Our first big deal hit of 2023 has arrived at long last, the newly relaunched Miley Cyrus has picked her moment, free of competition and blows everyone away worldwide.
Also turning Bruno Mars songs on their head this week:
Dinosaurs at the top. Literally, and figuratively.
The English-speaking world is carpeted with Flowers.
But the Dutch go in a slightly different direction.
Nodding My Head Like Yeah
It is hard to escape the conclusion that as resets go, this one has been phenomenally successful.
As I attempted to convey in the Chart Watch column this week, Miley Cyrus’ career has stuttered over the course of the decade since her Bangerz album and the genuine level of stardom its success was supposed to convey. Her biggest successes since We Don’t Stop and Wrecking Ball topped the charts were all in collaboration with others, be they will.i.am, Mark Ronson or the all-star “Charlie’s Angels” single Don’t Call Me Angel (No.2 hits all, lest we forget). Her own solo comeback with Malibu in 2017 was a bit of a bust, and although her 2020 album Plastic Hearts was all told rather fabulous and contained the towering pop majesty of Midnight Sky it was not only the final album of her deal (and as such perhaps less of a label priority than it could have been) but it was also released in the teeth of the pandemic, severely limiting the amount of global promotion she was able to do. And let’s face it, most things released in 2020 were on a “stick it out and hope for the best” basis.
So 2023 marks her chance for a proper comeback. The hype for her new album Endless Summer Vacation began this week with the release of Flowers, a track which has prompted endless discussion as to its lyrical subtext and which reportedly set new Spotify benchmarks the moment it appeared.
So to start with the song is an instantaneous No.1 on the Official UK Singles chart (heading up, incidentally, the first all-female Top 4 for four years) and with some suitably impressive numbers. 91,731 chart sales is the biggest weekly number any single has managed since Harry Styles’ As It Was debuted with 94,140 in spring last year. But despite the Spotify hype her streaming numbers are impressive - 9 million or so - but they aren’t Olivia Rodrigo levels of impressive. Which is curious if nothing else.
Flowers continues a fun sequence of new No.1 hits, the seventh different song to top the charts in as many weeks and following Escapism and Pointless it is the third in a row with a single word in the title. We haven’t seen that since late 2020 when Mood, Lemonade and Positions all followed each other in close quarters. They were themselves preceded by WAP but technically that was an acronym rather than a word. Four one-word titled No.1 hits in a row last happened in late 2017, the sequence of Rockstar, Havana, Perfect and River. So now you know.
While we are playing, as I noted last week this is only the sixth different Top 75 hit named Flowers and the first to reach the top, Sweet Female Attitude peaking at No.2 in 2000. The only other No.1 singles to mention flora in the title both referred to the wearing of them as headgear: Scott McKenzie’s San Fransisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair and Sandi Thom’s I Wish I Were A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair).
I fear I may have blown all the fun facts in one go here. This is a single that (finally) seems set to remain in place for a good few weeks to come.
Lying Footballers
Regular readers of these pages will already be aware of the exploits of Argentinian producer Bizarrap and the long-running success of his BZRP Music Sessions singles, collaborations with an ever-growing band of celebrity guest stars, examples of which have flown up the Spanish and Italian charts in recent months.
He finally makes his British chart bow this week with BRZP Music Sessions Vol.53 thanks it appears to the vocal tones of Shakira who graces this latest numerically named hit. The track storms the UK chart at No.31, marking the Colombian star’s own comeback with her first chart entry since 2014’s Empire. As if to continue a theme, this is also a dis track with the disintegration of her own marriage a clear subtext here.
The Girl From 15 Years Ago
Shenanigans at the top of the albums chart as well this week, the new year lull opening the door for the 15th-anniversary re-release of St Jude by The Courteeners to march to No.1 with 19,022 re-purchasers contributing to it beating its No.4 peak from first time around. To put that in context, the No.2 album this week was Taylor Swift’s Midnights with just 9,000 sales to its name. A close race this was not.
Not only is this perhaps startlingly a record - no album has ever taken 15 years from release to make it to No.1 - but the Mancunians join rock legends The Beatles and The Rolling Stones as the only acts to take specially packaged re-releases to No.1.
Well, sort of. Because there’s a fascinating “yeahbut” here, the kind of footnote we chart nerds love because the waters are muddied ever so slightly by one curiosity from the 1970s.
