Bror

He'll need to do about double the first week sales 'First Person Shooter' managed to displace 'Rein Me In' which feels like a tall order but that is an impressively fast dash to #1 on Apple.

'Satisfaction Skank' finally actually officially playlisted then! (I did hear it plenty of times on the breakfast show the last few weeks so not sure why it wasn't on the playlist anyway - although given it's definitely just being played because of Fatboy Slim's Big Weekend slot I assume it'll be dumped after Big Weekend is over)

Seen people speculating that the 3 albums are just to wrap up his contract with UMG which would make sense considering he's been beefing with them for a while. (All 3 albums together could still feasibly be the length of a single Chris Brown or Morgan Wallen album though so it's not an entirely unprecedented amount of material to drop in one day lol - I would assume 'Iceman' will get a lot more attention than the other two albums especially looking at the early online reception)

aside: I should listen to that 'STORM' thing but I appreciate the attempt at the double Persephonia artist recycle anyway xx

These will be the smallest semis of the year so far!

I think there's a decent chance it will still be up today

As of right now we have 56 entries - welcome back to Niceland who are the only returning nation x From last month aside from the 2 banned nations we've not got an entry from Cumulonimbia (D:) and Utopia (as expected as they usually only come back for one contest every few months of late). I do still need to finish with veto research writeups which realistically won't be done until 6-7pm or so so if anyone would like to squeeze in a late entry and relieve @dhwe of having to vote in both semis feel free to x edit: actually if I'd have checked the spreadsheet again before writing this I'd have seen we did already get a straggler Cumulonimbia entry about half an hour ago hehe (yay)

2 out of 3 of the pre-album singles from the Wuthering Heights soundtrack didn't chart at all!

'BAYAREA.BMP' was an 18 for me and still heavily slaps to this day (I last got it on shuffle just about a week ago). I think I liked the one from Club Bizarre too but not quite as much.

This isn't something they've 'added', it's always how the rule has worked! (I understand it in concept but I do think that a rise by less than the market should count as a decline in the same way that a decline by less than the market counts as a rise, that would probably reduce the number of songs greatly overstaying their welcomes on SCR).

Yeah its only previous chart appearance was reaching #62 right after he died.

The top track from Drake's last solo album did 27.7k in its first week and his name power is significantly diminished since then, he'll need to have a song go viral very quickly to get #2 even with the low bar for that right now. He hasn't had a UK #1 since 2020, I'm sure he could get there again one day with the right song but he's very far from being in the conversation for assuming he'll get #1 first week with a new release.

It doesn't, it was treated as a compilation last week. Per the Alan Jones commentary labels have the ability to nominate one compilation to have all streams count towards it regardless of pure sales, 'The Essential Michael Jackson' has clearly been the chosen album for MJ since February 2023 although it appears they've switched the streaming allocation for one week twice this year. Once in February when 'Number Ones' was given its streams for a week coinciding with a new physical release, and then again last week to give streams to the soundtrack for its release week. The fact that 'Number Ones' and 'The Essential' were both charting last week was a bit of a headscratcher but I guess it would be explained by labels only being able to lock streams to one album per artist (which was the soundtrack last week), so the streams for the songs not on the soundtrack reverted to the default of going to the compilation with the highest pure sales - that is still 'Number Ones', so that got the streams of the majority of his most popular songs that aren't on the soundtrack, but 'The Essential' still got a good chunk of streams itself as well from the tracks that are on neither the soundtrack or 'Number Ones'. But it's back to the status quo this week so 'The Essential' hoovers up all the streams while both the soundtrack and 'Number Ones' get nothing (except their pure sales) despite both continuing to have higher pure sales.

Just the two new entries on Spotify: 29 Charli xcx - Rock Music 136 Calvin Harris and Jazzy - Satisfy 'Go' up another 11 places to #28 - a top 10 contender this week? MJ now has 4 songs in the top 10 ('Billie Jean' #4, 'Beat It' #6, 'Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough' #7 and 'Human Nature' #9).

They've had a fair few singles in the last few years that didn't chart at all. Their career trajectory is a bit odd - they were such a consistent chart presence for years leading up to the moment of getting a #1 album, and then almost immediately dropped off into near total irrelevance after that (they've not had a top 40 hit since 'Eagle' charted alongside the release of the #1 album). Not complaining of course x

Oh yas here it is

I am sitting in the car park waiting for 'Go' to come on (as I'll switch away from Radio 1 and drive home after that), did not expect to be waiting this long x Jack better not have been spreading misinformation x

First time hearing that Madonna song and to no surprise it is mid x (I actually really liked 'I Feel So Free' though!)

There has been relatively quite a lot going on this week so far though compared to a lot of other recent weeks?

Ooh of course The Jackson 5 aren't subject to Michael's 3 track rule.

Maybe The Chemical Brothers actually were on ACR in the midweek update?

Lol

'Doesn't Just Happen' <3

Any artist recycle gets at least 3 veto points automatically (more if they've been entered multiple times within the last 30 contests) then it also can get more points depending on the success of their previous appearance(s) (it's +12 for having a previous top 5 hit).

Model/Actriz are 100% banned from this contest for finishing in the top 3 last contest as has always been a rule anyway x (and as I hinted in the other thread there's a high chance that any attempt to enter them again any time in the near future will be vetoed regardless after 2 top 5 finishes in the span of a year)