally gives up the top spot this week, falling to No.3 with Spirit. Mika jumps back to No.4 with Life In Cartoon Motion while Michael Buble slides a place with Call Me Irresponsible at No.5. Scottish 20 year old singer Amy MacDonald reaps the rewards of a price cut, jumping to No.6 from No.18 with her debut album This Is The Life. The album originally reached No.2 last summer. Amy Winehouse slides a couple of places to No.7 with 2007’s biggest seller Back To Black while The Hoosiers’ former No.1 album The Trick To Life returns to the top 10, up three places to No.8. Anglo-German dance act Cascada continue to show that dance albums really can sell in the UK as Perfect Day climbs a place to another new peak of No.9 this week. Timbaland rounds off the top 10, jumping nine places with Shock Value, which has so far spawned three silver selling singles; Give It To Me, The Way I Are and Apologize. As we move further into January, the release list is starting to look a little less pathetic with new singles due out on Monday from Basshunter, Bodyrox, Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Dave Armstrong, Electrovamp, The Hoosiers, Jamie Scott & The Town and The Macabees, some of which should make an impression in the top 40 next week. Only Basshunter is really a contender for the top spot though with Leon Jackson looking likely to make it four weeks in a row with When You Believe. Other than that, Nickelback could continue to climb with Rockstar which has taken on a new lease of life much in the same way that Outkast’s Hey Ya did in early 2004 when it worked its way up from outside the top 20 to No.3.
January 7, 200817 yr 1 small problem kaiser chiefs are up 11 from 38 to 27 :P great commentary once again
January 8, 200817 yr Good commentary - I never read James Masterton since you started your one. Your's is a MUCH better read. B)
January 8, 200817 yr Good commentary - I never read James Masterton since you started your one. Your's is a MUCH better read. B) I think so too. It's snippetts like this that make the report so interesting: Mika rounds off the top 20 with his fifth hit single from the million selling Life In Cartoon Motion. Relax Take It Easy was a huge hit all over Europe last year and gets a UK release after his previous four single all reached the top 10 in the UK. It was initially planned to be a double a-side with Lollipop, which was a download hit early in 2007 and has sold over 50,000 copies in the UK despite never being released. 50,000 copies and not released- wow. Thanks for the report.
January 9, 200817 yr Author Good commentary - I never read James Masterton since you started your one. Your's is a MUCH better read. B) Thanks a lot! high praise indeed :w00t:
January 9, 200817 yr Author I think so too. It's snippetts like this that make the report so interesting: . 50,000 copies and not released- wow. Thanks for the report. Cheers Dindy! I picked up that stat from last week's sales report and thought it would be interesting to mention
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