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Official Singles Chart on 13/9/2019

13 September 2019 - 19 September 2019

The Official UK Singles Chart reflects the UK’s biggest songs of the week, based on audio and video streams, downloads, CDs and vinyl, compiled by the Official Charts Company. The UK Top 40 is broadcast on BBC Radio 1 and MTV, the Top 100 is published exclusively on OfficialCharts.com. View the biggest songs of 2023.

 

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Damián

1

Can someone tell me why new Tove Lo + Kylie collaboration didn't make the top 100? It's fire!

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redflag1

2

WE NEED MORE DANCE AND THE REAL BRITISH POP, THIS IS NOT REAL !! WHY SHAZAM IS SO DIFFERENT TO THIS CHART !! THAT IS REAL THIS IS PAYMENT BY AMERICANS THINK THAT PEOPLE DO NOT ACCOUNT

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thierry henon

-1

TONES and I at 19 is just an awful song...number 1 in Australia...!! her voice is just annoying...but i like the video...

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thierry henon

0

Week after week, i expect WHITNEY HOUSTON to be at number 1...but no, we have to stuck with another song from ED!! After JAX JONES "new" album release, i did expect HARDER to climb higher in the chart!! great song!! LIZZO is closer than ever to get her first top 20 single!! Massive success: number 1 in USA but here they don't seem to like her that much...shame really..i mean her 3rd album contains so many potential hit singles!..

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Ronald van Veen

3

PET SHOP BOYS entered the Scottish charts at #71 but can't be found here....

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thierry henon

1

They will make an impact next week Ronald...i am sure they will make it to the top 10...i mean who doesn't like the amazing PET SHOP BOYS??!!

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redflag1

3

IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE THAT PET SHOP BOYS IS NOT IN THE CHARTS, BUT BECAUSE THEY DO NOT LET THE TRADITIONAL ENGLISH SONGS, BE HERE, ONLY PAY AMERICAN DISCOGRAPHICS, GIVES VERY SADNESS

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Ronald van Veen

1

I really hope so but the last time the PET SHOP BOYS scored a top 10 hit with a single was in..... 2006 with I'M WITH STUPID.... I am afraid it'll be another single charting for one week at #63 or so!

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Cas

1

I'm gobsmacked that they aren't either, they entered at No.7 in the UK on iTunes and No.4 in Spain! God, makes you realise how right Neil is about ageism as the song has been a hit across their whole fanbase which is rare.
Wonder if the Hyde Park festival might give it a push as I'm guessing they're playing it there?

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Ronald van Veen

1

I really hope it will do better next week!!! Some media exposure would help!

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Damián

1

They will suffer the same effect that Kylie on singles...ageism. though their loyal and big fan base , they lack amount of reproductions on you tube

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Ronald van Veen

0

I so agree with you Dami!

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Damián

1

Sadly, its that true Ronald. It seems they'll have to collaborate with Ed Sheeran to have a top ten again...😂

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Damián

1

Remember In Denial? What a duet!!!

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Ronald van Veen

1

That was a superb song, should have been released as a single!!!
But... no......

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Ronald van Veen

1

Ed turns all old aged bands to Gold! Hahaha!

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Damián

1

Hahaha!!!

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Damián

1

Totally agree, in those years , it'd have been number 1 for sure! So sad it was only an album track for the boys! Greetings from Buenos Aires!!

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Ronald van Veen

0

Indeed! A worldwide top 10 hit at least... Enjoy your Sunday! Greetings from the Netherlands!!!

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ShunB

2

Strangely odd that "Higher Love" has been #1 on the sales chart for a fifth consecutive week & the radio airplay chart for a third consecutive week, but not #1 on UK Singles for even one week. Is something up with this playing in the others favor...very strange...but Whitney's "Higher Love" has become way more popular all around as a big hit overall anyway...even thought Ed's "London" kept it from hitting top spot!

