-Jay-

The cassettes makes me think of the fan on Spice Circle who bought a huge number of them, all so that he could have five copies with the spine text/images perfectly alligned. :kink:

Keep them coming x

Katy Perry was right, it is a woman’s world! ( :kink: )

Thanks for posting these every week! :heart: Only 8 albums released in 2024 are in the Top 40, and 7 of those are female solo artists! Studio albums released in 2024 (8) 1 638,000 Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department 4 233,000 Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard And Soft 17 145,000 Ariana Grande - Eternal Sunshine 26 129,000 Charli XCX - Brat 27 123,000 Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter 28 116,000 Dua Lipa - Radical Optimism 35 96,000 Eminem - The Death Of Slim Shady 40 90,000 Sabrina Carpenter - Short ‘n’ Sweet Studio albums released 2020-2023 (9) 3 248,000 Noah Kahan - Stick Season (370k) 2022 5 210,000 Olivia Rodrigo - Guts (420k) 2023 9 180,000 Taylor Swift - 1989 (Taylor’s Version (480k) 2023 12 157,000 Olivia Rodrigo - Sour (980k) 2021 13 152,000 Taylor Swift - Folklore (770k) 2020 14 152,000 Taylor Swift - Midnights (910k) 2022 19 139,000 Chappell Roan - The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess 2023 24 132,000 Sza - SOS (420k) 2022 34 96,000 Teddy Swims - I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy, Part 1 2023 Studio albums released before the 2020s (9) 11 167,000 Taylor Swift - Lover (820k) 2019 18 142,000 Taylor Swift - Reputation (900k) 2017 22 134,000 Arctic Monkeys - AM (2.02m) 2013 25 132,000 Fleetwood Mac - Rumours (2.47m) 1977 29 106,000 Oasis - (What’s The Story) Morning Glory (5.21m) 1995 32 103,000 Ed Sheeran - Divide (4.29m) 2017 33 102,000 Lana Del Ray - Born To Die (1.64m) 2012 37 93,000 Katy Perry - Teenage Dream (1.85m) 2010 39 91,000 Lewis Capaldi - Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent (1.72m) 2019 Compilation Albums (14) 2 283,000 The Weeknd - The Highlights (1.11m) 2021 6 195,000 Fleetwood Mac - 50 Years: Don’t Stop (1.37m) 2018 7 187,000 Eminem - Curtain Call: The Hits (3.23m) 2005 8 180,000 ABBA - Gold: Greatest Hits (5.83m) 1992 10 175,000 Elton John - Diamonds (1.56m) 2017 15 149,000 Oasis - Time Flies: 1994-2009 (1.91m) 2010 16 148,000 Michael Jackson - The Essential Michael Jackson (1.75m) 2005 20 137,000 Queen - Greatest Hits (2.98m) 1981 21 135,000 Post Malone - The Diamond Collection (280k) 2023 23 133,000 Bob Marley & The Wailers - Legend (3.23m) 1984 30 104,000 Maroon 5 - Singles (790k) 2015 31 104,000 Eminem - Curtain Call 2 (320k) 2022 36 94,000 50 Cent - Best Of 50 Cent (570k) 2017 38 93,000 George Michael - Twenty Five (1.70m) 2006

I found it bizarre how their label treated CDs as such a "lesser format" during the Spice 25 and Spiceworld 25 campaigns! Firstly no CD for Wannabe 25, and then as you mention, only one expensively-priced deluxe CD for each album reissue. Spice 25 sold like 1,400 CDs in the UK in that first week... pitiful, really. That's a format you should be able to sell thousands of. It was such a misfire, coming from a group who were big in an era that was dominated by CD sales. :blink: It would have made perfect sense to lean into that nostalgia, but no... :unsure:

3 years since we lost Sarah 💔

New slogan t-shirts merch! https://merch.girlsaloud.com/ Cheryl slogan pink tee: Whenever you're ready... I'm ready Nicola slogan black tee: Rude Ginger Bitch Nadine slogan white tee: Making me a Gemini (Est. 1985) Kimberley slogan white tee: Oh boy I can't tell you how sad I feel if tonight is just another kink in your steel Sarah slogan black tee: It's about time! Iconic :lol:

Destiny's Child are my favourite American group, so it's pleasing to see them this high up!

More cast members have been announced: Completing this steptacular cast are River Medway (Jem), Finty Williams (Patricia), Gary Milner (Gareth), Dan Partridge (Ben), Helen Colby (Tracey), Edward Baker Duly (Max), John Stacey (Lesley), Olivia Bella (Ensemble), Jabari Braham (Ensemble), Michael Carolan (Ensemble), Alex Christian (Ensemble), Kade Ferraiolo (Ensemble), Jemma Geanaus (Ensemble), Charlie-Jay Johnson (Onstage Swing), Serina Mathew (Ensemble), Jago Mottart (Ensemble), Markus Sodergren (Onstage Swing) and Genevieve Taylor (Ensemble). It's really rolling around now - just a bit over 9 weeks to go until opening night! It was announced back in January! I'm curious about when they'll start to ramp up the promotion again to get more tickets sold. There's still good availability.

