GreyAsh

And this too! How many female singers have had albums with better initial runs than Kylie this year? Potentially 6. Yes only 6. P!nk, Miley Cyrus, Lana Del Rey, Melanie Martinez, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo. All at an advantage because they are American - and I assume more successful there than Kylie

This! And ‘Tension’ went silver quicker than P!nk and Lana - not that they really matters. Yes, P!nk’s album has been phenomenally successful… but no one is trying to say that ‘Tension’ is the biggest album of the year, just that the narrative that it is less successful than ‘Disco’ is based on inappropriate comparisons. And yes, BMG clearly understand the climate at least as well as, and almost certainly better than any of us.

Ignore my votes - 4,000 top 20. I got very confused because I was originally thinking 4,000 top 20. But then I saw that last weeks top 30 all sold more than 10,000 which just seemed wrong, but I voted top 30, 10,000 anyway. Then I realised that I was looking at the singles chart. Oops! I think just over 2000 fans will buy it - and most will buy both copies. What do we have to compare it with? In November 2022, Impossible Princess reached 5. In December 2022, Kylie Christmas reached 86. In October 2021, Fever reached 23. Prior to that, her chart positions owing to vinyl releases were much lower - but I don’t know the background to any of these releases. I feel that more people buy vinyl these days, so it will peak higher than Fever, but the situation behind Impossible Princess was unique in many ways, pushing it higher. I guess one indicator is the 4000 fans buying the numbered editions of Tension. Maybe it could exceed that and go too 15 - or even reach 8,000 and border on the top 5!

And compared with the other comparatively successful legacy albums this year, here is their streaming chart history. Kylie 11, 64 Foo Fighters 14, 83 Gorillaz 15, 47, 87 Noel Gallagher 20, 64 Blur 28, out Shania Twain - did not chart So only Gorillaz could argue to have been more successful than Tension when it comes to streaming. And wow, the only artist comparable to Kylie – Shania Twain - did not even chart on streaming despite reaching number 1 on the Official Chart.

This is the analysis we need that everybody else is ignoring. There has been a massive change in the streaming charts from current albums, to older albums and compilations. I have removed all compilations and any albums released prior to 2022 (and for Disco, prior to 2019 - and for Golden anything with more than about 100 weeks - though the comparison with Golden is tricky) and this is what I get: Position (position excluding older releases and compilations) Week 1 Golden 16 (13) Disco 14 (12) Tension 11 (4) Week 2 Golden 36 (22) Disco 27 (18) Tension 64 (13) This is shocking! What appears to be a decline for Kylie – ‘Tension’ only at 60 in its 2nd week, is actually a rarity all around. It IS bucking the trend of the music industry! Those figures show that ‘Tension’ is performing notably better than the previous two albums when competing against the current climate. This is what we need to show people who are complaining about the streaming figures for ‘Tension’ in the UK.

I guess the question is - how many legacy acts have had albums in the past 18 months with better UK streaming figures than ‘Tension’. I don’t the answer. I would hazard a guess at those I have mentioned elsewhere - Gorillaz, Blur, Noel Gallagher’s HFB, Foo Fighters - none of them are pop artists. P!nk is not quite old enough to count as ‘legacy’ - and she had massive streaming figures. But like many artists, she benefits from having been big in the US, and therefore big on Spotify. ‘Tension’ has been massive on Apple (it spent 21 days in the top 10), but not Spotify. Elton John clearly does well - but he’s a one off. I feel BMG are making breakthroughs with Kylie, but it’s tough. And no, I don’t feel the streaming figures for Tension are bad at all. It’s difficult to look back in time and see how tracks did on Apple for Disco but I doubt they were as good as they are for Tension. And I think the thing we forget about Disco is – people mention the pandemic – but what they don’t mention is that there was very little new music released over that period of time. One question I have, and I don’t know if anyone can answer. We are all told that streams have risen massively over the past couple of years. But does anyone know what the streaming sales of albums have done, particularly those of new albums? My guess is that fewer new albums are reaching certain streaming sales thresholds. Maybe because people are streaming playlists more and albums less. So just to reiterate, everybody is so desperate to compare Tension with Disco. I don’t believe that is the correct comparison to make. Happy to see if anyone has any information to refute my theories.

But very few albums spend more weeks in the chart than Tension has! We can’t compare 2023 with any previous era - or at least not do a fair comparison. The album containing the song that has just spent 5 weeks at number one with massive streaming figures, has itself fallen to number 78 on its third week. That is what we need to be comparing with, not with albums that were released before the streaming era, or when the streaming era was comparatively young.