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Foxes

1

Being #1 on the sales chart means virtually nothing nowadays. 'Higher Love' this week got 5,655 paid-for sales, which made up just 13.04% of its 43,364 chart sales. In fact, that's a new all-time low for a #1 on the paid-for sales chart, with the overall paid-for sales market in the UK reaching a new modern era low of 616,852 sales this week - the all-time low is from March 2005 of just over 520,000 sales when physical single sales were quickly dying out but digital single sales didn't count towards the chart yet. Also, radio airplay doesn't count towards the chart at all, so it could be #1 or #1000 there, it makes no difference. 'Take Me Back to London', on the other hand, is #2 on the paid-for sales chart, likely with around 5,000 of its 59,683 chart sales coming from paid-for sales.
It's great that 'Higher Love' got so high on the chart, and it is unfortunate that it couldn't quite reach #1, but this isn't a case of the charts being biased or wrong, or placing too much importance on streams (given that they make up around 96.5% of the UK singles market), it's literally just a case of a song not quite being popular enough to reach #1.

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Piran

1

I love how there are still so many people here who say the chart should still be just downloads, when digital sales only account for a minuscule 3.5% of today's music consumption in the UK! :P

S

spinny

1

of course Higher Love, an actually godlike song, peaks at number 2. of course lol

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Piran

3

Really wished it had gone to #1 too, but hey, who would've expected Whitney to get a Top 2 hit in 2019? That's still incredible! :)

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Piran

5

My thoughts & observations on the UK charts as always…

‘Take Me Back To London’ by Ed Sheeran ft Stormzy dominates the singles chart for a third week! With 8.45 million streams for the past seven days, it finishes 13,000 combined sales ahead of its nearest challenger.

‘Higher Love’ by Kygo & Whitney Houston is #1 on the sales chart for a fifth consecutive week & the radio airplay chart for a third consecutive week.

‘Take Me Back To London’ also spends a second week in a row on the national YouTube chart, but it loses 12.7% in weekly views to 3.7 million.

POST MALONE - HOLLYWOOD’S BLEEDING (#11)
As I mentioned over on the albums chart article, while I liked Post Malone’s new album as a whole, it wasn’t able to top ‘Beerbongs & Bentleys’ for me & I feel like it’s songs like this that explain why. See, the song opens up song with a haunting guitar line to match Post Malone’s more vulnerable delivery, both of which end up being an awesome fit for the lyrics, but then the song seems to take a new direction with a frantic trap beat & Post coming the closest to rapping that we get here, but later on, the song seems to return to a much slower tempo. That’s the thing, Post sounds best either when he’s trying to aim for those shouty rock tones or sound chilled, but while both are here, the track in general jumps about too much by having multiple switch-ups. I will say that this is growing on me though, so I’m thinking a very light 7/10 for now!

STORMZY - SOUNDS OF THE SKENG (#20)
You know, considering I have a ton of respect for Stormzy as a person & as an artist, it hurts saying that ‘Sounds Of The Skeng’ is easily the worst of the five new arrivals this week. Just to clarify, I don’t blame hardly any of this on Stormzy himself, who spits his bars at a way faster pace than most of his peers can. The lyrics take on braggadocious & even aggressive delivery to trolls & haters like ‘Big For Your Boots’ did, where Stormzy’s frustration might go over the top sometimes, but it’s still going to sound awesome live! No, the real reason why I can’t get behind this song is Sir Spyro, who unfortunately seems to be a regular producer for Stormzy now that they’ve collaborated four times. Like on ‘Take Me Back To London’, Sir Spyro’s production tends to be both eery & fluctuating, almost sounding hypnotic… although the problem is that none of these descriptions compliment Stormzy’s delivery here! Thankfully, Stormzy’s energy & personality alone is enough to carry this to a passable standard, but even then, he’s done this sort of thing before to a much better standard, multiple times in fact. Yeah, sorry, strong 5/10 for this!

