Eric_Blob

Ah OK that's great. (I was just asking because people got into trouble for posting things like this before, I really want this all year!).

I agree it's not a flop (we've seen true flops like Lil Nas X's latest single or Ed Sheeran's lead single from his most recent album which I can't even remember the name of), but it is January, so it's "easy" to debut at #8 YTD lol. Yes I love it! I wanted to post last week but I didn't have anything sensible to say. You don't have to say to if you don't want to/can't, but are you estimating or have you got official figures?

I always thought Lover could really be a smash because it reminded me a lot of Perfect by Ed Sheeran (in terms of the instrumental and the overall feel of the song at least). Maybe the general public are switching from one to the other now. :lol: And btw I am so happy to be getting these weekly again! I always loved checking every week when vidcapper used to post them here.

I think it could probably have another wind if they pushed it after the success of Stick Season, but clearly they are going to do the Sam Fender collab next. Dial Drunk did really well in the US, so I think it didn't reach its full potential in the UK. And I find it funny that the ONE song Noah Kahan hasn't done a duet of is his biggest hit (so far, but maybe forever because topping Stick Season's success will be a big challenge).

Deep Forest and Deepest Blue are both amazing. There's also an amazing remix of Absolutely Fabulous that I used to listen to. I'm surprised there's so many of these tbh.

Whilst I think it's fair to say most of the alternate versions in this case aren't particularly creative, and the way they're being released day-by-day shows they're doing it to try and get #1. However, a pop song having even 13 versions is not exactly unheard of (especially for a dance-pop song). But it probably would look more genuine of they were all released on day 1 or as an EP. But for example Miracle by Calvin Harris from last year has like 30 versions.

I don't think any of the chart companies should, will, or even can (the labels would probably lobby them not to do it) disallow multiple versions. I think it would be unfair, a lot of songs legitimately have mutiple popular versions, I can think of some like Someone Like You, Go, Bloodstream, Summetime Sadness, Gold Dust, In For the Kill. And as for Billboard, I guess they might be the most likely to do it, but in the 00's some of the ONLY big dance hits they had in the whole decade, Cascada - Everytime We Touch, DHT - Listen To Your Heart, DJ Sammy - Heaven, all managed to do well because they also had piano ballad versions for the radio stations which didn't want to play dance music. I don't think it would've been fair to not count them personally.

I love their version of It's My Life! Really glad it is 3rd. I think it has a bit of a William Orbit vibe to it. The original is fantastic too.

Talking about questionable baby-related lead singles from the 00's, it's funny to see Baby By Me by 50 Cent back in the charts. :lol: I'm not going to bother asking why.

Yes, it was played almost 196 times on pop stations last week apparently (up from 20 times the week before), which would put it around #52 on the pop airplay chart.

Wow thank so much for all this analysis! To get a more "old school" year-end chart I thought of only including songs where 50% or more of the total sales are from within 2023. It's pretty similar to the last chart you posted in that it keeps in Cruel Summer, Sure Thing and Die For You but it's also excludes 2022 leftovers like As It Was, I Ain't Worried, Green Green Grass, Afraid to Feel, BOTA, Go, Last Last, and maybe Unholy? (I think it would be close to 50/50). It's because a hit like As It Was in the download era would probably be between around #70 - #150 in the following year's year-end chart, rather than #9. And in the physical era it probably wouldn't be there are at all. So that's a change I haven't liked since streaming. I was pretty gobsmacked at what Dance Monkey and Perfect did, but now it happens every year it seems. :lol:

Not really the same thing as I they weren't top 20, but that reminds me of Don't Trust Me by 3OH!3 and Gold Dust by DJ Fresh. They both got re-released and just peaked almost at the same position again. Which is OK if you're Bohemian Rhapsody but I think usually if they re-release a song they are hoping it will peak higher than the first time. :lol:

Sophie is only 110,000 away from Noah now! :o I'm sure she was like 200,000 behind a few days ago.

She has some great songs with Disclosure too! And one with Booty Luv (sort of). :lol:

I can't make sense of it either. I'm just choosing to basically ignore the Amazon chart outside of Christmas because the information is of no use to me as I can't understand exactly what it means. :lol:

I was one of the ones saying that (now I just have to try and remember it's been changed so I don't bring it up again in the future haha). It was such a dumb rule, I remember Truth Hurts by Lizzo not being able to chart early on because it was more than 3 years old when it became a hit lol. Really glad they've changed it.

You might be right. I just checked Stick Season radio (which is what Spotify autoplays if you play Stick Season and don't put on a new song before it finishes) and the 2nd song it plays is Riptide. :o And the 3rd song it plays is Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners – Evergreen. So that's probably helping a bit. But the radio isn't the same for everybody, but probably a lot of people will have Riptide come on afterwards.

I don't think Ariana is guaranteed to debut at #1. It's obviously possible though, but you can never be sure. I thought No Tears Left to Cry would be guaranteed and somehow it wasn't. And Focus under-performed despite being a great song as well.

It's funny that the top 5 on Spotify and Apple Music are the same right now, and at other times they can be very different.

The Hot 100 also has a 3 year-old rule, songs that are more than 3 years old aren't allowed to chart in the bottom half of the Hot 100 (they are automatically considered to be recurrent) so they have to be in the top 50 before being allowed on the chart. So Sophie will probably need to be like top 20 on Spotify to chart there as she's got no airplay.

If all the songs 3+ years old can get reset then maybe Perfect Exceeder has enough to be top 40?

There's also Kanye West - Heartless and Drake - Practice which I think are in the same situation as Sophie basically. It would be ashame if they miss out just because they happened to surge at New Year.

I thought Groovejet and Me and My Imagination would be higher. But I think Groovejet isn't on Spotify so that's probably hurt its sales a lot. And I'm surprised how high Crying At the Discotheque is. It's a new song and also a cover, I wouldn't have thought it'd be so high.

The funny thing is that Mike Posner lamenting that nobody remembers Cooler Than Me just ended up reminding everybody of it. :lol: I saw Sophie in one of the New Years playlists so that probably helped her a bit yesterday too. Hopefully her label will get her on more playlists now. As for her career, I don't find it that surprising, because yes she only had 2 massive hits really but she had a lot of normal-sized hits stretching over an entire decade. Groovejet in 2000 all the way to her last hit which I would say was Heartbreak in 2009 and that helps so much for a pop star. For example, imagine if Aloe Blacc or Iggy Azalea were getting regular hit songs every couple of years from 2014 to 2023 they would be SO much more famous now, even if none of them were as big as the ones at the beginning.

It's strange to think Cold Heart will probably overtake Candle in the Wind one day. Maybe as soon as the late 2030's or 2040's.