Rising American star Lady GaGa’s debut UK single Just Dance, a collaboration with rapper Colby O’Donis, has climbed two places to No.1 in the UK charts this week following a physical release. James Morrison & Nelly Furtado are up three places to a new peak of No.2 with Broken Strings whilst Alexandra Burke’s Hallelujah slides to No.3 after three weeks at the top of the UK charts.

 

The UK is the latest country to be swept with ‘GaGafever’ after Just Dance had already topped the charts in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and most recently, the US, where it jumped a place to take the top spot this week from Beyoncé. The song, which has been heavily hyped for the last six months, debuted at No.3 last week and after a physical release, it becomes the first new No.1 single of 2009 and brings in the electropop sound that is expected to dominate the rest of the year. Also moving up the charts is a song which started rather slowly but has received increased support ever since it was performed on ‘The Girls Aloud Party’. British singer/songwriter James Morrison took full advantage of that genre having a boom in popularity in the middle of the decade, thanks to artists such as David Gray and James Blunt. His first two singles in 2006 both reached the top ten, and now the first two from his new album, Songs For You, Truths For Me, have also reached the top ten, current single Broken Strings becoming his biggest hit single to date, climbing to a new peak of No.2 this week. The song is starting to take over across Europe now and has all of the ingredients to become a huge worldwide hit in the coming months, arguably the biggest key to any potential success being the guest vocals from Canadian superstar Nelly Furtado.

 

Alexandra Burke has held up at No.1 with incredibly high sales for the past three weeks, since her X Factor win but inevitably she drops from the top spot this week, down to No.3. She can celebrate a milestone this week though in that her cover of Hallelujah passed the million sales mark, becoming the first new million selling single in the UK since Shayne Ward’s That’s My Goal in 2005, singles from Gnarls Barkley and Leona Lewis falling just short of the milestone, although both will inevitably be million selling singles one day. This is not to say that no singles in the last four years have become million sellers though, Natalie Imbruglia’s 1997 classic Torn and Oasis’ 1995 single Wonderwall both breaking through the barrier in recent years thanks to the addition of download sales. Interestingly, only three singles so far this decade have become million sellers without having Reality TV promotion like singles from Shayne Ward, Alexandra Burke, Hear’Say, Will Young and Gareth Gates. These three elusive singles that have been popular enough to reach the tally on their own merit are Bob The Builder’s Can We Fix It, Shaggy’s It Wasn’t Me and Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. The only unmentioned million sellers of this decade are Tony Christie’s reactivated 2005 single (Is This The Way To) Amarillo which passed the mark due to its Comic Relief involvement and 2004’s charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas by Band Aid 20.

 

Leona Lewis is no stranger to huge selling singles. A Moment Like This shifted well over 800,000 copies and Bleeding Love is over 900,000 sales so far in the UK. She has been incredibly unlucky not to have had a million selling single so far, although her debut album Spirit has now passed the 2.5 million mark. Run has not been as big a success as those two singles but has nevertheless gone gold now (400,000 sales) and is a likely half a million seller. The Snow Patrol cover dips two places to No.4 this week after six weeks inside the top five. Kings Of Leon round off the top five this week with Use Somebody, which climbs back up a place to No.5.

 

Defying all expectations, questions were asked when new British girl group The Saturdays were launched last year. Many wondered if the UK would embrace another female band to run parallel with Girls Aloud and Sugababes. It would seem that they have, as Issues, the follow up to the No.8 debut If This Is Love and No.5 successor, Up, climbs an astonishing twenty one places to No.6 this week, becoming their third successive top ten hit, not a feat that is commonplace in the UK these days. What is more surprising is that Issues had been panned by some fans as a poor single choice and a song that was destined for failure. To see it well above new singles by the aforementioned Girls Aloud and Sugababes, who are both only on the second singles of their respective album campaigns, is quite a surprise, although the song is incredibly radio friendly and has picked up increased support this week. The band seem to be marking something of a turning point in the charts of late. They have proved that the UK is open to new pop acts, and more importantly, the radio is open to supporting them, whereas in 2005 to early 2008 radio was largely dominated by singer/songwriters, adult contemporary music and indie-pop bands. With the recent increased radio support for bands such as Girls Aloud, Take That, Boyzone and The Saturdays, it would seem that pop music is well and truly back in vogue in the UK and surprisingly, The Saturdays, a band who arguably would not have worked in the 2006/2007 market, are at the forefront of the movement. To pin the success of Issues on the release of the physical single this week is unfair, as it has soared on iTunes in the past few days, and it looks set to potentially be the biggest hit so far for the quartet, appealing to ballad lovers in a way that can only be compared to the unexpected success of Whole Again for Atomic Kitten in early 2001.