AITCH FT ZIEZIE - BUSS DOWN (#21)
Okay, while I still have no real desire to check out Aitch’s new album that came out last week, this might actually be the first thing I’ve heard from him that I could see myself somewhat liking! Here’s the thing, despite the tempo being notably slower, this somehow seems to carry the same level of energy than ‘Taste [Make It Shake]’ did, probably due to the slick melody of both the keyboard slams & the skittering drill beat. While the content might be nothing special, I can still appreciate that Aitch is showing at least a bit more personality than usual here, but it’s ZieZie who sounds way more engaged in this song; I get why he’s credited as a featured artist, but his part is the one that I’ll really remember coming out of this if anything. Overall, it’s still the best thing I’ve heard from Aitch so far & since we got a Top 3 album from him this week, I’ll take what I get if this is going to mean him sticking around. Overall, solid 6/10!

CAMILA CABELLO - LIAR (#38)
This is actually the third time that Camila has released two singles at the same time, with both this & ‘Shameless’ set to appear on her upcoming second studio, ‘Romance’. That said, while ‘Shameless’ is a very good song for sure, there are so many reasons as to why ‘Liar’ would become the bigger hit! The obvious is that it’s so reminiscent of ‘Havana’, but since I’ve always thought Camila sticking to her Latin roots is the best direction for her, that comparison doesn’t even bother me at all. Camila’s vocals seem a lot more controlled & less strained here, including a falsetto which she does a much better job than average on! The content has been widely described to be about Shawn, where despite what both of them have said in the past about they won’t do, the connection became so strong between them that they couldn’t help “lying” about it any longer. That said, it’s the production that I absolutely adore about this, especially the trumpets that dominate the closing stages of the song, which the rest of the track sounding like some of the more recent upbeat Mediterranean Eurovision entries! I might not like this as much as ‘Senorita’, but if this can debut inside the Top 40 where a majority of Camila’s biggest hits couldn’t, as well as how summery & catchy the general vibe is, the potential for this is absolutely insane & I love it all the same! For me, strong 9/10!

MILEY CYRUS - SLIDE AWAY (#40)
Right now, I find Miley one of those artists where while I certainly understand her appeal to her hits, the flaws are fairly obvious too. In this case, she actually has a considerable amount of vocal presence & a tone that British radio just love, but compared to the other songs she’s charted with, she’s also playing it very safe here. I feel that Miley handles the recent split with Liam Hemsworth in a mature manner within the content, but there’s something not connecting with me with the production. I actually don’t mind how the atmospheric guitars gently flow into the string on the outro, but then you get a piano line tacked onto that, which isn’t blending as well as I’d have liked. My general thoughts on this is that it’s not bad by any means, especially in the writing & vocals, but it doesn’t elevate to any impressive level either. As such, strong 6/10!

On the albums chart, ‘Hollywood’s Bleeding’ gives Post Malone his second #1! It finishes with roughly double the number of combined sales than the #2, including 87% of its overall units coming from streaming.

The rest of the Top 5: ‘No.6 Collaborations Project’ by Ed Sheeran (stationary at #2), ‘AITCH2O’ by Aitch (debuts at #3), ‘Lover’ by Taylor Swift (3-4) & ‘Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent’ by Lewis Capaldi (stationary at #5).

Looking ahead to next week, these songs could enter the Top 40 for the first time: ‘Don’t Call Me Angel’ by Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus & Lana Del Rey, ‘Nookie’ by D-Block Europe ft Lil Baby, ‘Professor X’ by Dave, ‘Will We Talk?’ by Sam Fender, 'Simmer' by Mahalia ft Burna Boy & maybe even more.

Thanks for reading everyone! I hope you all have a good weekend. :)

My latest Crown Note chart: https://crownnote.com/charts/piran-delves/pirans-top-40-146

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Inevio

2

DCMA has went #1 on UK Spotify. The fact Lana Del Rey could get a Top 10 is another entry in the long list of weird things that have happened on the charts in 2019.

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Foxes

1

Hey Piran! I like seeing 'Take Me Back to London' getting a 3rd week at #1 this week and I think it should be able to get at least 2 more weeks at #1 before it gets pushed onto ACR. Of course I also absolutely love the Post Malone takeover, even if I am annoyed that he comes just short of having 3 simultaneous Top 10s again! When 'beerbongs & bentleys' released he had tracks at #6, #9 and #11, and he almost perfectly replicates that this week by having tracks at #5, #10 and #11. The track at #11 was also the first track on the album in both cases! I'm sad to see 'Location' fall out of the Top 40 this week, but its chart run was far better than I think anyone ever expected it to be so I'm very happy about that!