It’s amazing that Ed Sheeran’s 2nd week sales were only 44 more than Kylie’s! A couple of other facts: excluding hits collections, new releases, and pre-2022 releases, ‘Tension’ would be at number 8 in the chart. It is still top 10 on sales, physicals and vinyls. So in answer to a recent question, I consider Kylie’s sales and streaming figures to be a success. I don’t feel any other solo artist in the pre-2000 category can compare (P!nk is from 2000). Many artists with high streaming figures have also had massive success in the US - or alternatively are young UK rap and dance artists. And this year only groups, not solo artists from older eras have had similar success to Kylie: Gorillaz, Blur, Foo Fighters and NG’s High Flying Birds.

Enjoying the battle between Lewis Capaldi and The Killers! Do we know who is higher in the all time list?

Then fall below Weeknd to 6

The fact that Padam Padam has re-entered, and Tension was 6 last week, and (I assume) playlisted suggests that it will be higher still today, and therefore won’t be played when Kylie is on before 6. That’s my hope anyway

Interesting to see that she is apparently on the show ‘to see if Tension can get to number 1.’ There is often no logic in the chart, and it seems quite made up, so it’s quite possible that she could be number 1!

Looking forward to hearing the new ‘Love At First Sight’.

Tension is steadily climbing the Amazon Prime chart. It might seem that 153 is quite a low position - but actually it’s in the top 35 (approx 33 or 34) if we exclude songs on ACR, or the 4th, 5th etc tracks from Olivia Rodrigo. In fact it would be even higher if we excluded old songs on SCR like Cruel Summer and Dog Days Are Over - and just outside the top 30. And it is top 20 on their trending chart. With similar rules, it would be top 25 on Apple. It’s only Spotify letting the side down! I wonder if the song/the record company can do enough to keep it in the Official Top 40 this week and next week before the album is released.

Another thing to point out is that even if we remove ALL of Tension’s sales - including downloads - and just count streams, it would still have scraped into the top 40! (Total sales minus physicals and downloads were still marginally more than the number 41). For years, we have been saying that streaming is keeping Kylie out of the top 40 – as she hasn’t been able to make the top 40, even when combining physicals, downloads and streams. But now this streaming figure is enough to make the top 40 on its own! That must largely be down to Apple - with a little help from Spotify and YouTube (her streams on Amazon, have only just started to take off today).

Has anyone noticed that Tension would have made the top 40 on streaming alone? I’ll post more info I’m the Tension forum.

Frustrating then that it has now sold more than last week’s number 100 had last week but can’t catch up.

I have read that it is currently on 283,692. So may well have made the top 100 by now? That said, I see that ‘Go Your Own Way’ is doing well this week.

Fab! 509 once explicit tracks are added back in. It’s not yet in the top 100 of Amazon Music Unlimited, but it is at 25 in the Amazon Trending Songs. Previously it was lower than this.

Pretty big climbs on both Spotify and Apple today - so it could climb in the Official Chart next week

It’s available as a single on Spotify. It’s available as an album track on iTunes and Amazon downloads - but you can buy it as an individual track from the album. … but this does make me think it could be followed by another single in just 3 weeks.

Hmmm. Could be tight even for Kylie. She’d need an average of 15k per week, and as she’s in decline, there’s no guarantee she can maintain that, as she was only a few k above that last week.

Thank you Julian! You’ve done some amazing work there. So, just 18 2023 releases in the year to date chart, and we are now more than half of the way through the year (although quite a few November and December releases that didn’t chart until January or later). I’m sure Chemical will make it by the end of the week, as Post Malone’s album has been released. If ‘Can’t Tame Her’ hasn’t made it yet, I doubt it will do. And what will the New Entries be for August? I think Kylie, Dua Lipa, Hannah Laing and Olivia Rodrigo might make it - but I haven’t been tracking their sales and (other than Kylie) it depends on whether any of them can go silver this week.

Shocking how few 2023 releases are in the singles YTD chart! I make it somewhere between 17 and 20 (the ones I’m not sure about are ‘Heaven’ ‘Chemical’ and ’Can’t Tame Her’ - it would be great if someone could confirm). What song is currently at 100 and what are its sales? I’m intrigued.

Now we have a handful of charts in - and Kylie is holding up well (E.g. on Spotify, she is higher than last week, but with slightly lower streams - which the new remix could make up for). Songs that I feel will stay above Kylie: Dave/Central Cee; Olivia; Taylor Swift CS; J Hus; Peggy; Gunna; Hannah; Nathan Dawe etc; Jorja Songs that will be neck and neck with Kylie, but who she might climb above: Billie; Weeknd; D Block Europe; Jung Kook Songs that will climb above Kylie (and above Billie Eilish!): Dua Lipa; Nicki Minaj; Songs that might climb above Kylie: Byron Messia (as long as OCC combine his track BUT the new version might be allocated to Burna Boy); Tom Grennan Songs that I don’t think will overtake Kylie YET: Becky Hill; DOD New Entries from Travis Scott, ZAYN and Stormzy won’t be strong enough. I’m going to be positive and go for a climb to 12. Another top 20 week is looking highly likely.