Welcome to Lewis Capaldi week on the UK charts, where a clever attempt at manipulating people into doing something really unfashionable has propelled the crafty Scotsman to the very top. We will explain how shortly.
Also clearing the warehouse of stock this week:
Turning failures into success.
Germany has a brilliant No.1 single. But have we heard it somewhere before?
Smile Miley!
Don’t Forget Him
“Of course, the charts are all based on downloads these days as nobody buys singles”. So the received wisdom, imparted by any journalist writing an article on the singles chart, goes”. Were that the case then Pointless by Lewis Capaldi would be this week’s No.13 single, its approximately 2 million digital streams only enough to convert to just over 17,000 sales.
But to this day the charts remain compiled on the basis of song purchases, and physical ones to boot. The combination of a Graham Norton show appearance, the release of three new online exclusive mixes and three different versions of a CD single (two of which came personally signed) containing yet another exclusive remix all combined to add a further 39,000 to the sales total of the single. While it wasn’t all plain sailing (last week’s No.1 Escapism was a mere 1,198 copies behind) it was still in the end more than enough to propel the hitherto underperforming Lewis Capaldi single to the very top of the charts.
Whether this was always part of the promotional plan from the outset or whether it was a reaction to the way Pointless had largely failed to emerge from the post-Christmas blob in quite the way it had been hoped when it was first flung out in mid-December, but either way it is a very smart bit of marketing by the Scotsman’s label. Having established himself as something of a singles chart GOAT since the start of the decade, to have an intricately constructed and heart-wrenching Lewis Capaldi ballad merely scull around the Top 20 for a bit simply wasn’t going to do. By hook or by crook they have engineered him a fourth No.1 single.
Then again, everything else about Pointless screams “festive single”, right down to the fairy lights, woolly scarves and Christmas decorations present in the literally tear-jerking video.
Plenty More Where That Came From
We could actually wax lyrical for pages about the startling number of stats Lewis Capaldi has generated with this journey to No.1. For a start, 39,000 is in itself a pretty huge paid sale in this day and age for a record that is neither charity release nor Christmas No.1 stunt. No single this decade has moved as many as 22,000 copies on CD.
Pointless makes a 15-1 jump to No.1 this week, the first single to charge to the top of the charts from outside the Top 10 under normal circumstances since Drake’s One Dance climbed 21-1 in April 2016. That is of course to ignore the 38-1 leap made by Adele’s Easy On Me just over a year ago, but that was as part of the January 2022 new year reset, so doesn’t quite count as “normal circumstances”. And anyway, that was returning to the top after a few weeks away.
In an age when singles spending a small eternity at the top of the charts is considered a normal part of the background noise of life, it is also worth noting that since Taylor Swift exited the No.1 position in December we have had singles by Mariah Carey, Wham!, Ladbaby, Wham! (again), RAYE and now Lewis Capaldi all taking turns at the top, the No.1 changing hands for six consecutive weeks, the first time this has happened since summer 2015.
And we may well be due a seventh. Almost needless to say the rather artificial nature of Lewis Capaldi’s journey to the top means his sales numbers were always going to be tough to sustain for even a second week. And so it proves, Pointless ranking no higher than No.11 on the latest set of midweeks. It could well wind up the first single ever to climb to No.1 from outside the Top 10 and then exit from whence it came in consecutive weeks.
Ring In The Old
Those long enough in the tooth to remember the charts in January 1985 may also recall there was something rather notable about many of the singles making their way up the listings.
Almost uniquely for the time the Top 40 contained no fewer than five reactivated semi-flops, hits that had underperformed the first time around but which were enjoying re-promotion and new leases of life.
There was 1999 by Prince and The Revolution (originally a No.25 hit two years earlier), Love And Pride by King (previously a No.84 flop seven months before), Dancing In The Dark by Bruce Springsteen (originally No.28 in May ‘84), Ya Mo Be There by James Ingram and Michael McDonald (first of all No.44 in March ‘84) and finally Sharp Dressed Man by ZZ Top (which had hit No.53 in December 1983).
Back then naturally you needed someone to make the decision to re-press, re-promote and re-awaken a failed hit. In the new digital era when everything remains on catalogue forever unless someone says otherwise, we are seeing an ever-increasing number of hits that have lain in wait for some time and are now enjoying their moments in the sun.
