It isn’t all about Ed Sheeran you know, but he has made his own fair share of chart headlines with yet another new No.1 single.
Also adding to their own totals this week:
An androgynous-looking Korean man is somehow the biggest deal in America. At least for the next five minutes.
Italy have gone crazy for the acts featured in their own local TV song contest.
Is yet another new No.1 single on the cards next week?
We Love The Sound Of Him
Sometimes things just really are that predictable. The epic run of Miley Cyrus’ Flowers at the top of the Official UK Singles Chart was finally halted by the one man whose latest and greatest new material is almost certainly destined to fly straight to the top of the charts. Eyes Closed by Ed Sheeran is your brand new No.1 record.
As the man himself notes, the song is quite phenomenally his 14th No.1 single in the UK. That’s as many as Cliff Richard managed in the space of 40 years, and as many as Westlife did in the slightly brisker time span of 7. As you will doubtless have read elsewhere, the only other acts who can boast a fuller set of No.1 records are The Beatles and Elvis Presley. So Ed is floating in some quite rarefied air indeed.
But, as a great act once wondered, just how did he get here? Because 14 No.1 singles seems a hell of a lot. So here they all are, and just when and how they happened:
Sing, June 2014. Believe it or not, it took Ed Sheeran almost four years from his 2011 chart debut to finally make it to the summit. The first single released from his second album x (Multiply), this heralded his brief diversion into R&B dude with a track that wore its influences on its sleeve with more than a passing resemblance to Do You Think I’m Sexy. Although just for a change this was deliberate.
Thinking Out Loud, November 2014. The song which was up to that point his greatest love ballad composition, and a single which had first landed on the singles chart in June and which took an epic 19 weeks to make its way to the top of the charts.
Shape Of You, January 2017. The point at which the red-headed stepchild of pop moved from major talent to the status of absolute superstar. It would spend 14 weeks in total at the top of the charts, during which time tracks from his Divide album would dominate the entire Top 20 and prompt a revision of the chart rules later that summer to prevent anything like that from ever happening again.
Perfect, December 2017. Whereupon Ed and his people found a clever way around some other rules. Perfect was one of the Ed Sheeran tracks which had invaded the Top 10 en masse in April, indeed entering at No.4 as one of the standout cuts. But it was a succession of newly recorded duet versions with first Beyonce and then Andrea Bocelli which meant the single moved smartly into pole position in early December, duly becoming the last non-Ladbaby Christmas No.1
River, January 2018. The first of the “additional” chart toppers, this actually an Eminem single on which Sheeran supplied guest vocals. But it meant that he effectively replaced himself at the top of the charts, this was the single which brought the No.1 run of Perfect to an end.
I Don’t Care, May 2019. Another duet, the first of a run of hit singles taken from his Collaborations Project No.6 side, er, project. Justin Bieber supplied co-vocals on the track which remained at the summit until the schools broke up, its 8-week run at the top of the charts was only brought to an end by Senorita from Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello. Which was in turn turfed from the top after a week by…
Beautiful People, July 2019. A solo credited single this one, even though it was from the collaborations album and actually had Khalid on co-performing duties. Its moment of glory was briefer, just a single week at the top for this one with Senorita snatching the crown back immediately. However, five weeks later he’d be back again.
Take Me Back To London, September 2019. Ed’s third No.1 single of the year saw him team up with Stormzy, Big Mike and Teddy (as they namechecked themselves on the track) would spend five weeks locking down the No.1 position.
Own It, January 2020. The roles were then reversed three months later as Stormzy returned the favour, inviting Ed to guest on his track which would lurk at the top of the charts for three weeks just prior to Covid changing the world forever.
Bad Habits, July 2021. Borrowing either from Cry For You by September or Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat, but either way this was truly the smash hit of summer 2021. And it duly lodged itself at the top of the charts for 11 weeks and has never really faded from our consciousness since.
Shivers, September 2021. The moment at which Ed Sheeran tore up every record book going, becoming only the second artist in chart history to replace himself at No.1 twice. And he wasn’t finished with that particular stunt either.
Merry Christmas, December 2021. The duet with Elton John which may have been as nakedly cynical as it comes, but as its chart return this year proved does mean Ed is now the proud owner of a genuine Christmas standard. I still don’t think I’ve heard it all the way through though.
Sausage Rolls For Everyone, December 2021. The one we’d all like to forget in truth, as a fortnight after the release of Merry Christmas Ed and Elton jumped on a Ladbaby reworking of the song, replaced themselves at the top of the charts (Ed here doing it for a third time) and gave the sausage roll millionaire a chance to grow our irritation at him.
And that’s how it all happened. 14 No.1 singles, not all of them his own songs as a lead performer of course. And four of them all coming in the same extraordinary year.