 

Beyoncé’s If I Were A Boy clocks up its tenth week inside the top ten this week but slides three places to No.6 and for the second time in recent times, she has two songs in the top ten simultaneously. On the Christmas chart, If I Were A Boy was at No.4 and her 2007 single Listen had returned at No.8 due to an X Factor performance. This week, it is Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) that joins the ever present If I Were A Boy inside the top ten. Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) has been climbing to a new peak every week since it entered the chart. Having initially looked like a flop, the former US No.1 single is now a UK top ten hit in its own right, despite technically only being a b-side here, to If I Were A Boy.

 

Katy Perry’s Hot ‘N’ Cold slides two places to No.9 this week, Katy also heralding in the rebirth of successful pop in the UK charts, this single having spent eleven weeks inside the top ten, whilst the predecessor, I Kissed A Girl, also spent eleven weeks inside the top ten. Rounding off the top ten is Let It Rock by Kevin Rudolf and Lil’ Wayne. Last week I suggested that it was odd that a single with A-List Radio 1 support which had all of the ingredients to be a UK hit was stalling at No.40 after its physical release. This week however, the single has finally taken off and soars to No.10, looking likely to go even higher in the coming weeks. This week’s UK top ten therefore features six singles by American acts, three British acts and one British/Canadian collaboration.

 

Elsewhere in the top forty, there is plenty of other action this week. Kanye West leaps up twenty four places to No.14 with new single Heartless, the follow up to the top ten hit Love Lockdown. The single has now started to receive heavy TV airplay, which has resulted in this climb. Akon’s Right Now (Na Na Na) is back up a spot to No.15 just ahead of American electronic-alternative duo MGMT. MGMT were arguably one of the critical success stories of last year despite having no top twenty singles or top ten albums. Finally though, Kids, arguably their most famous single, jumps into the top twenty, largely thanks to its use on the trailer of BBC show Waterloo Road. Last week’s No.37, it jumps twenty one places to No.16 this week and propels the album into the top ten for the first time. Perhaps the UK public were waiting for ‘the year of electro’ to give the band the success that this single always deserved.

 

Another American urban artist doing well is Ne-Yo. Mad, the third single from his current album Year Of The Gentleman, climbs fourteen places to No.22 this week having hovered around at the bottom of the top forty for the past month. Circus, the second single from Britney Spears’ new album of the same name arrives back in the top forty at a new peak this week. The single, which entered the charts at No.32 on the album’s release week, before dropping away, returns to the top forty at No.24 this week, looking increasingly likely to become yet another smash hit for the singer who has only just left the top ten with Womanizer, her biggest selling hit since 2004’s Toxic. A week ahead of its physical release, The Loving Kind by Girls Aloud climbs ten places to a new peak of No.29 this week. Whether or not it will have a Saturdays-style twenty place rise into the top ten next week remains to be seen, but for now it is by far the smallest official single of their career.

 

There are four other entries of note inside the top forty this week. Talking of million sellers, 1995’s Gangsta’s Paradise by US rapper Coolio re-enters the top forty at No.31 this week. A huge No.1 single when released, its reappearance is due to the stars current appearance on the new series of Channel 4’s Celebrity Big Brother. One of the tasks was for the celebrities to show why they were famous, and Coolio sang Gangsta’s Paradise, leading to an inevitable re-entry this week. It is worth pointing out though that Sugababes’ Hole In The Head, Liberty X’s Just A Little and A1’s Same Old Brand New You, also former UK chart toppers, have not had the same success despite being performed by related housemates Mutya Buena, Michelle Heaton and Ben Adams. Despite huge success in the 1990s, this week’s re-entry marks the first top forty appearance for any Coolio single so far in this decade.

 

In at No.34 is a man who seems to have waited longer than most for UK success. Thirty One year old American singer/songwriter Jason Mraz had notable UK airplay in 2003 with The Remedy (I Won’t Worry), but the song limped in at No.79. His third studio album We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, which features collaborations with James Morrison and Colbie Caillat, made an unexpected entry last week inside the top forty album charts, and this has propelled the album’s current single, I’m Yours, into the top forty for the first time this week. The UK success for this single is long overdue, having already reached the top ten in Europe, the US and Australia. Whether the single can go any higher in the coming weeks, becoming as big as it has been in these territories, remains to be seen, but at the very least, after six years, the singer is at least becoming noticed here.

