Seven new entries this week, and a truly odd bunch they are too…
36. Leah McFall – “Killing Me Softly”
The Voice UK is cursed.
This is a track from last week’s semi-final. As I mentioned last week, The Voice has chosen to make studio versions of its live performances available for download, and unlike X Factor, it’s chosen to make them eligible to chart. Leah McFall’s version of “I Will Survive” did particularly well off this – it peaked at number 8 last week and it’s still at number 15. Now she has a second top 40 hit, with this cover of “Killing Me Softly”, a number 1 for the Fugees in 1996.
There’s a good reason why X Factor doesn’t allow its singles to chart, which is that it’s thought to destroy the drama. Leah McFall’s had two number chart hits, none of her competitors have had any… kind of a giveaway, isn’t it? But for The Voice, this is a worthwhile trade, because it has a massive credibility problem, last year’s winner having failed to achieve any success whatsoever.
So the BBC was feeling pretty good about Leah McFall, whose Voice performances may verge on technical showcases, but at least has the look of somebody vaguely marketable, and has the sales to back it up. They’ve just commissioned a third series of The Voice, so it’d be nice if the show started working.
So you can only imagine the facepalms on Saturday night’s final when, to general surprise, Andrea Begley won instead. We’ll be hearing from her next week, and she’s interesting in her own right, but suffice to say she’s probably not the marketable potential pop star they were hoping for.
35. Ke$ha (featuring will.i.am) – “Crazy Kids”
“And we don’t give a what / Because that’s just who we are”. Mmm.
Bits of this record are actually okay, but they’re also the bits that were done better in her last single “Die Young” at the tail end of last year. Or rather, her last hit, since “C’mon” was released in March and crashed out at a dismal number 70. This track is currently at 31 on iTunes, not a huge improvement, so it’s starting to look like Ke$ha’s in need of retooling. I can’t help wondering whether it only made the chart at all thanks to the guest rap from will.i.am – which is genuinely wretched. Still, points for imagination in terms of how to get him into the video without actually hauling him along to the shoot.
31. London Grammar – “Wasting My Young Years”
The debut hit for this trio, who’ve had some support from Radio 1, and have also collaborated with Disclosure. Pitched somewhere in a hinterland between Florence + The Machine and Fleetwood Mac, I suspect they’ll ultimately be more at home on the album chart, but it’s always welcome to have this sort of record make a brief appearance here.
11. The Arctic Monkeys – “Do I Wanna Know?”
Oh, good video. I think it works particularly well on YouTube, actually, where it comes across at first as some sort of new spin on the lyric video.
Anyway, this is the lead single from their next album, a midweek release with no advance promotion. If it had come out on Monday, it would be in the top ten. It’s still their highest chart place since “Fluorescent Adolescent” made number 5 in 2007. It’s got a sort of measured, stomping menace to it that stands out a mile in the current singles chart.
10. Tom Odell – “Another Love”
I have absolutely no idea what’s meant to be going on there, but that’s not always a bad thing in a video that you ideally want people to be seeing plenty of times. This is the top 40 debut for Tom Odell, who won the Brits Critics Choice award at the start of the year despite not having released a great deal at that point. He had released this, however, which first appeared on an EP he put out in 2012.
5. Dizzee Rascal (featuring Robbie Williams) – “Goin’ Crazy”
The lead single from Dizzee Rascal’s fifth album sounds alarmingly like a Robbie Williams B-side with a couple of guest verses. It’s a bit of a mess, if you ask me. And dear god, Robbie’s looking old in that video.
Still, it’s Dizzee’s highest chart place since he was having number 1s back in 2010, so it’s done its job there.
2. Jason Derulo – “The Other Side”
The lead single from his third album continues Derulo’s track record of making serviceable but not very distinctive pop songs. Still, Derulo doesn’t have consistent hits in the UK – the chart places tailed off pretty quickly on his last album – so evidently this is doing something right. It’s supposedly about his girlfriend Jordin Sparks.
He’s had two previous number 1s, “In My Head” (2010) and “Don’t Wanna Go Home” (2011). This was in shouting distance at the midweeks, but never managed to pull ahead. Which means…
1. Robin Thicke (featuring T.I. and Pharrell Williams) – “Blurred Lines”
…he’s still there. Four weeks and counting, with total sales now over 700K. That equals Daft Punk’s reign. If he can make it to five then that’ll be the longest stay at number one since “I Kissed A Girl” back in 2008. And that’s a possibility, but as of right now, he’s finally down to number 2 on iTunes, and I suspect his luck has finally run out.
Over on the album chart:
“Yeezus” by Kanye West enters at number 1. That wasn’t a sure thing – his only previous number 1 album was “Graduation” back in 2007, and the likes of “808s and Heartbreaks” and “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” didn’t even make the top 10. There were no advance singles from this album, but here’s the Saturday Night Live performance of “Black Skinhead”.
“In a Perfect World” by Kodaline at 3. Their debut album. Current single “Love Like This” climbs to 34 this week.
“Born Sinner” by J Cole at 7. American rapper. He’s never had a hit single in the UK, but his previous album “Cole World: The Sideline Story” was a number 1 in America and made 25 in the UK. Here’s the lead single, “Power Trip”.
“Kveikur” by Sigur Ros at 9. The highest place by quite some distance for the Icelandic group probably best known for the perennial reality show audition soundtrack “Hoppipolla”. They’ve not previously made the top 20. Lead single: “Brennisteinn”. It’s a weird beast of a track, not what you’d expect from them at all.
“Man of Steel OST” by Hans Zimmer at 20. We don’t get many soundtrack albums on the chart, because most of them these days end up banished to the desolate wilderness of the compilation chart. This is Zimmer’s third hit album, following the soundtracks to “Gladiator” and “Dark Knight Returns”.
“Hushabye” by Hayley Westenra at 35. A pop-classical soprano from New Zealand making her sixth appearance on the album chart. Obviously there isn’t a single from this album, but rather perversely there is an official video for “Hushabye Mountain” – a track 63 seconds long.