ALBUMS
Released exactly a year ago, Bastille's Bad Blood continued its Brits-fuelled revival, topping the chart for the second week in a row, and third time in all, on sales of 16,548 copies.
Their Brits mash-up of Pompeii and Waiting All Night, a collaboration with Rudimental and Ella Eyre, retreats 21-25 (12,293 sales), while the original recording of Pompeii declines 20-30 (10,361 sales). Bad Blood's sales were the fourth lowest for a number one album in the 739 weeks that have thus far elapsed in the 21st century, and the lowest since Rihanna's Talk That Talk plumbed the depths, selling just 9,578 copies as it jumped 7-1 some 81 weeks ago.
The eclectic genius that is Beck made all the early running in the midweek sales flashes with Morning Phase, his first album for six years. Although unable to hold onto its early lead, the album debuts at number four (13,819 sales) to become the highest charting album of his career. Of seven previous chart albums dating back to 1994, the 43 year old's highest charting was his last, Modern Guilt, which debuted and peaked at number nine on sales of 11,478 copies in 2008. 1996’s Odelay, which reached number 17, is his biggest seller (386,244 sales). Because each copy of his 2006 album The Information had a different sleeve, it was not eligible to chart but would have reached number 17.
Kendal indie band Wild Beasts debut at number 10 (7,500 sales) with fourth album, Present Tense. It is their highest charting album to date: Their 2008 debut Limbo, Panto failed to chart and sold 11,591 copies, 2009 follow-up Two Dancers peaked at number 68 and sold 50,919 copies, and 2011 release Smother reached number 17 and sold 34,396 copies.
After departing from the top five last week for the first time, Beyonce's eponymous album bounces 7-5, with sales up 10.03% week-on-week at 13,433, as her tour dates stimulate interest. The album has been in the Top 10 continuously since its release 12 weeks ago, and is the only album to appear in the Top 10 every week so far in 2014. Drunk In Love, the first hit from the album, drifts 12-15 (16,415 sales) but the single XO reaches a new peak, climbing 23-22 (13,648 sales).
Elsewhere in the Top 10, Ellie Goulding's Halcyon climbs 4-3 (14,598 sales), Rudimental's Home dips 5-6 (10,691 sales), Disclosure's Settle declines 3-7 (10,453 sales), London Grammar's If You Wait falls 6-8 (10,183 sales) and Lorde's Pure Heroine holds at number nine (7,547 sales).
Partly fan-funded, Reverend & The Makers' fourth album, Thirty Two, emulates its predecessors by making the Top 20, though with fewer sales (5,788) as it debuts at number 13. Their 2007 debut The State Of Things opened and peaked at number five on first week sales of 25,740, 2009's A French Kiss In The Chaos' first and highest chart placing (number 19) was attended by sales of 7,734 copies, and 2012 release @Reverend_Makers opened at number 16 (6,380 sales) and never got any higher.
American indie singer/songwriter Annie Clark trades as St Vincent, under which name three previous solo albums have failed to make the Top 200 - but she raised her profile and made her chart debut in 2012, collaborating with Talking Heads legend David Byrne for the number 40 album, Love This Giant. She makes her first solo chart foray this week, debuting at number 21 (4,743 sales) with an album called simply St Vincent.
Rapper Schoolboy Q has likewise failed to chart hitherto with a trio of albums but collaborated with Macklemore & Ryan Lewis for the hit single White Walls, which reached number 26 a few weeks ago. His latest album, Oxymoron - which includes contributions from Raekwon, 2 Chainz, his some time Black Hippy band mate Kendrick Lamar and Pharrell Williams - debuts this week at number 23 (4,332 sales).
Further down the chart, Neneh Cherry debuts at number 41 (2,065 sales) with Blank Project, her first album for 18 years; rapper Kid Cudi's Satellite Flight: The Journey To Mother Moon opens at number 67 (1,349 sales); and country singer Eric Church makes his UK chart debut with fifth album The Outsiders (number 70, 1,272 sales), a number one album in America last week. In defence of Kid Cudi - whose last album Indicud reached number 32 - Satellite Flight didn't drop till Wednesday and even then only digitally.
Technically a re-entry - the original album peaked at number four in 1992 - Morrissey's third solo album Your Arsenal charts at number 49 (1,759) thanks to the release of a newly remastered edition with a bonus DVD.
It didn't break fast (geddit?) debuting last week at number 69 some 20 weeks after it was released but The Full English's eponymous new album climbs to number 63 (1,463 sales) for the folk supergroup - whose 'members' include Martin Simpson, Seth Lakeman and Fay Heild - after they won two Folk Awards from BBC Radio Two last week. Comprising a dozen traditional folk recordings, the album and group name are the same - deliberately - as that of the vast new digital folk archive, which The English Folk Dance And Song Society has just made available.
For the fifth week in a row, the nation's biggest selling album is a compilation rather than an artist album, and for the fourth week in a row, it's a different compilation. Following the Frozen soundtrack's fortnight of dominance, the title passed first to I'm Every Woman, then to the Brit Awards 2014 album, and now to Ministry Of Sound compilation Eat Sleep Rave Repeat, which tops the list at the third attempt on sales of 18,840 copies.
Overall album sales are down 1.06% week-on-week at 1,334,834 - 18.57% below same week 2013 sales of 1,639,325. It is their lowest tally for 20 weeks.
SINGLES
It's another phenomenal week for Pharrell Williams, with Happy returning to the top of the singles chart, while notching its millionth sale.