 

Two new singles join the foot of the top forty this week giving their respective singers second hit singles from their current campaigns. Pink’s So What was one of the biggest hits of 2008, spending three weeks at No.1 in the autumn. The second single from the No.1 album Funhouse, Sober, joins the UK chart at No.37 this week, ahead of the physical release on January 19th. Finally, former Mis-Teeq singer Alesha Dixon is the latest act to join the list of more than one song in the top forty simultaneously this week. Breathe Slow, the follow up to the huge top five single The Boy Does Nothing, debuts at No.39 this week. Both songs are taken from her current album The Alesha Show, Breathe Slow being a download only entry this week with the physical release not due until February 9th.

 

There are some changes in the top ten album charts as sales start to dive and albums with the least substantial percentage decreases dominate at the top of the charts. Only By The Night by Kings Of Leon has become one of the biggest rock albums of the decade, selling well over a million copies in 2008 and continuing its success into 2009. Buoyed by the current hit singles, Sex On Fire and Use Somebody, the album returns to No.1 this week, up from last week’s No.2. Take That’s The Circus ends its spell at No.1 after five weeks, sliding a place to No.2 this week and Duffy’s Rockferry remains at No.3, forty five weeks into its chart run. Spirit by Leona Lewis sticks at No.4 and Day & Age by The Killers stays at No.5 this week, also both former chart toppers. The Script’s eponymous debt album climbs back up two places to No.6 whilst James Morrison’s second album, Songs For You, Truths For Me, continues to benefit from the success of Broken Strings, jumping from No.24 to No.7 this week. MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular finally climbs into the top ten this week, up from No.13 to No.8, The Ting Tings return to the top ten at No.9 with their former No.1 album We Started Nothing, which has been on offer on iTunes all week and Beyoncé’s I Am Sasha Fierce falls a place to No.10.

 

Next week’s chart should see another week at the top for Lady GaGa’s Just Dance but there are a number of singles out that will look to take the top spot away from her. Girls Aloud release their twentieth single, The Loving Kind, on Monday and will hope that their fans will buy the single physically to propel it into the top ten in seven days, keeping their consecutive top ten singles record, which has been in place since 2002, in tact. Kid Cudi is a highly tipped US rapper and his first UK single, Day ‘N’ Nite, a collaboration with dance act Crookers, looks set to be the first big crossover dance anthem of 2009, and should enter the top five at least next week after a simultaneous physical and digital release. Also tipped for 2009 are alternative rock act White Lies from London. Their previous single Death could only make it as high as No.52 last year but the title track of their debut album, To Lose My Life, is released physically and digitally on Monday and is expected to be their biggest hit single to date next week.

 

Elsewhere, singles from James Morrison & Nelly Furtado, Leona Lewis and Kings Of Leon should remain at the top end of the chart whilst the only other physical releases looking to have any sort of notable success are due from The Game feat Ne-Yo and Public Domain. A download entry could be due from Take Me Back, a dance/rap crossover by UK artists Tinchy Stryder and Taio Cruz, which is tipped for huge success in the coming weeks. Over in the albums chart, the highest new entry will undoubtedly go to Lady GaGa with her debut album The Fame, which could well join Just Dance at the top of the charts this time next week. Kings Of Leon, Duffy and Take That might start to falter soon but albums from MGMT, James Morrison and The Ting Tings could continue to re-grow in popularity. Other new releases that could have an impact on the chart next week include those from Animal Collective, Saxon, Jamie Foxx and Eddie Reader.

 

Thanks to Polyhex, EveryHit, ManicKangaroo and Play.com for various information and resources

 

Great read Rich :)

Thanks Rich, I enjoyed reading that :D

thank you Rob and Matt :D glad you liked it

Great as always! :cheer:

 

[\generic response]

Interestingly, only three singles so far this decade have become million sellers without having Reality TV promotion like singles from Shayne Ward, Alexandra Burke, Hear’Say, Will Young and Gareth Gates.

 

I think you mean '...and without being charity singles'.

 

Apart from that, a great read!

Great commentary. It never fails!

Thanks for that. Your commentary is the best thing on the web.

ther new releases that could have an impact on the chart next week include those from Animal Collective, Saxon, Jamie Foxx and Eddie Reader.

Just one little nitpick Eddie Reader should read Eddi Reader female lead singer of the 80s band Fairground Attraction

Thank you for the kind words and corrections :D

TBH I never read this before, but it's fantastic. Thanks :w00t:

thanks Tom :D