Chart Watch Weekly - November 28th 2022
Home For Christmas?
A winter World Cup has messed everyone's internal clock up very badly (we watch England games in pub gardens with George Ezra on the jukebox for later dammit), but it also means we have ended up with a curious intersection of those two fine chart traditions - football songs and Christmas music.
The golden age of the 90s and 00s when each major football coincided with a string of people chancing their arms with football-themed tracks (heck, I even participated in one for the 2004 Euros) has now gone forever. But whenever England are in action you can guarantee that Three Lions by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds will pop up on the charts somewhere.
First recorded for the European championships and a No.1 single twice over in 1996, the trio re-recorded the track with new vocals for the 1998 World Cup and were rewarded with another trip back to the top. In the wake of the England side playing against type and actually doing well at the last World Cup in 2018 the track made an even more sensational comeback than usual, hitting No.1 once again despite theoretically being hamstrung by ACR status. That didn't matter because it was being listened to so many times.
Frank Skinner wrote in his 2002 autobiography that he regretted the 1998 remake, feeling it was too much of a cash-in and trod on the legacy of the original. Since then he has clearly had a change of heart, participating in a new charity reworking (credited to The Squad) in 2010 and now reuniting the original team for a 2022 festively-themed remake. Disturbingly the idea seems to have worked, and Three Lions (Coming Home For Christmas) effectively lands at No.20 this week. It is indeed as terrible as you had feared.
But this is where it gets interesting, as there may have been method in the madness. A re-write and re-recording it may be, but it still counts as an "alternate" version of the original 1996 issue and is entitled to inherit its chart history. But a knock-on consequence means that the addition of the new recording entitles all past takes to an ACR reset. Meaning that it matters not whether only five people care about the new version. Streams of the original (which have enjoyed a new spike every time England have played so far) now convert at the same rate as current hits.
So keep an eye out, further England success means increased streams for 3/Three Lions in whatever version it comes. And heady chart heights are not beyond it. The track is only at No.23 on the latest midweeks, but that's without the benefit of tomorrow's (Tuesday's) streams to coincide with England v Wales.
Merry? I Wish
The invasion of the festive hits is set to kick into overdrive next week if the midweeks are anything to go by, meaning this is one of the last times this year we will only see a handful of them on the Top 40.
At present, there are just three - All I Want For Christmas Is You at No.18 (drawing level with the all-time record for Top 40 weeks), Last Christmas at No.23, and most fascinatingly of all last year's newcomer to the party Merry Christmas by Ed Sheeran and Elton John at No.40.
But you will note that this placing is disproportionate to its true appeal. This week's streaming chart clearly shows that Rocking Around The Christmas Tree is the third-most-popular Christmas song this week (No.22). Merry Christmas is a mere No.85 on the streaming chart. So what gives?
The answer lies in its age. The Sheeran/Elton track is still effectively brand new, with fewer than 10 chart weeks to its name and within 36 months of release. So its streams are still SCR, not ACR. Meaning you will almost certainly see it jockeying for position come late December, despite almost certainly receiving far fewer plays than the superannuated favourites. It is already No.12 on the Monday midweeks. Be afraid.
Exploding Myths
The words there of my friend George, dedicated writer (amongst other roles) at Official Charts. Today he unwittingly exploded what turns out to be an urban myth, the story that Rita Ora's second album was torpedoed by the demise of her relationship with Calvin Harris in 2014. After being admonished by the producer himself he wrote up the story in full, taking care to fully own his role in it all. Brilliantly done George.
We accidentally had an exclusive chat with Calvin and Rita to clear this whole thing up...
Big Burl-y Americans
The Billboard Hot 100 is as badly afflicted as the UK charts by the seasonal invasion of festive songs. Billboard's rules about songs going "recurrent" when they reach a certain age only apply when they have spent a long enough period of time in total on the Hot 100, meaning that precious few of them have actually accumulated enough weeks to qualify. So they chart alongside contemporary hits.
But the Great American Holiday Playlist is, if anything, even more superannuated than the British one. Our core favourites tend to date from the 70s, 80s and 90s. American holiday hits are even more vintage.
Mariah Carey notwithstanding, the American Top 10 this week as it traditionally does is clogged up with veteran hits from Bobby Helms (Jingle Bell Rock first released in 1957) and Burl Ives (Holly Jolly Christmas dating from 1964). And it is only going to get worse, trust me.
Meanwhile in the real world Anti-Hero lodges a fifth straight week at No.1, just as it does it Britain. It is apparently the first track to spend all of its first five weeks on the Hot 100 at the top since Butter by BTS.
A Land Down Under
The Aussie charts are as snoozesome as usual, Taylor Swift maintaining her domination on the other side of the world as well. It makes you yearn for Mariah Carey in many ways. She is on her way by the way, Australians happy to dial into the whole festive snowflakes and sleigh bells imagery despite Christmas landing in midsummer in the southern hemisphere. All I Want For Christmas Is You is No.50 on this week's ARIA chart.
Couldn't Eliminate Germany, Damn Them
To Spain, where if you will pardon the pun there is a Bizarrap symmetry to things. To recap, Bizarrap's Quevedo: Bzrp Music Sessions Vol. 52 was No.1 the last time we paid a visit to Spain's EPDM charts in October, a position it had occupied on and off since the summer. This is the same track which we noted had last week ascended to the top of the FIMI charts in Italy.
Well, this week Spain has a brand new No.1 single, one that has only been charting for a fortnight. And it is the confusingly belated release of Bizarrap's Music Sessions Vol.50, a track which this time around features Duki on guest vocals.
I am delighted it is solely by job to report this stuff, not to make any sense of it.
Midweek Teases
As you will have read on Chart Watch itself this week, the long Top 2 run of Unholy has ended with the single relegated quite dramatically to ACR status. It means there will be a whole new set of challengers to Taylor Swift at No.1. Unholy is showing no sign of slowing down and seems set to extend its reign at the top until well into December, but this coming week will see both Made You Look and Messy In Heaven join it in the Top 3.
The headline maker this week is Stormzy, all but guaranteed to land a third No.1 album with the startlingly mellow This Is What I Mean. His two hits of the moment are inevitably going to enjoy a streaming boost, pre-release teaser Firebabe is destined to rocket with some ease into the Top 10 from the depths of the lower end of the Top 30 and the album's title cut destined it appears to sneak into the Top 40 in its own right. Note that these are by no means Drake or Tayor Swift levels of streaming huge. Stormzy is more than holding his own with paid sales.
We have hit the point where nobody is bothering with new releases. Christmas hits are about to rule all. Expect to see Mariah Carey and Wham! in the Top 10 with plenty of others following behind. But with Christmas With Cliff destined to be the No.2 album behind Stormzy, A Family Christmas from Andrea Bocelli in the Top 10 with Michael Buble's apparently evergreen Christmas not far behind - are you really that shocked?
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