Unfortunately the last poll was stuck on a tie, so please vote for your favourite song! Will keep this open for 24 hours or so. c5jHOEjLPg0 S7cjrk58bVg

The thing is, even the question was presented in a vague enough way to fully allow Katy to steer it in the way that she ultimately answered it. Q: "I do wanna ask you about one collaborator in particular. I know a lot of people have expressed disappointment and were really upset that you decided to involve Dr Luke on this album. Why did you choose to work with him?" The interviewer wasn't specific about the reasons for the disappointment and upset - there was no context to frame her question with. As viewers in the know about the whole situation, we're applying the context to the question, but that wasn't actually asked. So, Katy wasn't required to answer it from that perspective. She chose a very specific angle - that being, that the disappointment/upset was regarding a man contributing to a female empowerment anthem. Even then, completely skirting around that it was the optics of that specific man that made it problematic. Thus, the answer she gave: A: "Look, I understand that it started a lot of conversations and he was one of many collaborators that I collaborated with... but the reality is it comes from me. The truth is, I wrote these songs from my experience of my whole life going through this metamorphosis and he was one of the people to facilitate all that - one of the writers, one of the producers - and I am speaking from my own experience, like when I speak from... when I speak about Woman's World, I speak about feeling so empowered now as a mother, as a woman, giving birth, creating life, creating another set of organs, a brain, a heart. I created a whole-ass heart. And I did it. And I'm still doing it, and I'm still a matriarch, and feeling really grounded in that. That's where I'm speaking from. And so, I created all of this, with several different collaborators, people that I've collaborated with from the past, from Teenage Dream era, all of that." Regardless, I find it bizarre that Team Katy clearly must have approved of the question to be asked... like, they wanted this to happen. They could have chosen for Dr Luke not to be raised. It's not like the Call Her Daddy podcast host is a hard-hitting journalist that wouldn't have given Katy an inch, this was a deliberate choice in a controlled environment. I have no doubt Team Katy stipulated exactly how that question would be posed, and drafted how Katy would answer it. If they geniuinely thought this was going to be effective damage control, well... it's bewildering. Because the result of this is now a widespread reaction of "she didn't answer the question, she has no shame" etc and fanning the flames even more.

I see! That would have been quite something, if they'd kept its release as far back as that, 2 months or more after the Brits performance. :drama: I think they made a wise decision to bring it forwards. I guess their team didn't predict the extent of the level of demand that the song would have off the back of that performance? Agreed, it's a shame that there's so many releases that are technically under-certified. It would be great if we had an OCC sales update - it seems they haven't done one since 2017? :(

In terms of the sales database used for certifications, singles released prior to February 1994 had their sales totals return to 0. So for instance Relight My Fire needs to sell 400,000+ since that point in time, to become Gold certified. I'm sure Relight My Fire exceeded 400,000 in total a while ago inclusive of its pre-Feb 94 sales - I estimate that it would have happened by 2020. In fact I could see it being on 450k+. However I don't think Pray will have quite made it to 600k yet, including its pre-Feb 94 sales. Therefore Relight My Fire and Pray will likely remain stuck on Silver and Gold respectively for the foreseeable future! A Million Love Songs on the other hand did manage to sell 200,000+ post-Feb 94, as of January 2019, to get itself silver certified. Thanks for your insight! :wub: I noticed when looking at their touring history that they were doing a UK arena tour around the time that Sure was promoted/released - from 24th August 94 to 12th October 94. Then it resumed in Europe in March and April 1995! Maybe this suggests that the bulk of the work on their third album took place between October 94 and March 95. I wonder if pre-the tour starting, whether they'd finished much other music other than Sure? If they'd perhaps not felt the pressure to need to have a single released in late 94, it makes me wonder whether Sure would have necessarily been chosen as a single, if they'd waited until they had an album's worth of song choices to select from! I looked through old Music Week issues and this is what they had to say about Back for Good's scheduling: 4th March 95 Early airplay can be a mixed blessing though - audiences can tire of songs and while they may have bought it two weeks into its airplay cycle they may not be so eager a month later. For dealers too it can be a problem, as those already inundated with requests for the new Take That single will surely attest. For the record, it's called Back for Good and it's out April 3. 11th March 95 Radio One also continues to plug its former exclusive, Back for Good by Take That, though several of the commercial stations are even more enthusiastic supporters of the single, which has now been brought forward from April 3 to March 27, in order for all four formats to qualify for chart purposes.

