This was my placeholder text for an introduction. I figured I’d leave it in just to see if anyone actually reads these bits.
Also triggering everyone with a two-second shot of a piss party this week:
Still in Miley land, setting records as she goes
Italy is Bizarre(rap) as it always is
Sam Smith is heading for a third No.1 album
Playing Her Song - A Lot
Last week in this pages a foolish man wrote:
“..despite the Spotify hype her streaming numbers are impressive - 9 million or so - but they aren’t Olivia Rodrigo levels of impressive.”
Well, it turns out Flowers was only just getting into high gear. I’m annoyed I haven’t turned up the exact numbers from anywhere (reliant on those friends with full database access) but Official Charts announced to the world on Friday that Miley Cyrus was top of the singles chart this week thanks to a colossal total of over 13 million streams.
If that is the case then that makes this one of still only less than 20 occasions that a single track has commanded more than 13M plays in seven days. Leaving aside Christmas songs (which mess with the story) the only other hits to have done so are genuine smashes of the last six years or so - 7 Rings, Shape Of You and yes, Driver’s License and Good 4 U which both had 13 million weeks of their own back in 2021. So would you know it, Miley Cyrus is indeed now up to Olivia Rodrigo levels of huge.
It seems only logical that this happened, the song somehow suddenly achieving mainstream talkability with thinkpieces aplenty about the return of the break-up song and with no less a legend than Gloria Gaynor praising Miley for joining the pantheon of singers of female empowerment anthems.
All those streams meant Flowers blasted through the six-figure mark, her final chart sale of 121,151 was not only double the 59,082 that Escapsim posted to make No.2 but also the highest Week 2 sale achieved by any single since Shape Of You way back in 2017.
Incidentally, the all-time weekly streaming record remains the 23,999,705 clocked up by Easy On Me in late 2021. Meaning Miley Cyrus is huge, but not quite Adele levels of huge.
Do It Yourself
The No.1 album of the week is by South Yorkshire band The Reytons, the presence of What’s Rock And Roll at the top of the charts is notable due to the fact it is an entirely self-released piece of work. “No backing, no label, all Reytons” was the slogan.
Talk of it being the first No.1 album by an “unsigned” act is a little wide of the mark (Viola Beach count as one after all) but you cannot take away the sheer audacity of the feat of beating the entire music market with something you arranged to manufacture and upload yourself. And I speak here as a self-published author who could not dream of topping the book charts.
However, this achievement isn’t quite as organic as it might seem. There were - believe it or not - as many as 32 different variations of the album available. It came out in 16 different CDs, 9 LPs, 5 cassettes and two different digital bundles.
The Reytons also ran a pop-up shop in the Meadowhall shopping centre to boost their visibility from which you suspect a large number of sales resulted. Ordinarily sales for a record concentrated in a single area tend to set off chart-hyping alarms at Kantar HQ, however these will naturally have been noted as legitimate.
For all that What’s Rock & Roll “only” landed 12,252 chart sales. Or one-tenth of a Miley if you will. But that was still more than enough to make it far and away the biggest album of the week. None of the others made it above 10,000 sales.
Land Of The Finally Pulled Their Fingers Out
Praise be, Billboard publish the Hot 100 online as per their planned schedule for the first time in literally weeks. Inevitably the No.1 for a second week is Flowers. For those who haven’t had enough stat porn, they report that the Miley Cyrus single becomes the first single since drivers license to earn 50 million plus streams in back-to-back weeks and that its total this week of 59.8m makes it the most streamed track in America since Drake’s Way Too Sexy landed itself 67 million way back in 2021.
In America, as here, everyone is staying out of the way of Miley. The highest new entry on the Hot 100 is by Trippie Red, one of three album cuts he places, but Knight Crawler can only debut at a lowly No.52.
Aus Tra Lia
Yeah, nothing new to report here. Shall we move on?
Forza
This you could have kind of predicted. Bizarrap’s most recent hits have all been huge Italian smashes, and while Music Sessions Volume 53 has proved to be something of a one-week wonder in the English-speaking world, it has grabbed southern Europe by the short and curlies. Debuting at No.2 in Italy last week, it is proudly No.1 to give Bizarrap his second chart-topping hit on the FIMI charts. His first, Vol 52 is still hanging around ready for the sixth-month anniversary of its release and is this week’s No.4.
For Italy’s highest new entry this week we have to once more dig deep down. This is their No.47 hit, as performed by local lass Rose Villain, her debut album Radio Gotham having been released last week and making an impressive No.5 debut. Maneskin have Italy’s No.1 album, naturally.
Gratuitous Archive Flashback Feature
Five years ago: Eminem retains his proud record of never topping the charts for longer than a week, replaced at the summit by Drake’s God’s Plan, leaving us all in fear it was going to be stuck there forever. Britain was also in the grip of Greatest Showman fever, so This Is Me reached the Top 10 for the very first time.
Ten years ago: Another new No.1 as Get Up (Rattle) smashed its way to the top for Bingo Players. And I suspect you haven’t heard it since.
Twenty Years ago: David Sneddon still has the No.1 slot nailed down, leaving “me and my girlfriend” to debut instead at No.2 as Jay-Z and Beyonce “Knowles” begin their relationship in the most public manner they could manage. Even if neither were admitting it at the time.
Midweek Teases
The idea that ANYTHING is going to depose Flowers at No.1 is quite frankly absurd, Miley’s single is already on 41,000 sales for the week, leaving Escapism languishing behind on 19K. It is kind of in the bag.
The highest new entry will come from the unlikely (on the face of it) combination of KSI and Oliver Tree although Voices has dropped out of the Top 10 as of the Monday midweeks having been predicted to land inside on the Sunday evening First Look.
The No.1 album is a lock for Sam Smith with Gloria on almost 10,000 sales already. People have been going nuts online about the rather eye-popping video for its next single, although that outrage hasn’t actually translated into a strong debut. The Calvin Harris-penned and co-produced I’m Not Here To Make Friends (a track that must have Dua Lipa contemplating her existence) may well only scrape a place in the Top 30 come Friday.
Pisser.
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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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