Chart Watch Weekly - October 24th 2022
TS in the AM
So as you can hardly fail to be aware, this week saw the release of two of the biggest guns of the fourth quarter of the year so far, the music industry's Q4 cliche holding true once more, notwithstanding the way Harry Styles slid his product out in the summer to get the jump on everyone.
That Taylor Swift's Midnights is leading the Arctic Monkeys' The Car in the chart race so far shouldn't be that much of a surprise, but what is impressive is the fact that the two albums have done superlative numbers so far.
Taylor Swift's first new truly "pop" mainstream product since 2019's Lover (assuming that Folklore and Evermore are to be seen as experimental one-offs) has so far shifted a colossal 140,590 copies as of the Monday evening midweeks - that's counting sales up to the end of Sunday. That's already enough to make it the fastest-selling release of 2022 so far - blasting past the 113,000 copies of Harry's House that the aforementioned Mr Styles moved back in June. It seems almost needless to note that the last album to achieve those kinds of first-week numbers was Adele's 30 almost exactly 11 months ago.
Taylor Swift's album has some considerable collectability in its favour. Wander into your local HMV (if you have one) and you will note it is available with four different sleeves in both CD and vinyl versions. And naturally there will be some Swifties who have snapped up all eight.
Some small commiserations then to the Arctic Monkeys whose week-to-date sale of 104,874 copies would be enough to hand them a commanding lead in any other week. And you do have to wonder just why they chose to concede the chance to add to their career tally of No.1 albums by going head-to-head with the Nashville superstar.
These sales, like most for big new album releases, are inevitably front-loaded by pre-sales, weekend purchasers and early interest streamers, the totals likely to only increase by smaller amounts as the week goes on. But make no mistake these are significant numbers, and this will be the first time since Christmas week 2017 that both the No.1 and No.2 album have sold well into six figures apiece. When Eminem's Revival topped the table with 131,622 sales while Ed Sheeran trailed in his wake with 120,546 copies of Divide.
All of this is without even contemplating the effect both album releases are going to have on the singles chart next week. But we'll come to that in due course.
Fight! (redux)
The story is starting to spread from dance music blogs to gossip mailers to the mainstream as the Miss You wars we spoke of last week have blown up in quite spectacular fashion.
You know the story by now, competing tracks of the same title, the same tempo, the same duration and featuring the same vocal sample by Robin Shulz and southstar have landed on the British charts simultaneously. But this week both make strong flying leaps.
The Robin Shluz and Oliver Tree co-credited "official copy" is still the runaway leader, charging with intent to No.9. But the technically inferior but perhaps morally better version by southstar is now a Top 40 hit in its own right, flying 39 places to rest at No.23. Some of that momentum may end up scrubbed off this week, but both singles are set to remain side by side Top 30 hits this weekend.
Stand in Radio One chart-show host Emil Franchi made lots of puzzled references to "two versions of the same song" on the Top 40 as he played both. Will Manning on the Big Top 40 on the Global stations glossed over the issue altogether.
Calling America
A pleasing changing of the guard at the top of the Hot 100 as both British and American singles charts achieve synergy once more. After three weeks knocking on the door Sam N' Kim ascend to the #1 spot in America, Billboard noting just as we did that the spectacle of a gender-fluid man and a transgender woman duetting on a chart-topping single is a pretty unique first.
Unholy is the 11th different song to top the American charts in 2022. Three of those have been by British (or semi-British) acts, hard on the heels of both Harry Styles and Glass Animals. It is Sam Smith's first ever No.1 single in America - Stay With Me topped out in second place.
But the real story of the week is the spectacular way Lil Baby's It's Only Me album shoots to the top of the Billboard 200, the rapper's third No.1 album in his home country. As you can see from the graphic above, three of the album's cuts rocket into the Top 10 of the Hot 100. But Billboard don't have rules restricting the number of album tracks that can impact the singles listing. It means Lil Baby has 25 entries on the chart this week, making him only the third act in American chart history to dominate a quarter of the chart. Drake is the record holder with 27 entries in July 28, followed by Taylor Swift who had 27 concurrent chart hits in November last year.
A Land Down Under
Cross-global synergy is achieved once more as the No.1 singles and albums in both Britain and Australia are identical, The 1975's Being Funny In A Foreign Language storming to the summit of the ARIA charts to coincide with the singles reign of Unholy. Note the way Miss You (version 2) has barged its way into the Australian Top 10.
No sign of southstar there, alas.
Rap le rap
Our regular hurtle around the continent lands on France once more, so it is time to see which impenetrable slice of Francorap is propping up the (Official Charts-compiled) SNEP countdown this time around.
Extraordinarily it is the same one as before, Die by Gazo has been the No.1 single in France for each of the last 10 weeks, topping the pile since the chart of August 19th. It is the longest-running No.1 single on the French charts since ensemble single Bande organisée was in the middle of a 12 week run at the top exactly two years ago.
The track which finally brought that epic run to an end was 5G by Booba, so it seems entirely appropriate that he has Die's biggest challenger of the week, his new single Koa crashing straight in at No.2.
Midweek Teases
I hinted earlier that the big Arctics v TayTay battle on the albums chart was set to spill over into singles chart action.
The Sunday evening First Look chart gave us a hint of this, and the situation is confirmed by the full Monday midweeks. As it stands Taylor Swift is set to debut with every one of the Top 3 singles this week, as tracks from Midnights line up in first, second and third place.
Anti-Hero is the lead track with 27,888 sales to its name to date (and with easily the most paid purchases so far - even if that is only 719 of them). Lavender Haze comes in second with 20,767 and Lana Del Rey duet Snow On The Beach is in third place with 19,196 sales.
Chart rules mean that is all Taylor is allowed. Otherwise it may not shock you to learn that all 20 tracks from both the standard and expanded editions of the album would be somewhere in the current Top 25.
The Arctic Monkeys don't quite have the same kind of streaming power behind them, but as things stand they have three tracks inside the (filtered) Top 20 chart. I Ain't Quite Where I Think I Am is at No.16, Sculptures Of Anything Goes is at No.17 while the previously released There'd Better Be A Mirrorball is set to reappear at No.20.
It is going to be quite a week.
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