There being a 6 month gap between the releases of Sure and Back for Good strikes me as being a curious start to the Nobody Else era! In fact there was a shorter gap between Love Ain't Here Anymore (the last single from Everything Changes) and Sure: 27th June 1994 - Love Ain't Here Anymore 3rd October 1994 - Sure (14 weeks after Love Ain't Here Anymore) 27th March 1995 - Back for Good (25 weeks after Sure) Nobody Else came out in May 1995, 7 months after Sure. It just seems a bit odd, but I was too young at the time to pay attention to this, so I don't know how this would have come across to the fans back then. Were they left wondering what was going on with the third album during those months, or were Take That clear during Sure's release that the album was still quite a long way off? I read that Back for Good's release date was brought forward and that it was initially scheduled for 3rd April. The song's first performance was at the Brit Awards on 20th February. Sometimes I forget just how long the build up could be from premiere to becoming available to buy! I'm now so used to songs being instantly accessible, that it seems mad that it used to be the case that you might have to wait as long as 6 weeks or more to be able to buy a song. Sorry for the rambling! Still no major losses for me, Joseph! I don't mind Sure and it does stand out as something a bit different during their 90s run, but it's definitely overshadowed by the two singles that followed it. I wasn't all that into Cry when it came out, but having heard it again recently, I enjoyed it more than I probably ever had before!

You'd be surprised! There's quite often some viral tweets / TikToks about The Saturdays. It seems like there's a lot of young adults (i.e. children when the group were active) who like them / miss them / want to see them live for the first time! The eventual Saturdays reunion will outperform Oasis', mark my words! ( :kink: )

Amazing work Calum! Lots of fantastic songs here... and many that I don't know! I'll have to get listening :music:

What I wrote isn’t about her age! I didn’t use the word rubbish either. :P It’s just that the existence of these collabs is being framed as though it’s a master stroke, that would do great things for a (still unconfirmed) Tension reissue. They’re not good enough numbers for that.

To be completely blunt about it, this is not impressive! Even if it was just one song doing that for Kylie, that would be less than a quarter of the daily streams required to make it to #200 in the daily Global Spotify Top 200. So the fact this is across four songs and all of the mixes... her numbers are quite paltry for these songs.

Already tough, but maybe Secret Garden... and I love it! This album is strong!!

Sunday 19th November 2006 100502 George Michael (1) 62361 Jamiroquai (2) 57284 Sugababes (3) 49590 Girls Aloud (4) 43429 Angelis (5) 38137 Katherine Jenkins (6) 38095 Razorlight (7) 35591 Paul Weller (8) 33160 All Angels (9) 26957 Tenacious D (10) 26583 Simon Webbe (11) 26419 Snow Patrol (12) 26106 Scissor Sisters (13) 25971 Robbie Williams (14) 25885 Cliff Richard (15) 25660 Damien Rice (16) 25405 Justin Timberlake (17) 24997 Depeche Mode (18) 23505 Andy Abraham (19) 22741 Yusuf (20) 22583 The Game (21) 20915 McFly (22) 20264 Meat Loaf (23) 20220 Pink (24) 19939 Killers (25) 19821 Amy Winehouse (26) 16550 James Morrison (31) 15453 Luther Vandross (33) 14051 Jarvis Cocker (37) 12420 All Saints (40) Friday 15th April 2016 1 The Lumineers 10,892 2 Adele 10,561 3 All Saints 9,298 4 Aled Jones 9,225 5 Deftones 8,797 6 Lukas Graham 8,689 7 Justin Bieber 8,079 8 The Last Shadow Puppets 7,827 9 Sia 7,545 10 Jess Glynne 6,551 13 Years & Years 5,691 14 Frightened Rabbit 5,606 18 ZAYN 4,610 21 Pet Shop Boys 3,422 24 Bellowhead 3,025 27 Eliza & The Bear 2,740 28 M83 2,677 38 Black Stone Cherry 2,137 :D

Y’all need your ears testing I swear!!! GAS is legit one of her absolute highlights omg.

In a completely different style to the hit version though! :lol: foiVGE8upq8

I actually like I Found Heaven a lot! It's a pleasantly uplifting pop song. I consider it to be one of the stronger songs on the debut, so definitely not one of their worst for me! :lol: Admittedly #15 may have seemed like a backwards step to them after being #7 with It Only Takes a Minute, but nevertheless at that stage of their career it was their second best result, so not a disaster. It must have had some appeal given that the album entered at #5 directly off the back of its release!

Agreed... Taking into account all the remixes, she's achieved 55,413,497 worldwide Spotify streams with these 4 songs, over a period of 7 months. That's not really that major in the grand scheme of things, and that's before we take into account that only a certain percentage of that is UK streams. Honestly, how these singles have done on streaming here would barely move the needle for Tension's weekly streaming units. Kylie would need another genuinely big Padam sized hit to achieve that. As it stands, if a reissue happens, once again it would be most reliant on fans buying formats and it ultimately being a bit of a one week wonder. And for that reason, I'm not feeling enthused about it. I suppose if the track listing is genuinely decent and worth the money, then I'll be swayed into appreciating it existing. However, if fans have it in mind that these collaborations being included would give a major boost to its weekly sales, I'm afraid there's going to be some disappointment...

Oooh this is exciting! I think my list might end up being baised to shows I've seen more recently (like, within the past 5-10 years). Having said that I'll try my best to stretch my brain back further and try and remember shows I liked a considerably longer time ago (but can't really remember in great detail anymore :drama: )