Chart Review 31/05/24
Wait, we're near the summer already? Sheezus, time really flies by when nothing "exciting" hits the charts for a few months (that was a joke). So far this year we've had several huge albums of gloriously boring music (sorry, Ariana), diss tracks aplenty fighting for far more than chart positions, a quite noticeable chunk of monotonous dance music missing from the airwaves, numerous cases of people fainting due to Benson Boone's No.1 shout-a-thon, and the weird feeling that country is the new pop. Slowly but surely, America has taken over yet again, and the severe lack of British artists in the Top 10 recently is enough for everyone to have a heart attack.
We've also had the likes of Tyla, Shaboozey and Tommy Richman draw targets labelled "1-hit wonder" on their faces, and for a good while it seemed that Sabrina Carpenter would be spending the rest of her existence on the cover of Wasted Talent magazine, talking about how she could do f*** all about where her singles end up, and contemplating on why everybody even liked her in the first place. That was until Espresso happened, and you get the drill by now. 5 weeks at the summit, nothing really out there that could stop her at present. All I have to say about this now is....
WHERE THE HECK IS THAT ALBUM SABRINA?? DO YOU WANNA END UP LIKE KENYA GRACE??
ahem... Sorry for my outburst. I'm just preparing myself for the other chart events this week. Like Central Cee.
You know him, right? Oakley Caesar-Su, turns 24 on Monday, has a chart-topping album, loads of hit singles. Someone clearly likes him, right? I dunno, it's hard to decipher really, given he's had 7 (make that 8) Top 10 singles in the past few years and become the unsung hero of British rap music in recent times, regularly battling with D-Block Europe to get as many hits as possible in a calendar year AND anger every member of BuzzJack with how he frequently refuses to mix things up. Odd to think that he's never had any American success, the 10 week swagger of Dave collab Sprinter somehow never reaching the Billboard Hot 100, getting unstuck at 102 instead. Clearly he needed to try harder. And by try harder, I mean not do much at all apart from hire an AMERICAN rapper (Lil Baby) for his new one, BAND4BAND. Obviously, keeping track of which Cench songs do well and which don't is a complete mystery to me, but I'm gonna assume with how well this one has done that this is a highlight. I just can't find anything notable about it. Eh. No.4 is his best performance since 2023's Song of the Summer (tough luck Kylie) Sprinter though, so expect it to hang about for weeks on end. And irritate all but the notable few. I am not one of the notable few.
The album chart saw one of 'those' battles. You know, the ones where loads of acts fight to the death, only for the most predictable one of the bunch to come out victorious. Yes, sadly, Tay-Tay has recovered from her midweek slump to regain the No.1 spot she lost last week to Billie Eilish, who drops to 3 despite everyone still streaming in their thousands. All apologies thus go to Monday champions Twenty One Pilots with Clancy at 2, Paul Weller shoving the number that represents how old he is in your face at No.4, and Bring Me The Horizon's rapturously received latest effort at No.5, complete with spellings that I already told you about last week, and virtually untypable from memory. Some dingus bought 30 copies of Clancy in the vain hope that they would get to No.1. Has that guy ever heard of chart rigging and ineligibility? 'Cos that would be most humorous!
Hozier getting pummelled by the ACR hammer, combined with one of the Billie Eyelash hits dropping out of the Top 10 means that Myles Smith has now crawled his way to the best-sellers, and that sound you can faintly hear is me grinning and groaning. Grinning, because he's from Luton and that means British music isn't completely done for. And groaning because I just don't like Stargazing at all. Could he really have not tried a little harder? Guess some questions will never be answered.
3 other songs make their bows this week, and all of them have some sort of stigma attached to me. First up on the firing squad, Zach Bryan. Now, I didn't really like I Remember Everything all that much. Yeah, no, that's a statement on par with your partner ditching you out of the blue, but it kinda represented a certain stain on the carpet of pop that is country music. It's a genre that's quite hard for me to get on board with, and Zach's widely praised collab with Kacey Musgraves that went viral not too long ago was a bit of a stinker in my eyes. However, the fact it shot No.14 and hung around for ages is a sign that Zach Bryan can clearly get hits, and this new entry is certainly a testament to that. Not that Pink Skies is any good, mind, but in my opinion it's better than I Remember Everything, probably because that song didn't have a harmonica on it. Ah well. No.31 is where he starts, so keep your eyes on it. Or don't. That's OK with me.
Down at No.35 and given he's responsible for hands-down the WORST song of the year so far, it's safe to say Teddy Swims isn't exactly appealing to me. Given that's still stinking up the Top 20 like a faulty appendix, I clearly don't have high hopes for any of his other songs seeping under my skin. And after hearing The Door move it's way into the Top 40, I still don't. At least that song is somewhat better than The Song That Shall Not Be Named, so that's at least a sign of confidence for any future hits. Just a shame I'm not on board with them at all.
Meanwhile, it may have come to your attention that Man Utd won the FA Cup recently. I support Manchester City, so this is an awful set of circ*mstances for me, but it's had a really funny effect on a certain song in this chart. The Man That Can't Be Moved by Irish radio-hoggers The Script. Originally No.2 in 2008 and for a few years in the download era a consistent ever-present everytime somebody on The Voice or X Factor wanted to have a go, Danny O'Donoghue attempted to twist the lyrics into something that relates to one of the goalscorers in the final that I now hate with a burning passion. They also have tour dates out apparently. Combine all of these factors together and you have a re-entry at 38 for easily their best single in their (quite boring actually) catalogue. All that's left for me to say is, there sure has been a lot of random chart hits this year, haven't they? The minute Natasha Bedingfield's Unwritten sadly departs, this all-time classic returns to our lives. Typical 2024, eh?
Speaking of typical, I am currently having a massive hissy-fit at the fact that BMTH's album cuts haven't done much, one of them faltering at 41, the others at 50 and 57. They're never getting a massive hit, are they? I still don't get how Bronski Beat have climbed to 55, Twenty One Pilots can't get any higher than 66 with their LP choices, Katy Perry's Teenage Dream re-enters (don't bother asking me why), Fall Back by a guy called Lithe is new at 73 and it's really boring, Nemo has fallen off ridiculously quick compared to Loreen's Tattoo, K-Pop man RM bores us all to death at 93, PinkPantheress continues to disappoint her fanbase at 94, and sneaking in at 100 is somebody dragging some clip of Nate Dogg down EDM Avenue. And what do you know, it's really bad. Like most dance music nowadays.
Next week's albums sees Becky Hill, Shaboozey, Crowded House, Bat For Lashes and Richard Hawley all potentially try to knock off Taylor Swift from her perch, and in the singles, we get to see Ella Henderson ruin her career choices again. How sweet. Same too with Kehlani, Leigh-Anne and Disclosure, meanwhile Fred Again.. has YET. ANOTHER. SONG. OUT. Also available for your liking are Romy, The Streets, James Blake and Ayra Starr all with new stuff out. And Eminem. So I guess that's next week's chart wrapped up then. See you in 7 days time. Toodaloo!
(P.S. Have you ever noticed how dull the cover arts of the big hits are nowadays? If it weren't for Dasha propping up the Top 10, all of the best-sellers are either various shades of blue, or grey and black like a muddy zebra. In fact, only Dasha, Teddy and Chappell variate from the formula in the Top 20. Make of that what you will.)
Oh, and Happy Pride Month everyone. 🏳️🌈 :)