Originally made available for purchase last June, Happy sold only 96 copies the week it was released, and took exactly six months to make the Top 200. By then, it had been featured in the movie Despicable Me 2, and was on its way to being the monster hit it has become. It reached the top of the chart nine weeks ago, dipped to number two, and then spent two more weeks at number one. Its latest surge - helped by Pharrell including it in a three song medley hwe performed with Nile Rodgers at the Brit Awards - means it has now climbed to the top three times in a single chart run, something only two records have done in chart history, and never since the 1950s. The first, I Believe, did so in 1953 for Frankie Laine, and the second, Singing The Blues, for Guy Mitchell in 1957.
Selling 83,982 copies last week, Happy increased its cumulative sales to 1,040,606, making it the third hit by Williams to exceed a million sales, following Daft Punk's Get Lucky on which he is the featured vocalist, and Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines, on which he and T.I. are both featured. For the record, Get Lucky climbs 47-45 on its 46th chart week, with sales of 5,948 raising its career tally to 1,362,429 this week, while Blurred Lines holds at number 62, with 4,151 sales in the week increasing its 40 week cumulative tally to 1,526,598.
The only other artists to be credited on more than two million sellers are The Beatles (John Lennon and Paul McCartney have seven million-sellers apiece, including Lennon's solo Imagine, and McCartney's Wings hit Mull Of Kintyre, while their colleagues Ringo Starr and George Harrison have had six) and - also with three - Rihanna. Williams has now spent 13 weeks at number one in the 2010s, two more than Rihanna, the only other artist to reach double figures.
Dutch trance deity Tiesto has charted 13 previous songs in the Top 75 and 27 in the Top 200 - 16 Top 75 and 44 Top 200 if we count his releases as Allure and Vimana and collaborations with Ferry Corsten as Gouryella, but only now makes his Top 10 debut with Red Lights, which opens at number six (40,313 sales). It features uncredited vocals from Swedish writer/singer Michel Zitron, who had a hand in writing The Swedish Dance Mafia's monster hit, Don't You Worry Child. Although it only reached number 37, Tiesto's biggest selling single is his transtastic adaptation of Samuel Barber's classical Adagio For Strings, which has sold 298,519 copies since its release nine years ago. William Orbit's 1999 recording of the same piece reached number four and sold 363,706 copies.
Enjoying her fourth chart hit in little more than a year, Foxes continues to make progress in the right direction, and lands in the Top 10 for the first time. She made her chart debut in February 2013, adding vocals to Russian dance DJ Zedd's debut UK hit Clarity, which reached number 29. A couple of months later, she fronted Rudimental's number 14 hit Right Here, and in November she made her first solo fray into the chart, reaching number 12 with Youth. She tops them all this week, debuting at number seven (34,036 sales) with Let Go For Tonight.
Meanwhile, Paloma Faith scores her ninth Top 75 entry and her second Top 10 hit with Can't Rely On You (number 10, 24,053 sales). It is the first single from her third album A Perfect Contradiction, which is released next Monday (10th). Faith co-wrote Can't Rely On You with man of the moment Pharrell Williams.
After debuting last week at number one, Sam Smith's Money On My Mind eases to number two (60,317 sales).
Clean Bandit's Rather Be (feat. Jess Glynne) remains at number three (59,112 sales). Number one for four weeks, it has now sold 604,058 copies. Glynne could be back at number one this weekend, with her My Love collaboration with Route 94 likely to give Pharrell Williams' Happy a tough test.
Another week, another peak for Katy Perry's Dark Horses (feat. Juicy J), which climbs 6-4 (47,902 sales), while parent album Prism revives 27-24 (4,172 sales).
After leaping 72-28, John Legend's All Of Me slipped to number 29 last week but now resumes its dynamic growth, spurting to number nine (25,445 sales). It is the introductory hit from his latest album, Love In The Future, which finally surpasses the number 28 position in which it debuted 25 weeks ago, and becomes the third Top 20 album of his career, jumping 29-15 on sales of 5,536 copies.
Completing this week's Top 10, A Great Big World's Say Something (feat. Christina Aguilera) falls 4-5 (41,885 sales) and Zedd's Stay The Night (feat. Hayley Williams) dips 5-8 (25,806 sales).
Ellie Goulding scores her 10th Top 20 hit, as latest single Goodness Gracious jumps 26-16 (16,233 sales).
Also reaching a new peak, American Authors' Best Day Of My Life climbs 37-17 (16,139 sales).
Into the Top 75 for the first time are Too Close by Wilkinson feat. Detour City (123-56, 4,624 sales), Peppermint by Julio Bashmore (number 57, 4,584 sales) and Addicted To You by Avicii (142-64, 4,066 sales),
Phone company 3 Network's advert featuring a girl on a bike and her cat miming along to Starship's 1985 number 12 hit We Built This City gained the track a return to the chart at number 184 last week, and it now scoots to number 26 (11,545 sales). Another singing cat and a singing budgie are the stars of a new Freeview advert, crooning along to Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell's version of You're All I Need To Get By (number 19, 1968). It hasn't re-entered the chart yet, but the track - which was selling fewer than 50 copies a week - has sold 1,760 copies in the last fortnight.
Two other oldies on the move: D:Ream's 1994 number one Things Can Only Get Better re-enters at number 66 (3,726 sales) as a result of a social media campaign by supporters of Sunderland United football club, while Wilson Phillips' 1990 number six hit Hold On re-enters the Top 200 at number 98 (2,547 sales) after the TV premier of the movie Bridesmaids, in which the band appear to sing the song at a wedding.
Overall singles sales are down 2.49% week-on-week at 3,032,571 - 13.68% below same week 2013 sales of 3,513,028.