-Jay-

A shame it couldn't sneak in this week!

That would be surprising... and that's quite a flippant way of announcing it if he's being genuine. But what would he gain from joking about this if it's not true, other than annoying fans?

It went as high as #8 Thank you for shining a spotlight on Viva Forever, Victoria... it's clear that a lot of people have either been reminded of it, or maybe even hearing it for the first time?

Annoyed at how mishandled this has been!

Finished my rewatch tonight Absolutely one of my favourite TV shows of all time, and I'm so very ready for Season 5! 1 week to go

Viva Forever up to #20 on UK iTunes now

They’ve still not dispatched the orders with the Christmas cards… if they don’t today then those sales aren’t counting to this week :(

https://www.instagram.com/p/DRPitmQivY8/ It’s time to begin, now count us in! Dancing shoes at the ready… This Saturday, we’ll be performing a medley of some of our favourite STEPS songs from the Here & Now musical on Strictly Come Dancing! We will be live from the iconic Tower Ballroom in Blackpool, BBC One, 6:35pm - don’t miss it! 🪩✨

Apparently a Blu Ray version is forthcoming?

K Pop girl group aespa cover Spice Up Your Life in an advert:

I'm not sure I can cope with the suggestion that Song for Her is better than Do It, @Mr.X x

I enjoy all three, but there's an extra something about the 2019 version that just hits... it was soooo epic to experience that one at the stadiums. Agree that it felt fresh, even 6 years on it still feels that way to me. The Mels were on fire in this performance!

Bear in mind the Christmas chart week will be the second week on sale for the album... and it might be quite frontloaded.

That reminded me to put some money on Kylie (still 5/1 on bet365)! I wish bet365 had opened the books earlier... it's the site I use, but they were slow to begin the Christmas #1 betting compared to other bookies.

Tom Grennan went from #62 in the mids to #83 (21 places down), so fingers crossed Kylie could could sneak into the Top 100 on Friday.

Well it's the case that a lot of orders haven't been dispatched yet so they won't be in the midweek data. The first 500 orders came with a bonus Christmas card, but there's been a delay with them. Generally though, this release is more low-key than the album reissues. The vinyl is only available to order from their official store / Universal's online music stores (Recordstore / The Sound of Vinyl) - it's not available from HMV or Amazon.

Amazon reporting full data for the week so far whereas most songs have partial data from Spotify/Apple Music (nothing from Sunday), and some songs above it being on ACR.

I really like this! Hilary Duff by way of Carly Rae Jepsen? That's catnip to me!

Updated! Lily Allen the only Top 10 album this year that climbed in its second week.

I just thought about how Kylie midweek/Friday info usually gets shared quite regularly on SayHey, so hopefully that'll be a thing for XMAS/Kylie Christmas (Fully Wrapped) and we find out sales! Honestly for now I'm quite relaxed about how the single will do, with Alexa doing a lot of heavy lifting I don't think there's really much to worry about. I think at this point I'm more focused on whether the album can get to #1!

I'm really eager for her comeback! Indeed it was a shame that the reception to her last album was on the cool side, from the fanbase (and the negative reaction seemed particularly prevalent on Twitter). I actually loved Hold the Girl!

Hopefully Kylie fans are on it when it comes to downloading it (when we actually can). I'm sure they'll rally around it, but I noticed that Tom Grennan kind of flopped on downloads: 82-35-33-out. #33 coinciding with the week it was #3 in the official chart. He was only 468 sales behind Mariah, so if his fanbase had been more engaged with downloading he could have got to #2! But on the other hand, Sam Ryder did well on downloads, eventually: 43-48-2-1-out

This time last year on 18th November 2024, in the Monday midweek update, Tom Grennan started at midweek #62 - then ended up at #83 in Friday's official chart. The higher midweek position but lower Friday position was a consistent thing throughout its chart life, and this is due to the fact that Amazon is on time with the data it reports whereas other streaming platforms such as Spotify are a day late - which creates the illusion of an Amazon song doing better in the midweeks than it would be if all data was present. Comparing Tom's Monday midweek vs Friday position: 18/11/24 - #62 vs. 22/11/24 -#83 25/11/24 - #24 vs. 29/11/24 - #49 02/12/24 - #9 vs. 06/12/24 - #25 09/12/24 - #3 vs. 13/12/24 - #6 16/12/24 - #2 vs. 20/12/24 - #4 23/12/24 - #2 vs. 27/12/24 - #3 30/12/24 - #9 vs. 03/01/25 - #30 Similar happened with other Amazon releases, for example Sam Ryder: 50-26-12-04-04-02-02-56 [Monday midweek chart run] 88-50-23-12-10-02-02-85 [Friday official chart run] and Jess Glynne: 37-12-04-04-04-03 [Monday midweek chart run] 63-28-13-09-04-03 [Friday official chart run] Anyway based on Tom Grennan last year, there's a possibility that we could see XMAS in the midweeks today. If it's not in the Top 100, then that would highlight that it's off to a worse start. Fingers crossed! A reason for posting those above chart run comparisons, is that if XMAS does show in the midweeks, just to manage expectations and that it would likely end up much lower in the chart by Friday (until we get a lot closer to Christmas time).

Not sure what to expect from the midweeks today, what with potentially hundreds of orders not dispatched yet due to the Christmas card.

If the label had done more and released a picture disc, CD and download - with even just a couple of bonus tracks on it - then perhaps it could have charted! It usually takes about 1300 sales to make the Top 200.