-Jay-

Fairly confident this is the first time Viva Forever has ever been in their Top 5! Cool if a little weird to see it above Spice Up Your Life.

CD/Vinyl/Christmas card order has finally shipped!

I like this site - you can discover all sorts of data from your last fm stats: https://lastfmlists.com/ For instance I've been able to find out my most scrobbled artists that I had never played before prior to 2025: 1 - 307 - sombr 2 - 125 - KATSEYE 3 - 111 - Chloe Qisha 4 - 110 - HUNTR/IX 5 - 91 - f5ve 6 - 77 - Doechii 7 - 76 - Blusher 8 - 73 - Lola Young 9 - 52 - Saja Boys 10 - 50 - Mette 11 - 42 - Sexyy Red 12 - 41 - Mico 13 - 38 - Alex Warren 14 - 34 - Calum Hood 15 - 33 - j-hope 16 - 31 - Knox 17 - 27 - grentperez 18 - 22 - Rose Gray 19 - 21 - Rumi 20 - 18 - PAWSA

^ I think that's the main reason this era musically has been a miss for me unfortunately, I can't stand Madness! Very true to be fair, that era felt fanbase driven too... just this new era appears to have landed even less well! Will be interesting to see how the album holds up. There's a London signing forthcoming so that should give it a boost. I'd perhaps be wary of Olivia Dean (#6) and Tate McRae (#7), as they're both streaming strongly. I'm assuming The Beatles (#4) and Madness (#5) are predominantly physical based and shouldn't overtake?

I get the sense that this era isn't landing outside of his core fanbase, so I'm not too surprised that the position/sales are on a bit of a decline (granted, it has been a few years since he last released, so maybe this was inevitable). I've seen a handful of popular TikToks that are taking the mick out of his new music... and I know that doesn't speak for everyone, but that's not the best sort of attention to be getting!

Honestly not sure re: Alexa! Hopefully it’s still as popular, it would be annoying if after the last few years it ends up being Kylie’s year that an exclusive is not a guaranteed Top 5/10 outcome anymore 😆

Smiley Kylie… it’s literally been 6 years of following how Amazon Christmas exclusives do in the chart, and the trajectory is more or less the same every time. It’s abundantly clear by now that the key factor in the success of all of them is Amazon’s massive push with streaming alongside Alexa prioritising these songs when Christmas songs are requested. It’s literally the only reason XMAS is in the midweeks… and yes, it is completely logical to compare it to Tom Grennan’s Amazon Christmas song from last year because… it’s precisely and 100% the same gimmick so far? So please don’t be so dismissive, that post of yours was quite rude. We’re contributing our knowledge about this to be helpful and provide context. Yet despite you not having had a close interest in Amazon exclusives prior to Kylie’s involvement, you believe you know better about it… 🧐 well, you’ve proved that you don’t fully understand, if you think this boils down to “different fan base, different song, different strategy”.

Tom's outdone Kylie so far: Monday midweek: 18/11/24 - #62 [Tom Grennan] 17/11/24 - #72 [Kylie] Friday chart: 22/11/24 - #83 [Tom Grennan] 21/11/25 - n/a [Kylie] Sunday first look: 24/11/24 - #19 [Tom Grennan] (then #24 in Monday 25th Nov midweek, ending up at #49 on Friday 29th Nov] 23/11/25 - #33 [Kylie] Based on that, Kylie could end up in the 60s area by Friday!

Tom's song fell 25 places from Monday midweek to official chart in the equivalent week last year (#24 > #49) so if XMAS did similarly we might be looking at somewhere in the 60s come Friday?

It's finally done it 100,027,451 Now we need Viva Forever to do it! 94,925,782 at the moment, so 5,074,218 to go. Say You'll Be There (185,185,702) is getting quite close to overtaking 2 Become 1 (185,922,472)

Official upload:

I see #50 too!

It was a great performance! A megamix of Summer of Love, Last Thing on My Mind, One for Sorrow, Better the Devil You Know and Tragedy.

Bookies technically don't care who is or isn't a realistic candidate, it's purely what people are willing to place a bet on, and it seems that people have faith in Ed Sheeran!

+5 Demon Hunters Cast - Golden +4 Taylor Swift - The Fate Of Ophelia +3 RAYE - Where Is My Husband +2 Olivia Dean - Man I Need +1 Sam Fender & Olivia Dean - Rein Me In -1 Olivia Dean - So Easy (To Fall In Love) -2 Taylor Swift - Opalite -3 Taylor Swift - Elizabeth Taylor -4 Sienna Spiro - Die On This Hill -5 Dave & Tems - Raindance

Great to see it over 1 million Hopefully another climb in the sales/download chart next week. I see it at #33 on iTunes currently.