As for the debuts this week, I thought they were generally very positive! Unsurprisingly, I really love 'Hollywood's Bleeding', and I actually really like the beat switch-ups. My only real complaint with the song, and this goes for most of the songs on the album as well, is that it's way too short. I think the feeling of the track jumping around too much could've easily been fixed by: leaving the first 71 second section as it is, but instead of it acting as the first half of the song, it would now act more like an intro. Then it'd switch to the trap beat, and stay like that for around 2 minutes instead of just 52 seconds, and the outro section could stay just like it is at 33 seconds, but it'd feel much more like an outro this way. The track wouldn't even have to be 4 minutes long for this to work, and just making it around 3:40 - 3:50 instead of 2:36 would've significantly improved the song in my opinion. Anyway, this is still a strong 9/10 for me!
I would definitely have to disagree with your rating of 'Sounds Of The Skeng', as I think this might actually be my favourite of the 3 tracks Stormzy's released for his upcoming album so far! Seemingly contrary to popular opinion, I actually really like Sir Spyro's beat here, and between this, 'Take Me Back to London' & Ghetts' new track 'Listen' recently, and 'Big For Your Boots', 'Mr Skeng' and 'Return of the Rucksack' previously, I'm really starting to like hearing Sir Spyro's production tag when listening to a track! Strong 8/10 for me, and it's been growing on me with practically every listen.
'Buss Down' is probably my favourite Aitch track, though I'm still not really a massive fan of the artist, so probably a solid 7/10 here. 'Liar' of course I absolutely love, and while I did prefer 'Shameless' on first listen, I definitely prefer 'Liar' now. Light 10/10 here! Oh, and this is actually Camila's 4th time doing a double single drop: there was 'Crying In The Club' & 'I Have Questions', 'Havana' & 'OMG', 'Real Friends' & 'Never Be The Same' and now 'Shameless' & 'Liar'. As for 'Slide Away', it was my least favourite debut of the week, but I still thought it was pretty good, so a light 7/10 from me.

Next week 'Don't Call Me Angel' should be able to get a Top 10 debut, maybe even Top 5, but I can't see it going to #1. It's only #12 on Apple Music and it fell to #6 on its 2nd day on Spotify. I can see it being #1 on the update later today, but I think 'Take Me Back to London' will still be #1 on the final chart. The only other songs I think will debut are 'Nookie' and 'Professor X', and I think they'll both be fairly low down.
While it may be a fairly quiet week for debuts next week on the charts, it definitely won't be for my personal charts! Every week I make an ordered list of all the songs that could potentially debut on my charts so that I can more easily narrow down the ones that will actually debut, and I think this week had the biggest list I've ever done with the most different artists! https://urlzs.com/Jv8V8. 30 different tracks with 36 different artists! There's no way that all of them will be able to debut on my next chart, but it definitely will be jam-packed!

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Piran

1

Hey Gameskiller! :)

Another notable point of this week is that if you count the 'Take Me Back To London' remix, Aitch would've occupied the #1 & #2 spot this week. In fact, while I don't like the original at all as you know, I do think it gave enough of a boost to the original for Aitch & Jaykae to deserve a chart credit. I believe that might be the label's decision though, not the OCC's. Anyway, the point is that Aitch is responsible for both songs in the Top 2 & I'm not sure of any other artists who have; 1) done this so early on in their career & 2) done this at such a young age.

So two of Post Malone's biggest album tracks have peaked at #11. While that's unfortunate, I do think 'Hollywood's Bleeding' does have potential to make the Top 10 in the future if it becomes an official single or gets a video. I agree with the point that you mentioned about a majority of the tracks being too short from 'Hollywood's Bleeding', not allowing them to develop or evolve to their full potential, so a remix might be a good marketing technique too (although I'm aware there are already tons of features on the album overall!). Speaking of #11 hits, did you know that Lethal Bizzle reached #11 three times but never made the Top 10?

