Robbie

James Masterton has posted about 'I Run' by Haven. on his weekly chart commentary at his website: AIIIIII But we should finish on something a little out of the ordinary, noting a track that is not on the charts at all. Midweek sales flashes all noted the startling rise of a club track called I Run, credited to Haven and which was last week's No.56 single. Based on early data it would not have been a surprise to see the single on the cusp of the Top 10. But instead it is excluded completely. The reason is due to legal pressure from a number of sources which have seen takedown notices issued to DSPs (although the track can still be easily found on YouTube). Most people had convinced themselves that the uncredited singer was Jorja Smith, or was very least sampled from her. But it rather appears that the voice had been entirely AI-generated - and it was that bit that was the legally problematic part. Official Charts gave Music Week a statement on the matter, which I reproduce here: "It is against Official Charts Company policy to include within our charts any repertoire which is believed to potentially be infringing. We have received notification that a series of takedown notices have been issued to DSPs in relation to the track I Run by Haven. Our understanding is that these takedown notices have been or are in the process of being implemented. As a consequence, this track is suspended today from the Official Singles Charts.” Parts of the music industry are (not unreasonably) shitting themselves over the prospect of AI-generated music becoming a thing, although the major label signing recently of Xania Monet (who does not exist and is an AI avatar for a poet who doesn't herself sing) proves that others are ready to embrace it. AI generated music that is a knock off of an established name though? Perhaps that is a little too close to the knuckle. https://chart-watch.uk/week-ending-november-20th-2025

It might be for the reason it's an AI song. Hopefully James Masterton will clarify it when he posts his weekly chart analysis on his website.

Based on what gasman449 has posted, it would seem to be an unauthorised sample with presumably AAO Broke Isekai (the label for Haven.), or someone acting on its behalf, asking for the record to be excluded from the chart.

I voted 80k-100k.

The correct charts should be the ones compiled at the time but I suppose in theory, the ones in the archive are now the correct ones. Something subtle must have changed which has caused some charts to have titles move up or down by 1 place. Quite what it was, we'll most likely never find out.

An interesting list. Many of the albums are various shades of rock music, which doesn't do as well on the singles chart these days. A lot of the albums are by fan based acts too. I don't know how many albums there are listed above but it would be interesting to find out what % of the albums listed actually managed to climb to number 1, what % of the albums stayed at number 1 for more than a week and what % of the albums actually managed another week in the top 40 albums chart after being at #1.

'You Might Need Somebdoy' by Shola Ama had already been certified Silver back in 1997 so this is a duplicate certification by the BPI. Sales back in 1997 were 343,860 (it was the 36th best selling single of the year) and I'm assuming the 200,000 sales needed for the duplicate certification are in addition to any sales from back then. In which case, the track will have passed Gold a while ago.

It does look like it's just the way that the OCC have exported the chart from their database to the archive. kingofskiffle gave a good explanation at Haven: That particular chart was missing from the archive when it was first uploaded - that whole week was, with 10 Sep being the first since 30 April for a whole host of charts. On 18 Mar 2021 I downloaded that week and the download matches the chart as now shown on their website. 23 Dec 1995 is also in error on their website (10 and 9 swapped, and new entry for the same record at 61 for the version LOCDP376 which, when combined, elevates it to 9 overall). I agree that something would be missing from the lower down sales on 3 Sep, or they just pulled slightly differently. This is not a case of July 1999 but rather that the OCC have updated the rules for export from their database and not put in exactly what was at the time.

Interesting. Has this new version of the chart just recently appeared or might it have been like this since the archive was added a number of years ago? The differences are very subtle so I'm wondering if it's just that when the archive was added it amounted to a rerun of the chart. I'm sure there are a number of other charts where there has been what seems to be a rerun of the chart. There's an old thread here at Buzzjack about some of the changes including one where a record was suddenly elevated into the top 40 when it didn't make it at the time (or maybe it was the other way around and it was demoted from the top 40).

I went for the Klaxons, Razorlight and David Bowie.

An excellent playlist. I've saved it to my Spotify library.

Gold for 'Second Hand News' by Fleetwood Mac. It's another non-single / album track only from 'Rumours' to be certified at least Gold. It's track 1 on the album. Has every track from 'Rumours' now had at least a Silver (or Gold) certification?

Being pedantic, the chart week for many years was Monday to Saturday as there was no Sunday trading until 1994. The big chart reveal for many people in the pre October 1987 Tuesday chart reveal days wasn't necessarily the new chart on a Tuesday lunchtime or the chart recap on a Tuesday late afternoon but most likely when the next recap happened on the Wednesday breakfast show (supposedly with 10m+ listeners) or on Top Of The Pops on a Thursday (again circa 10m viewers). I think by a Sunday most people were likely aware that the chart was a recap, albeit a longer one, timewise. That said, the Sunday top 40 show was supposed to be the most listened to programme on Radio 1. Possibly because there was nothing else to listen to or watch on a Sunday!

Thanks. I didn't realise things had got that bad for the TV music channels.

Why has the TV Airplay chart suddenly become full of oldies? It seems to have suddenly started to be like this just a few weeks ago.