GreyAsh

Ditto: one of the best girl group albums ever made. It was a game changer in so many ways. One thing Beyoncé has always done well is building an album around a concept - rather than just a collection of unrelated songs, and I feel this started on TWOTW. This was an album that changed my taste in music.

Great to see the artists spread out in terms of points compared with last year. And impressive that 3 groups have leapfrogged Destiny’s Child and Coldplay to climb into the top 10! Last time the top 6 were close to each other but many points ahead of the chasing pack. I wonder if the same six groups will pull ahead this year too.

Food for thought… I feel you’re right - they don’t fit on the list (other than being on my playlist and not having many top 40 hits). The difference is partly that they are an indie artist, but I think another difference is that they have broken much more widely globally - particularly in the US. Cat Burns for example is a newer artist than Glass Animals, hasn’t broken in the US, has had no other UK top 40 hits - but has two solo tracks with over 40 million streams. Perhaps the biggest difference is that they are an established act who released their debut album over 10 years ago. Shaboozey has been going almost as long but has only just had his UK breakthrough. I think the other artists are only just on their debut albums or haven’t even released an album yet. But there are increasing numbers of artists now getting high peaking albums without a hit single. And they are not only indie artists. Maisie Peters has had a number 1 and a number 2 album. But of her 7 singles to make the top 100, the highest peak was her Amazon Original, Together This Christmas - 47.

Most of the artists mentioned on this list have released some great music! It’s strange the way the record industry works these days with streaming. In the past (such as the 90s and 00s) after one big hit, most artists’ follow-up songs also charted. Most dance artists for example are remembered for their debut single, but then had at least a couple of follow-ups that made the top 40. These days it’s becoming increasingly difficult to follow up a debut hit. I’m enjoying Casso’s follow up hit at the moment - but also have several other artists on my playlist who only only had one top 40 hit: Cat Burns, Kenya Grace, Shaboozey, Glass Animals, Michael Marcagi, Mark Ambor (the list goes on) plus many other equally good artists who are yet to have a top 40 hit because they just did not have that one viral hit!

“Frankie, Molly, Una, Vanessa, Rochelle, What you doing Saturday, girl? I'm doing nothing, 'cause then at least I'm doing nothing wrong.”

That is a lot of votes for the Saturdays! I really loved so much of their music. But I can see one group coming who have made quite a big climb within the top 20.

Neneh Cherry, Buffalo Stance. Originally Neneh recorded it as the B-Side to the Stock, Aitken and Waterman produced ‘Looking Good Diving’ by Morgan McVey - which was later covered by Nick Kamen as an album track. It was based on an instrumental version of ‘Looking Good Diving’ and was surely initially meant as a bit of fun, but when re-recorded with Tim Simenon (Bomb The Bass) it took on a life of its own and became one of the defining songs of the end of the 80s.

Pleased to see Fleetwood Mac with the big climb that they deserve. A band whose music has clearly stood the test of time.

One reason could be this: the Amazon chart you’re looking at is not a full Amazon Chart, it’s only the Amazon Prime chart (rather than the Amazon Music Unlimited chart for which you pay extra) which is effectively the ‘free’ chart - though I think they still count as premium/paid for/ 100:1 ratio as you need Amazon Prime membership. Despite the fact it’s a premium account, you can’t select what Amazon plays for you (unless playing it directly from the chart) so it will have certain tracks it plays most (for example at Christmas it has a 50% chance of playing Wham! and 50% chance of playing Mariah first). This might not be 100% accurate but it does give you a good idea of how Amazon works.

Great choices! I think those songs make me so emotional. I think Crawling was the song that got me into them yet it was so different to all the other music I listened to at the time.

Linkin Park and Pussycat Dolls - two contrasting groups, yet 4 of us voted for both (admittedly Rogue put them in first place and 30th place). I’ve always been into pop music, but somehow there was a period of time when I bought each of the Linkin Park albums as they were released. They were the only rock band at the time that I listened to frequently - their music was so good! I think they opened up my mind to listening to more rockier music: Green Day, Paramore and maybe a few others - but I only ever bought one album at most from the other artists. Pussycat Dolls - I think it was 3 or 4 singles in before I listened to their debut album and realised how good it was! And thankfully, they have followed it up with some more brilliant tracks since.

And Eminem too - so it’s lucky I made that observation this week! That said, if these figures are anything to go by, I don’t think either artist will go gold this week, and possibly both will the following week.

Great to see Paramore so high! I only managed to get into one of their albums, but that one was amazing. Interesting to see that I was doing quite badly before, but now I still have a 11 bands left in - and at least 3 of those have climbed.

Fascinating that all 7 albums to have gone gold this year are by female solo artists (including those released last year but to have first reached gold this year AND to have sold 100,000 this year).

Yup. Definitely ‘Last Christmas’ and ‘WMUBYGG’ ahead of ‘Club Tropicana’. And that’s just in the UK. In the US, I’m sure Club Tropicana would be even further down the list.

No Doubt had a stunning album in Tragic Kingdom! I don’t feel that they maintained that, but at least they managed to have some more hits later on. Of my remaining acts, 3 have leapfrogged No Doubt - including one who have definitely climbed. I now have mostly girl groups left though. Girl groups are unsurprisingly very popular at Buzzjack!

I’ve only looked at Please, Please Me at the moment - but based on Spotify alone, it now needs an average of 411,000 over the next 5 days to get a reset - and as it’s currently on 580,000, and that’s 200,000 up on last week, I think it’s highly likely - and I’d say therefore the most likely song to be number 1 this week. I haven’t looked into whether Espresso might be reset.

One thing to note is that most of the old songs that get a lot of streams are songs that were successful globally, in particular in America, so songs that didn’t make it in the US are at a disadvantage in this list. I do love this list though, and I think it’s a really valuable thing to do, so thank you

What are the chances that either Sabrina song goes back to SCR this week?

Surprised but delighted to see Saint Etienne so high, with a big climb and doubling their points. At one point they were my favourite British group, and I didn’t realise they’d be so popular with others. Their biggest hits were pure pop but their albums were not: indie-dance maybe? Their ballad ‘Hobart Paving’ is one of my all time favourite tracks.

I think you have the wrong number 39.

But - it may well be the case that the both take turns at the top - bearing in mind they keep leapfrogging each other each year.

And they also had a couple of double A-sides. Their albums were massive sellers (especially compared with McFly I think).

Up to #40 suddenly (it was #49 a second ago) As #21 (Green and Gold) is overall #199, this suggests EOSN is around #400 - but at least it appears to be climbing. Catching up with Padam Padam at 301!

The highest Kylie song on Amazon right now is Padam Padam (343) so no sign of ‘Edge of Saturday Night’ yet.