Back in 1972 Marc Bolan was the biggest popstar in Britain bar none. His T-Rex outfit were carpet-bombing the charts with hits and there was an almost insatiable demand for material by him of any kind.
This was music to the ears of the rightsholders of his pre-fame work, the understated boogiemen of T-Rex having evolved from the hippy psychedelic folk rockers Tyrannosaurus Rex. T-Rex mania prompted Regal Zonophone to re-release the group’s two 1968 albums in a special double edition. Both had some quite extraordinary titles. My People Were Fair And Had Sky In Their Hair But Now They’re Content To Wear Stars On Their Brows had made No.15 upon first release, but Prophets, Seers & Sages: The Angels Of The Ages had failed to grace the public listings. The new 1972 version of both was a far greater success, flying to the top of the charts for a single moment of glory in early May, interrupting the No.1 run of Machine Head by Deep Purple in the process.
It is the only two albums in one package collection ever to top the albums chart, and its presence does rather wreck the narrative of the small list of acts to top the chart with re-released special editions. Because technically T-Rex invented the idea over 50 years ago.
Land Of The Free
I don’t think it is unreasonable to assume that Miley Cyrus will be top of the Hot 100 this week. But for the second week running Billboard, publishers and indeed owners of what is considered the gold standard for singles chart countdowns, aren’t able to put the US singles chart out on time. Leaving us all dangling.
So once more we leave matters to the predicted talents of @lippredicts who is forecasting a resounding victory for Flowers, topping the charts ahead of eternal bridesmaid SZA by some margin.
Zoom into the table and you will note that the Bizarrap and Shakira collaboration also seems set for a Top 10 debut.
Summer Down Under
Yep, pretty predictable across the English-speaking world. Miley has missed out on the summit of the ARIA charts in the past but blasts away the competition with this gargantuan hit.
Laid Low By The Low Countries
According to the people behind the Dutch charts, only 62 singles have ever entered their countdown in the Top 3. Shockingly Miley fails to become the 63rd, landing instead at No.4.
Spending his sixth week at No.1 in Holland is former “The Voice Kids” graduate Claude Kiambe. Congolese by birth but Dutch bred, he went on to participate in TV talent show Are You Next? and released this, his debut single at the end of last year.
This single may annoy you as much as it annoys me, the chorus (sung to la) I’m convinced bearing a strong resemblance to something else. It is neither Drive by Clean Bandit, nor Rapture by iio. So I cannot put my finger on what. [AcerBen on Twitter suggests it is Meduza’s Piece Of Your Heart. As covered by Stromae to whom Claude is extensively compared. It all fits].
Gratuitous Archive Flashback Feature
Five years ago: Eminem tops the charts for the ninth time in his career, but in bringing Ed Sheeran along for the ride the Englishman replaces himself at No.1. The first British star since John Lennon to pull off the trick.
Ten years ago: Eminem was also a part of the week’s highest new entry, although this could only peak at No.2. Plus this was the start of Justin Timberlake’s lounge-suited smoothie era as he began a wintertime domination of his own.
Twenty Years ago: the impact of the BBC’s Pop Idol-rivalling series Fame Academy was brief, but the charts of early 2003 played host to a parade of the talent it discovered. Series winner David Sneddon shot to No.1 this week, although the chart also featured hits from Pop Idol losers Zoe Birkett and Rosie Ribbons as if to compensate. Oh, and Peter Stringfellow’s then-girlfriend.
Midweek Teases
Flowers is, as you might expect, firmly in the lead on the midweek charts once more. But its Monday evening figure of - get this - 45,000 sales suggests that in Week 2 it seems set to indeed to Olivia Rodrigo-esque numbers. Given that the figure above is based on streaming data from Friday and Saturday alone.
Understandably everyone else is staying out of the way. Headie One is set for the highest new entry this week, Martin’s Sofa tracking to land inside the Top 10.
What’s Rock And Roll by The Reytons is presently precariously placed at the head of the albums market. Continuing a fine modern-day tradition of acts with nary a sniff of singles success able to command the sales numbers to creep to high numbers on the long players’ chart.
I’ll leave you this week with a link to my favourite thing online at the moment, an extraordinary visual depiction of the way recorded music formats have come and gone. And in the case of vinyl come back again.
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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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