But it is still worthy of note that the charts of January 2023 contain 1985-levels of hitherto undisturbed classics. We are all familiar with Tom Odell’s Another Love, the No.10 hit from 2013 which has roared back to that identical peak ten years later. But it is joined in the Top 20 this week by the suddenly viral Sure Thing from Miguel, a minor US hit in 2011 but which Tik Tok has propelled to streaming success, an ACR reset and a first-ever UK chart position.
Until I Found You by Steven Sanchez, that irresistible Richie Valens soundalike ballad is also in this week’s Top 10, a single first released in September 2021 but which went unnoticed until now. There’s also Lady Gaga’s Bloody Mary, dating from 2011 but which as we mentioned last week is a Top 40 hit for the first time thanks to Netflix. And bringing up the rear is Shut Up My Mom’s Calling from Hotel Ugly, bearing a video whose YouTube upload date is July 2021. Once upon a time Week 1 from release was the only thing that mattered. In 2023, all it takes for a hit track - any hit track by anyone - is patience.
Land Of The Free
We’ve barely been back at work five minutes but Billboard are having the day off regardless. Even Official Charts flung out a listing the day after the Queen died, even if they insisted it was just “for the record” and was never promoted or broadcast.
No matter, a worthwhile follow on Twitter is the @lippredicts account which uses publicly available stats to make a surprisingly educated guess as to the composition of the forthcoming Hot 100 chart, in lieu of America doing anything resembling public midweeks.
So what does he predict for this week? A tight battle between Taylor Swift and SZA for No.1 honours.
Summer Down Under
Praise be, a new No.1 in Australia. And even if she doesn’t make it to the top on the Hot 100 when it comes out tomorrow, SZA still has the honour of the biggest hit of the week in Australia.
The biggest climber down under is just outside the Top 10, as just as in Britain Stephen Sanchez’ Until I Found You is rocketing in popularity, rising 30-12 in one single bound. Fascinatingly the ARIA charts are one of the few to directly list the track with a credit for Em Beihold, who added a verse to the original last year. It is technically this one that is getting the lions’ share of streams in Britain but with no official video available it is struggling for visibility.
Achtung
The new entries on the German charts this week include a single debuting at No.1. Sie Weiß from Alyvia x Mero blowing the competition away. It is a compelling, absorbing single. But I’m surely not the only one who thinks it bears a startling resemblance (if only in vibe and structure) to Clean Bandit’s Baby, am I?
Gratuitous Archive Flashback Feature
Five years ago: The 2017 Christmas No.1 was immovable at the top, but Bruno Mars had the biggest new hit of the moment, even if it didn’t quite end up as enduring a classic as his previous smashes.
Ten years ago: will.i.am and Britney Spears were No.1 with a track that most people have now forgotten. But the headlines were grabbed by David Bowie who forced Official Charts into fixing a previously annoying anomaly, allowing his instant grat single to chart and giving him a record gap between Top 10 hits which persisted until Abba broke it in 2021.
Twenty Years ago: the Girls Aloud era was still only in its infancy, Electric Six broke into the charts with a burst of energy they were never able to sustain, and The Foo Fighters were new with one of their most famous hits, and a song which would become a charity No.1 during the 2020 lockdown.
Midweek Teases
So if Lewis Capaldi isn’t going to be No.1 this week, then who is?
She took a little time to warm up, but as of the Monday evening midweeks it is Miley Cyrus who is in pole position with Flowers and set to land what would be her first No.1 single since her 2013 brace of We Can’t Stop and Wrecking Ball. She’s deserved better in recent years, Nothing Breaks Like A Heart was epic, Midnight Sky similarly a classic in waiting, but they peaked at 2 and 5 respectively.
Now she’s back to wrestle for the Queen of Pop title once more. It is the first genuine global smash of 2023 so far. And who cares if it will be yet another new No.1. This one will stick.
Fun fact: this will only be the sixth Top 75 hit to be titled simply “Flowers”. All but the first two have been in the 2020s.
Quite barmily the midweek No.1 album is St Jude, the Courteeners’ 2008 debut album which is reaping the benefits of a 15th-anniversary reissue. It has 14,536 chart sales to its name right now, of which all but 160 or so are thanks to physical copies. So you can all but guarantee it won’t add any more. Don’t be shocked if Taylor Swift has caught up by the weekend.
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The new UK charts are announced by Radio One from 4pm every Friday, can be seen in full on officialcharts.com and musicweek.com, and you can read by own detailed charts analysis - now celebrating its 30th year online - at chart-watch.uk.
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