They had quite similar levels of success! These were the total sales in their years of release: 237,000 - Gotta Tell You (50th best seller of 2000) [27 weeks of sales contributing to this] 246,310 - Always Come Back to Your Love (39th best seller of 2001) [45 weeks of sales] Comparing the chart runs (green - higher position, red - lower position, orange - same position) 02-08-10-15-13-17-20-25-32-33-47-65-x Gotta Tell You 03-07-07-09-14-17-23-25-35-46-62-65-60-53-57-x Always Come Back to Your Love Gotta Tell You first week sales: 68,500 Always Come Back to Your Love first week sales: 68,000 Gotta Tell You did indeed go Gold in March (7th March 2025) so it managed that 37 weeks sooner than Always Come Back to Your Love. I wonder if ACBTYL had a higher total than GTY over the years, but GTY clawed it back since streaming came into play?

Much prefer this artwork! https://leighanne.tmstor.es/product/my-ego-told-me-to-red-vinyl

Original is from 2005 but there's a new mix for 2025:

Leona's is a really great one, it has a mix of classics that she did a good job with and enjoyable originals - can play it from start to finish without wanting to reach for the skip button. I'd say Gwen Stefani's album is pretty underrated, it has a nice retro feel to it! Both Kelly Clarkson Christmas albums are strong. Mariah's Merry Christmas is a classic. I like the original tracks (particularly... well, it's obvious which one ) and she does the traditional covers beautifully. In regards to strong female vocalists, Celine Dion's is a very pleasant listen. Girls Aloud's bonus disc of Christmas hits (which as of this year is now its own separate release!) is a lot of fun; I love all four original tracks (three uptempos that are as quirky as you'd expect Girls Aloud to be) plus a lovely ballad - one of their best ballads imo. The covers are fine, enjoyable enough! There's a good Christmas album in Kylie Christmas somewhere... but I find it to be very bloated, and some of the covers are total misfires for me. I created my own playlist of favourites from it to make it a better personal listening experience. As you can tell, I prefer to spend my Christmas with female vocalists. But I do have time for Michael Bublé's album, I prefer a few of his covers over the originals.

A pity they couldn't achieve a #6! Interestingly, Issues initially had a peak at #6 (which was achieved in its first week of physical availability) but then it climbed to #4 a week later... which was needed in order to have their only #4 hit! Here's how close some of their singles were to #6 (unfortunately it's not known how close If This Is Love was to being #6): #6 36,319 Rihanna - Where Have You Been #7 36,214 The Saturdays - 30 Days [Difference: 105] #5 51,490 The Saturdays - Disco Love #6 46,297 James Blunt - Bonfire Heart [Difference: 5,193] #6 33,505 Journey - Don't Stop Believin' #9 26,959 The Saturdays - Ego [Difference: 6,546] #6 37,701 Chris Brown - Beautiful People #8 30,273 The Saturdays - Notorious [Difference: 7,428] #5 26,593 The Saturdays - Up #6 18,460 Snow Patrol - Take Back the City [Difference: 8,133] #6 50,042 Cee Lo Green - Forget You #10 32,499 The Saturdays - Higher [Difference: 17,543] 30 Days was so close to #6! But if that had peaked at #6, then they'd have needed a different #7 single, with either Notorious or If This Is Love. Notorious was 4,040 copies behind #7, and it's unknown how close to #7 If This Is Love was. If Issues had stuck to its peak of #6, they'd have been in need of another single peaking at #4... All Fired Up at #3 was 17,009 ahead of #4 Disco Love at #5 was 9,146 behind #4 Missing You at #3 was 8,804 ahead of #4 Up at #5 was 5,737 copies behind #4 So none of those were close to winding up with a #4 peak. Girls Aloud also missed out on a full Top 10 bingo by not achieving a #8, but they had two #9s. Can't Speak French was quite close to #8... it sold 19,556, while the #8 sold 20,087 - just 531 copies difference. It's unknown how close See the Day was to being #8.

I wonder how Sam Fender's re-release will do? He's not gone wild with the formats though (CD, Vinyl, Store exclusive vinyl).

XMAS is on the Amazon version of the digital album though, so maybe it will be downloadable as a track once the album is released on the 5th?

One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful certified 4xPlatinum back in June! As things stand (based on how quickly both songs went from 3xPlat to 4xPlat), What Makes You Beautiful is on course to beat I Want It That Way to 5xPlatinum too, but only just. One Direction could do it by March 2028, followed by Backstreet Boys in April 2028. https://www.buzzjack.com/forums/topic/260475-boy-bands-bpi-certifications-singles-albums-including-duos-non-pop-acts/

Christmas card bundles delayed further, now 28th November... 🙄