I mostly agree with you on the ratings of this week's new arrivals & the songs that will get there next week. Like you. I'm definitely enjoying 'Liar' more than 'Shameless' now, but the latter would still be a light 9/10 for me at the moment. What were your thoughts on 'Don't Call Me Angel' then? I thought I'd ask early since it already looks locked for the highest new entry of next week.

Speaking of Camila. do you think 'Liar' or 'Shameless' will even make the album? Looking at the previous three examples, neither 'Crying In The Club' nor 'I Have Questions' were her album, 'Havana' was there but 'OMG' wasn't, while both 'Real Friends' & 'Never Be The Same' also got a place on the album.

Also, I'm sure we've chatted about this before, but with 'Camila', why was 'Never Be The Same' put on the album twice, both as an opener & closer? I know the latter was a radio edit, but literally all they changed was two words! It's not the original was that offensive or explicit anyway.

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Piran

1

Hey Inevio! :)

I haven't seen you here in ages, how you doing?

I don't think anything's going to beat Whitney getting a #2 hit in 2019, but yeah, I wouldn't have expected Lana Del Rey in the UK Top 10 this year either.

Sales could end up being dominant for 'Don't Call Me Angel', but it's already down to #6 on Spotify & only at #12 on Apple Music, so #1 on the overall chart won't be happening for it, but Top 10 still seems likely for now!

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Foxes

1

Yeah, Aitch did really well this week, appearing on the remix of the #1, and the #2, #9, #21 & #43 singles. He's certainly had some insane success for such a young artist who's so new to the music industry. Billie Eilish is younger, but she's been making music since 2016 while Aitch has only been making music since 2018. There's also an additional 5 Aitch tracks cut from the Top 75 this week, and 26 tracks cut in total, including 14 Post Malone tracks!
Yeah, I think 'Hollywood's Bleeding' could definitely reach the Top 10 if it gets released as a single, but then I also think 'Paranoid' could've reached the Top 10 if that'd been released as a single, so I guess it really just depends on which tracks from the album Posty decides to push. I didn't know about Lethal Bizzle peaked at #11 3 times without ever reaching the Top 10, but that is definitely very unfortunate for them!
I actually really like 'Don't Call Me Angel'. If you look at my list of the tracks that could potentially debut on my chart next week it made it to #3 out of the 30 songs on there! Under normal circumstances it probably would've debuted in the Top 10 on my charts, but given Post Malone's dominance at the moment I think it's more likely to become a Top 20 hit for me. After a few listens I'd probably give this a strong 8/10 - light 9/10!
For me, 'Liar' would be a light 10/10 like I said, but 'Shameless' would still be a solid - strong 9/10! I'm pretty sure both tracks will be on the album, though, since Camila seems to have a much clearer vision of what she wants the album to be this time around. Originally it felt like she wanted 'The Hurting, The Healing, The Loving' to have a darker tone with 'Crying In The Club' & 'I Have Questions', but then she felt like she wanted to make an album that was more about her than anyone else so she changed the theme and the name. This time it sounds like she has a very clear vision of what she wants the sound of 'Romance' to be, with her entire "world of 'Romance'" visuals as well. For 'Camila', though, I have no idea why 'Never Be The Same' was on it twice. I always think of it as a 10 track album anyway.

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Piran

1

So we could see up to 30 songs debut in your personal chart next week?! That's three-quarters of the entire Top 40 being new entries... records just keep getting made on your Crown Note chart, don't they? What's even more interesting, as you mentioned, is that it isn't even from an album bomb either! :D

I do think the moves & artistic evolution that Camila makes from her eponymous debut to 'Romance' might be fairly similar to what Taylor did between 'Reputation' & 'Lover'. I say this because in both cases, I feel like each artist goes from being vulnerable about their past & occasionally showing off a rebellious & cheeky attitude, while their new albums each seem to have a clearer vision & a more optimistic outlook now that they've settled down with their boyfriends.

