-Jay-

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... 🙄

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!