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Kylie Minogue's Tension becomes UK's best-selling single of the week
We hear it and we know!
By George Griffiths
Call her Kyl-eh-eh-eh! Kylie Minogue has proved she's more successful and relevant than ever in 2023, as Tension becomes the UK's best-selling single of the week, and Kylie's second Top 20 single of the year, entering at Number 19.
Produced by Kylie's long-term collaborator Biffco (Spice Girls) and with co-writing credits from Kamille (who has written Number 1 hits for Little Mix and The Saturdays) Tension is a shapeshifting and hook-filled electronic pop song, not entirely unlike Girls Aloud's work with Xenomania, where each song sounds like a few different ideas, hooks and melodies stitched together to make a Frankenstein's monster of a track that becomes better than the sum of its parts.
Tension becomes Kylie’s 53rd UK Top 40 single, and her second Top 20 hit of the year following the success of Padam Padam. Tension also ends the week at Number 1 on both the Official SIngles Downloads Chart and Official Physical Singles Chart.
Tension is, of course, the title track of Kylie's forthcoming 16th (!) studio album, which will be dropping September 22.
MORE: See where all of Kylie's singles and albums have charted in the UK
Of course, Tension builds on the...well...tension of Padam Padam's glorifying and entirely deserved success on the Official Singles Chart earlier this year.
Padam Padam performed something of a (second? third? fourth?) career renaissance for Kylie, becoming her first UK Top 10 single in 12 years.
Padam Padam takes Kylie's career tally of Top 10 singles to an incredible 35. She scored her first Top 10 single in 1988 with I Should Be So Lucky – the first of her seven Number hits to date – which means career run of Top 10s now stretches to 35 years.
With Top 10 hits in the 1980s, ‘90s, ‘00s, 2010s and ‘20s, Kylie becomes only the fourth female solo artist to score Top 10 hits in five consecutive decades. The other enduring chart queens are Cher, Diana Ross and Lulu, who each scored Top 10 hits in the 1960s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s.
And if all that wasn't enough, Kylie will even be opening up her first-ever Las Vegas residency, which will mark her first time performing live in North America since 201.
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londoner
If the No1 seller in downloads and physical sales is only entering the chart at No 19, there is something seriously flawed with how the official chart is compiled.
Bengy
But physical sales and download sales are very small for singles compared with streaming sales. There is no flaw in the compilation of the chart.
D
damian
I can smell some envy , especially looking to that flopped artist on your nick
G
Gery
The envy is coming from bitter Kylie fans and it's been happening since the 80s. lol
THIERRY
The article may say she claimed a 53rd Top 40 but the OC didn't mention which position TENSION is at?
Bengy
It did!! Read carefully.
Tension becomes the UK's best-selling single of the week, and Kylie's second Top 20 single of the year, entering at Number 19.
duggles2000
Streams counts are the worst thing ever to be introduced into the official charts. Physical formats YES, Physical downloads YES because you've actually paid for that track / single. Streaming as part of a subscription service is just added to playlists and is so unfair and easy to fudge the figures so a big NO for me. You can't fudge a physical format or download sale.