Regarding 'Camila', I also consider it a 10-track album too! That's probably the reason why Camila "only" managed seven songs inside my Top 10 in the same week; not because the album wasn't good enough in quality to match 'Lover' or 'Sucker Punch', but simply because it wasn't long enough.

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Inevio

1

Pretty good just been mostly lurking.

Yeah I'm doubting DCMA is gonna have longevity (it's Ariana's what, 10th single in the last 18 months?) but it will have a decent peak.

The fact Whitney nearly got a #1 song if it wasn't for Ed's remixes with a posthumous song is mindblowing. I'm hoping if her family decide to release more singles they get a less boilerplate producer to make it though.

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Foxes

1

I highly doubt that all 30 of those tracks will be able to debut in my next chart, but there is the potential there for it to possibly break the record of 20 debuts from when both 'thank u, next' and 'AJ Tracey' impacted the chart on the same week! A good amount of them are from an album, though, it's just a "Various Artists" album. The new 'Top Boy' album, executive produced by Drake, is 17 tracks long, most of which come from UK hip-hop artists, so of course I was going to love it! I'm almost certain that next week will have the most debuts from different artists ever, even if many of them come from the same album, since the Ariana & AJ takeover week only had 4 different lead artists debuting, while next week could have 20 or maybe even more!
Yeah, I can definitely see the move from 'Camila' to 'Romance' being similar to the one from 'reputation' to 'Lover'. While I did prefer 'reputation' to 'Lover', I still liked the latter well enough, and the main reason I preferred 'reputation' was because of the darker tones and themes, which 'Camila' mostly didn't have. If anything 'Romance' seems to be darker than 'Camila' with 'Shameless', so I can definitely see it being a positive change for me!
I think 'Camila' could've easily held all the top spots of however many songs it had on my charts, so if it had been a 16 track album I think it still would've had the biggest album bomb in my chart history!

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Piran

1

Ah, fair enough. Glad to hear everything's good though! :)

Yeah, the fact that Ariana's put out two studio albums in the past two years isn't what confuses me (although it's certainly unusual), but it's more the fact that instead of releasing album tracks from 'Thank U, Next' given how well the pre-released singles like 'Thank U, Next', '7 Rings' & 'Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored' did, she decides to release these random "one-off" releases like 'Monopoly', 'Boyfriend' & 'Don't Call Me Angel', without any significant promotion.

Anyway, I agree with you that 'Don't Call Me Angel' isn't likely to stick around for very long, but at least it's a good song!

I hope we get more Whitney remixes too! When she wasn't making soulful R&B ballads, she recorded a lot of groovy club music that made everyone feel good, so I think she'd be very proud of what Kygo has done with her Steve Winwood cover.

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Piran

1

So would 'Top Boy' be eligible for the albums chart then, since it's a compilation album? I checked the track listing & it looks intriguing. I do respect Drake for how well he promotes British hip-hop & grime artists! :)

The Official Chart: First Look is out; 'Don't Call Me Angel' is #1 for now, but I think that's going to follow in the footsteps of 'Boyfriend', whereby it leads in the update but actually ends up debuting lower down in the Top 10.

The biggest positive for me would be 'Ride It' approaching the Top 10, but for you, I imagine it's that 'Take What You Want' will also be among the debuts elsewhere in the chart!

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Foxes

1

I don't think 'Top Boy' would be eligible for the main albums chart, but I definitely think it should be. The album isn't a compilation, it's a completely original album with completely original tracks, where almost every track is by a different artist. It's the same problem I had when 'Black Panther: The Album' and 'For The Throne' got relegated to the compilations chart as well, since both of those were original albums. In my opinion the compilations chart should be for actual compilations albums like the NOW series, not just any "Various Artists" album. Or, if they're going to put albums like 'Top Boy', 'Black Panther' & 'For The Throne' onto the compilations chart, albums like 'The Greatest Showman' & 'A Star Is Born' should be on there as well, since there's no real difference between the make-up of all of those albums, other than the labels deciding to credit the latter 2 to a "Cast Recording" of some sort and the former 3 to "Various Artists". Aside from that little rant, though, I definitely respect Drake for what he does for the UK hip-hop scene as well!
Yeah, I think 'Don't Call Me Angel' will probably end up at around #5 on the final chart, and I really can't see it making #1. I do absolutely love that 'Take What You Want' is set to make a debut, though! I kind of thought it might given that it was the 3rd highest from the album on Spotify, but to actually see it in the First Look is great!

