My thoughts & observations on the UK charts as always…
‘Dance Monkey’ by Tones & I becomes the longest running #1 single of 2019 so far, with a ninth consecutive week on top! It racked up 9.58 million streams over the past seven days, as well as being the most downloaded track of the week.
‘Don’t Start Now’ by Dua Lipa was the most played song on British radio over the past week!
‘Dance Monkey’ also spends a seventh week in a row as the country’s most watched YouTube video, although it does decline 10.5% in views, down to 4.38 million for the tracking week!
STORMZY FT ED SHEERAN & BURNA BOY - OWN IT (#3)
While the chart run of ‘Take Me Back To London’ got me tired of the song quicker than most, I still stand by saying that the original was one of the best tracks from ‘No.6 Collaborations Project’ & a fantastic ambassador to grime music in bringing the genre’s success to other countries! Following on from that, I was looking forward to what Ed & Stormzy’s third collaboration would bring… which is unfortunately not a lot! Yeah, I dig Stormzy’s more chilled delivery on the opening hook of the song & he can ride the groove well, but his content seemed ridiculously repetitive, especially since he’s usually such a lyrical mastermind! While Ed is at least more creative with his presentation, he still feels somewhat out of place here & not as comfortable as we’ve heard from his other his this year. Factor all of that in & you barely notice that Burna Boy is even here, who harmonises with Stormzy earlier in the song, but he’s pushed so far back in the otherwise messy mix that I can hardly hear him at all! Again, I still have a lot of respect for a majority of things all three of these artists have done, but I sadly can’t put this among them. Solid 5/10 here!
DIGDAT FT D-BLOCK EUROPE - NEW DIOR (#16)
I’m not even going to talk about this one for very long, since I’ve already said the same thing about D-Block Europe six times before, you get the message! Production with absolutely no substance, minimal effort in their delivery, weak adlibs, even DigDat outshining them here! Maybe the gentle groove deep down in the song which stands out near the end is the only attraction here, because it’s very clear that the writing shows no signs of developing, especially when the first notable line (which I’m not even going to repeat) is about having $ex with girls instead of caring about them! In other words, another week, another drill debut we can dismiss almost immediately. Solid 3/10!
PARTYNEXTDOOR FT DRAKE - LOYAL (#31)
It might have been a while since many people would consider PARTYNEXTDOOR relevant, but honestly, I would’ve expected his comeback to be with none other than regular collaborator, Drake. As for this, on first listen, I actually feel this is something I could very easily warm to with time! Despite three producers working on this, the tropical-pop tone & even the auto-tuned vocals remain intact throughout the entire song, where PARTYNEXTDOOR can also vibe with Drake rather pleasantly here. I do feel that this does take a bit of time to get properly going, as well as fading out, but from the main body that we do get, I did like this a lot more than I was expecting. Obviously, my rating can change a lot this early on, but right now, strong 6/10!
Just interrupting the flow of covering new entries, it’s so awesome to see ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ back in late November! Hopefully this’ll be the year it goes all the way to #1!
ZIEZIE FT AITCH - FRENCH KISSES (#35)
I honestly didn’t know what to expect going into this one, since Aitch & ZieZie have never really captured my interest on their own, although they actually produced impressive results when they recently collaborated on ‘Buss Down’, which has only grown on me even more since I reviewed it here! As for this, no, I’m sorry, the same thing just isn’t going to happen. I mean, I actually got intrigued by the French-style introduction, but the transition to a blocky trap beat seemed incredibly turbulent, then we get ZieZie who sounds a lot more trembly than usual (at least in English, because his brief French delivery actually didn’t sound bad). Other than that, he just sounds really boring, where even Aitch sounds a bit more engaged for at least being slightly charismatic. Even then, all the content is about is trying to make out with the girl, which is probably the most predictable lyrical approach from Aitch. Overall, there was potential for this to work, but it sadly got ruined by bland performances across the board. For that, light 4/10!
IDINA MENZEL FT AURORA - INTO THE UNKNOWN (#36)
So look, for as annoyingly overplayed as ‘Let It Go’ was six years ago, it had an anthemic hook that was impossible not to sing along to! It certainly had the magic to become arguably one of the biggest Disney songs of the decade. Unfortunately, you can tell this song is trying to follow a very similar formula, which sadly fails to impress anywhere near as much! I do like the playful pianos that open the song, but the whispery, spoken vocals have never been a winning point for any of the Frozen soundtrack songs, but they’re somehow even worse here as the upper register is a lot weaker in general. There’s certainly potential when the strings & knocks kick in the second verse, since you get interesting switches of dynamic, but the hook still falls really flat for me! Also, while ‘Let It Go’ was such a defining motivational anthem, the content here is just about not venturing into unknown territory, but with the mysterious feel of the song as a whole only partly getting there! So yeah, I see the appeal, but I’m probably going to forget this even exists by next week. On that note, light 5/10!
BASTILLE FT LONDON CONTEMPORARY ORCHESTRA - CAN’T FIGHT THIS FEELING (#39)
It’s hard not to find John Lewis Christmas advert songs absolutely adorable, especially with the videos attached to them! That said, I have to review this as a song by itself, which even then is still mostly enjoyable. Dan Smith’s vocals are the centerpoint of how beautiful & sentimental this cover is, which is well accompanied with the violins courtesy of the London Contemporary Orchestra. In fact, all the string instrumentals from them capture the emotion from Dan in a very touching & stunning manner, as well as the timpani really driving the power behind this. My only nitpick would be that this cover doesn’t really allow the other members of Bastille to stand out, but that’s been a criticism I’ve always had with their music in general! Overall though, while it doesn’t beat the original for me, I do hope this can climb in the weeks building up to Christmas. Therefore, light 8/10!
On the albums chart, Coldplay continue their perfect streak, as ‘Everyday Life’ scores them their eighth #1 with the third biggest debut of 2019 so far (81,000 combined chart sales!).
The rest of the Top 5 is: ‘The Christmas Present’ by Robbie Williams (debuts at #2, 67,000 chart sales), ‘You’re In My Heart’ by Rod Stewart & The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (debuts at #3), ‘Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent’ by Lewis Capaldi (stationary at #4) & ‘Back Together’ by Michael Ball & Alfie Boe (3-5).
While Robbie Williams didn’t achieve the top spot this week, he does have the fastest-selling album on cassette since ‘NOW 52’ in July 2002! All of Robbie’s solo studio albums have charted within the Top 2.
Looking ahead to next week, these songs could enter the Top 40 for the first time: ‘Heartless’ & ‘Blinding Lights’ by The Weeknd, ‘Up All Night’ by Khalid & 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-40-157
(I’ll post my Chart Of The Year on Monday)