Near A Tree By A River There’s A Hole In The Ground
Lana Del Rey is another of those artists who have found their niche and by and large remain firmly in it. Her singles charts appearances have been sporadic and few, her 2011 breakthroughs Video Games and Born To Die were both Top 10 hits but her only other major chart appearances since have been as a result of one-off collaborations. Be they the Cedric Gervais remix of her Summertime Sadness in 2013 or more recently her appearance alongside Taylor Swift on the album cut Snow On The Beach.
But as an albums artist she still has the ability to command huge attention, her every new release (just like her current one) being breathlessly hailed as the second coming by a startlingly noisy set of online fans.
That’s why what we have witnessed this week should not come as a total shock. Her latest album Did You Know There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd not only becomes her sixth No.1 album in total (her first since Chemtrails Over The Country Club in 2021) but it does so with a startlingly huge sale of 41,925. Fully 20,809 of these were on vinyl as well, proving that she is appealing to a very large collectors market. Not since 2014’s Ultraviolence has she moved that many records in an album’s first week on sale.
Lana Del Rey is now fifth on the all-time list of most successful solo female artists. Only Madonna (12), Taylor Swift (9), Kylie Minogue (8) and Barbra Streisand (7) have more No.1 albums to their name.
My Hundred Is Hot
Jimin (better known to his mother as Park Ji-Min, and better known to the rest of us as one part of BTS) already made a bit of personal history of his own by becoming the first of his bandmates to have a solo single in the British Top 10, but he goes one better in America this week. His track Like Crazy becomes the 66th single in American chart history to fly straight to the top of the Hot 100 and in the process he becomes the first Korean soloist to top the American charts.
That fact alone may come as a small shock, but then you remember that Gangnam Style by Psy peaked at No.2 in America back in 2012 at the time it was topping charts elsewhere.
Whether this chart placing is sustainable is open to question. Like Crazy was the most-purchased track in America last week, but Miley Cyrus is still airplay Queen and Morgan Wallen is owning it at streaming. It is a similar story in Britan, most of Like Crazy’s Top 10 chart sales were downloads. Meaning it is likely to plummet dramatically second time around.
Ed Sheeran’s Eyes Closed has got off to a slow start on the American charts, a new entry at a mere No.26.
Aus Tra Lia
Situation normal in Australia, as Miley Cyrus remains immovable at the top. But there’s Ed Sheeran making a strong enough debut inside the Top 10 to shake things up a little. The two year old Shivers and Bad Habits still retain places in the Australian Top 40. Inevitably.
Forza
As regular readers will know, Italy gonna Italy, the music market there bearing little or no relation to anything taking place elsewhere. Miley Cyrus has yet to make the Top 10 with Flowers, that single stranded at No.11. And Eyes Closed can only debut at No.66, Jimin way down at No.93.
So here is Italy’s No.1 single of the moment, a song by Italian rapper and producer Lazza which, as the video indicates, was his entry for the annual Sanremo Music Festival (the RAI network’s own local televised song contest which takes place over four nights) in which it placed second. The winner was the Marco Mengoni track which is No.3 in that mini chart embedded above.
The Blasts From The Past
Five years ago: ACR rules manipulate matters a little as Drake’s God’s Plan is turfed from the top of the charts to leave a gap neatly occupied by These Days from Rudimental and Jess Glynne, the track equalling a semi-famous chart record by finally making the top after seven weeks locked at No.2.
Ten years ago: In a quite famous television moment Ant and Dec piggyback on a Big Reunion feature on Saturday Night Takeaway to perform their 1994 single Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble for the first time in almost 20 years. And it duly flies to the top of the charts, prompting a mad scramble to hand the royalties over to charity.
Twenty Years ago: Make Luv by Room 5 storms to No.1. Bet you had all forgotten it was down to a TV ad for deodorant as well.
Midweek Teases
I speculated in the Chart Watch piece this weekend that Ed Sheeran’s spell at No.1 may be short-lived, his chart sale propped up largely by purchases of a batch of signed CD singles. Had they not been counted for chart purposes the track would have only made the Top 5.
The midweeks prove that this was no idle speculation, as of Monday evening the current No.1 is tracking to only make No.3 in its second week. But for the moment the odds are against a quick return to No.1 for Miley Cyrus. Instead it is Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding’s Robert Miles-inspired Miracle which is in pole position. Although there are presently just 1,000 chart sales in it, meaning nothing is for the moment set in stone.
A changing of the guard at No.1 may well be the most interesting story to tell this coming weekend. The highest new entry may well be another solo K-Pop track as JISOO, one of the many many members of Blackpink is set to creep just inside the Top 30 with this cut:
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