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Inevio

2

I think the streaming era has made successful singles post album launch harder to achieve. When the audience is already streaming the single-worthy songs months before release it's hard to keep the momentum. "Breathin" suffered from that and I feel it probably would've been huge if it was released before the album.

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Piran

1

Yeah, it's also similar in the US, where if you have a huge lead single that becomes big on radio forever, a follow-up of the same level might be harder to achieve because the previous single is still getting a ton of airplay.

I think the other case in the UK is the silly "three songs per artist" rule they've implemented recently, where even introducing ACR still doesn't produce any significant movement & "album bombs" don't even exist now.

Not only does this make the singles chart less exciting to follow than before, but it might also be inaccurately reflecting the most popular songs of the week. :/

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Piran

1

Haha, don't worry about that albums chart rant, since I actually agree with you! So it seems like whether or not it's a "cast recording" or "various artists" decides which chart it goes into. If it's the former, it'll go in the albums chart, but if its the latter, it'll make the compilations chart. That's the thing though, while 'Top Boy' is more of a mixtape than anything, which would be eligible for the main albums chart in almost every country.

The weirdest thing I've seen comes into the ARIA charts in Australia, where EPs are actually eligible for the singles chart! Don't ask how or why, since I'm just as confused as everyone else! :O

The only other reason I can possibly think of as to why 'The Greatest Showman' & 'A Star Is Born' don't fit into the same category as 'Black Panther' & 'For The Throne' might be because the former two were produced by a combination of artists, while the latter two were mainly responsible by one act. It was Kendrick Lamar for 'Black Panther', while it was Mumford & Sons for 'For The Throne'. While 'Top Boy' isn't a soundtrack like these other two, it was executive produced by Drake, so maybe it's similar to 'Black Panther' & 'For The Throne' in that respect.

I'm not too sure other than that to be honest! Some of these chart rules are just ridiculously overcomplicated...

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Inevio

1

ACR has made sleeper hits almost impossible in the UK and definitely impacts on album tracks that are popular on release. The 3 song rule has lead to some quite hilarious results like "I Don't Care" falling out straight from the Top 3 but on the whole has produced mixed results imo.

The charts are only slightly faster but that's because it's easier to reach a higher peak when songs have been ACR/3 song ruled. It's basically the same as when labels would delay the release of songs in the iTunes era so they'd debut high on pre-orders then drop like a stone a few weeks later.

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Piran

2

Oh, yeah, 'I Don't Care' had the weirdest chart run ever because of ACR (where it would've had a completely normal one without it). Not only did it go 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-2-out in its first 10 weeks like you mentioned, but it actually re-entered at #3 the following week! How does that make sense?!

ACR also means that it's almost impossible to get a song that spends more than nine weeks at #1! I believe 'Despacito' is the only song we've had since the introduction of the rule in 2017 that's been #1 whilst on ACR. Even then, the week before, it was both the best-selling & most streamed song of the week, yet OCC announced 'Wild Thoughts' as #1 on the singles chart! :O

The best thing to do would be to replace the "three songs per artist" & ACR rules with the recurrent rules that Billboard still implement for the Hot 100, as well as radio continuing not to count for the UK charts. In my opinion, that would be the perfect formula to use.

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Kasper Elbjørn

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You don’t mention Dreamworld by PSB feat. Years And Years. Could this become their 48th top 100?

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Foxes

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I had honestly never heard of that track until I read this comment, but considering it's only at #1090 on Apple Music and is nowhere to be found in the Spotify Top 200 I find it very unlikely that it'll crack the Top 100, even if it is #29 on iTunes.