Ava Max claims her first Number 1 with Sweet But Psycho on the Official Singles Chart
Congratulations to Ava Max, who scores her first Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart with Sweet But Psycho.
After missing out on the 2018 Christmas Number 1 last week, Sweet But Psycho climbs a place to top the final singles chart of 2018 with 65,000 combined sales, including 7 million streams.
The US singer has enjoyed huge success with the song across Europe, reaching Number 1 in ten countries, including Ireland, Germany and Sweden.
Meanwhile, Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You has to settle for the Number 2 spot for the third time in its 24-year history. After famously losing out on the Christmas Number 1 to East 17’s Stay Another Day in 1994, the song returned to its Number 2 peak in 2017 and does so again this year.
Mariah lost out on the top spot by just 152 combined sales, but she does set a new UK chart record for most streams in a week, racking up 15.3 million plays over the last seven days. The figure overtakes Ariana Grande's 14.9 million streams for thank u, next earlier this month.
Meanwhile, Wham’s Last Christmas lifts four spots to Number 3, The Pogues’ Fairytale Of New York ft. Kirsty MacColl zooms seven places to Number 4, and Ariana Grande’s thank u, next drop two places to complete the Top 5.
Over half of this week’s Top 40 (25 tracks) is made up of festive favourites, including new personal bests for Michael Buble’s It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas (7), Elton John’s Step Into Christmas (10), Ariana Grande’s Santa Tell Me (13), Darlene Love’s Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (22), Katy Perry’s Cozy Little Christmas (23), Sia’s Santa’s Coming For Us (24), Buble’s Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (30) and his Idina Menzel collaboration Baby It’s Cold Outside (39).
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etin
we know that real no.1 is mariah
Spaceman
Which is a shame, since she's a far inferior artist.
etin
who is inferior?
Eoin Sioda
Well deserved!
DD
David Dunbar
Didn't make the Christmas number one though did you. You sound like a cat being strangled anyway
David Eve
Well that depends on your definition of christmas no.1. Personally i think the christmas no.1 must include sales from christmas eve/day and consequently this week is really the christmas no.1...
Yolanda Merkel
This is rubbish. Mariah has the real number one, but the charts are so janky these days that we don't get a real reflection of what people are buying and streaming.
Foxes
But do you really want a chart where 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' is the Christmas #1 every single year? The Christmas chart would go from the most important chart of the year to the least important. There's no excitement in having the same songs go to the top of the chart year after year. I wholeheartedly disagree with ACR for new tracks just because they spent 10 weeks on the chart, but in this one case for Christmas songs I actually agree. I'd even prefer it if there was an entirely separate chart for the Christmas tracks.
I think James Masterton put it best on his https://chart-watch.uk/index.php/week-ending-january-3rd-2019 - "the chart does not exist to tell us that people listen to Christmas music at Christmas time".
Yolanda Merkel
I hear ye, and I agree to a great extent. But the reality is that, boring as it may be, the charts are intended to reflect what's being consumed by music buyers. If people wanna be foolish and buy/stream the same song every year, then the charts need to show that.
Alfred Lock
Happy New 2019 all fans whatever the charts hold for us in the coming year
David Eve
Sounds like Mariah Carey has the real no.1 if you forget ACR (as you should)...... Of course it'll plummet next week.....
Assuming the 'sales points' for all the ACR christmas songs are almost exclusively streams, it is likely that Ava Max is not even in the top 10!!!!! Will probably 'really' be at no.1 next week.....
Jay1988
According to Music Week, All I Want for Christmas Is You sold 126,798 in terms of SCR - so almost twice as much as Ava Max. Sigh.
Foxes
But do you really want a chart where 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' is the Christmas #1 every single year? The Christmas chart would go from the most important chart of the year to the least important. There's no excitement in having the same songs go to the top of the chart year after year. I wholeheartedly disagree with ACR for new tracks just because they spent 10 weeks on the chart, but in this one case for Christmas songs I actually agree. I'd even prefer it if there was an entirely separate chart for the Christmas tracks.
I think James Masterton put it best on his https://chart-watch.uk/index.php/week-ending-january-3rd-2019 - "the chart does not exist to tell us that people listen to Christmas music at Christmas time".
David Eve
If its the most popular song each christmas (and this is actually the 1st year when it has reached no.1), then yes i want it to be no.1. Charts are pointless if they don't accurately reflect what is being sold (though i agree to having mixed feelings about being streamed) without any form of artificial manipulation - such as ACR. The charts have been meaningless since ACR came along with at least 4 fake no.1s - to the benefit of Jess Glynne....
Foxes
I agree with you that ACR shouldn't exist for modern tracks, but imagine in 10 years' time. Imagine how many people would be complaining that 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' is spending its 20th-30th week at #1 (since this would be it's 2nd week at #1, so I'm assuming that it would spend an average of 2-3 weeks at #1 per year) and that the Christmas chart doesn't mean anything anymore. It may be an annoyance now, but it's vital to keeping the chart reasonable around Christmas time. Honestly, I think that including regular tracks and Christmas tracks in the same chart is a bad idea to begin with. It would be much better if they told us the straight, raw sales figures for the Christmas tracks without ACR, but then relegated them to their own chart in a similar way to compilation albums so that they don't interfere with the popular contemporary tracks.
David Eve
If that ends up being the case then so be it. If the charts don't reflect the true picture/popularity then they are meaningless anyway. Removing the christmas tracks would mean the charts were not reflecting the true popularity of the songs.
A better idea may be to only count requested streams i.e. not streams from a playlist (unless created by the listener) as this could better reflect what the public actually wants to listen to. I expect this would greatly reduce christmas streams.
Of course the streaming companies may not agree to provide this data as they are paid to have artists in playlists such as when Drake's album came out. Of course an independent company providing the data would rule this out, but this may not be possible...
Piran
I called it a few weeks ago; I knew this would be a hit! :)
It might be the last #1 of 2018, but it's possibly the best. Congrats Ava!