Official Singles Chart Top 40 on 13/4/2018

This is the chart that marked my 14th birthday - and while there are absolutely awesome tunes courtesy of Calvin Harris and Cardi B to name a few, there’s a of a lot more bangers to go through later...

Trash #1. His worst single ever.

UK TOP 40 NOTES & OPINION!
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Drake scores his third number one (4th including features) with Nice for What. I like it more than God's Plan but still don't want to see it spend more than a few weeks at the top. It came from #8 on Monday for a late win!

Freaky Friday drops to #2 this week- and to be honest now that the shock of a novelty song topping the charts has worn off I'm getting bored of it. Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa go in at #3 with One Kiss- it was #2 on Monday and I thought it would go to #1, Ruti always likely to fall down. I like it, but think both artists have done better in the past. Rudimental takes #4 with These Days and George Ezra goes in at #5 with Paradise which, to my surprise isn't going to reach #1.

No huge climbers this week but Khalid goes up 5 (#23-#18) with Love Lies and The Weeknd re-enters at #32 with Pray for Me- he actually left the top 100 so I reckon a chart error occurred there... (tell me if you know)

New Entries:
#1 Drake- Nice for What (see above)
#14 Ruti- Dreams (#1 on Monday- don't expect to see it next week)
#24 Banx & Ranx- Answerphone (Heard it first on the BBC Chart Show- like it!)
#27 Cardi B- Be Careful ((Taken from the album Invasion of Privacy) haven't heard it and I don't think I want to!)
#37 Nines- I See You Shining (So generic... can grime rappers rap about anything except how frickin' rich they are)
#38 Kylie- Dancing (Her 51st top 40 hit and taking from her #1 album Golden)
#39 David Guetta- Mad Love (Good!- expect it to climb!)
#40 Cardi B- I Like it (Alright for a cliché female rapper)

The longest running song is Ed Sheeran- Perfect (40 Wks.) (Can it beat record-breaking Thinking out Loud's 56 Weeks)

I'm doing this for genre and international charts! (Some may not be ready yet)
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"Make Your Own Kind of Music" is a breathtakingly beautiful charity single, it deserves to be in the top 10!

Congratulations to ruti on her being nunber 1 . In sales i accept but still better than drake and a great honour to the memory of Delores o'riordan screw drake #notmynumber1

Drake back at #1 after 2 weeks- get used to it everyone, it's obvious anything he releases is going to go to the top! Not that I'm complaining though, I think Drake has improved massively in recent years, and Nice For What is another banger. One Kiss is another samey house track from Calvin, would've been nice to see Dua get another #1 but he should go back to his EDM days IMO. Nice to see Cardi B get many new entries with the release of Invasion Of Privacy, and I love seeing Answerphone entering the Top 40, great tune that. Sadly Meant To Be is still missing out on a Top 10 peak, was very close this week but not sure it will pull through to the Top 10 by next week!

Drake is #1 again. Shocker.
Also, I just don't like "One Kiss". What happened to Calvin Harris? His "18 Months" and "Motion" eras were full of fist-pumping and motivational EDM bangers and they were really awesome, but now he just does boring house music like this.
I feel like he's lost his shine. It's pretty disappointing.

My thoughts & observations on the UK charts as always…

- ‘Nice For What’ becomes Drake’s fourth #1 on the singles chart, which crept up to the chart summit late in the tracking week due to its dominance on streaming.

- Only 2.096 copies separated the Top 3 this week & I predict ‘One Kiss’ to rise to the top spot next week.

- ‘These Days’ by Rudimental, Jess Glynne, Macklemore & Dan Caplen rises 2-1 on the airplay charts to reclaim the top spot. ‘For You’ by Liam Payne & Rita Ora is the most played song on the radio of 2018 so far.

- Going back to ‘Nice For What’, I’ve recently said about Drake that I don’t mind a lot of his latest music, but he’s so overexposed that I find it hard to care about him as much as I used to. Unfortunately, despite the good video, ‘Nice For What’ is not a step in the right direction musically! Lyrically, it’s either Drake flirting or bragging, which are two things you’ve heard him do dozens of times before! At least his delivery is fine, where he seems more endearing & energetic than usual also with a lightness to his step & he does come with a bit more power here. However, that ‘Ex-Factor’ sample really doesn’t fit this track well & the production from Murda Beatz gets all the more disappointing with those crisp drums. I can’t say I’m a fan of this & it’s not a good sign if hearing this is making me miss ‘God’s Plan’!

- Up next, ‘One Kiss’ by Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa starts at #3 today. Sometimes you just have a good feeling when you hear two big names coming together who have both been responsible for big party anthems & ‘One Kiss’ is the type of song that is definitely going to get everyone in the festival mood! It’s a dreamy whirlpool of deep house, but one that Dua Lipa can sail through so well as her untouchable vocals cut through Calvin Harris’ moody keys & house beats as she delivers the club-ready lines! I knew this would get off a massive start & looking at the current sales numbers, like I said, this is a big contender to be the next #1 & I’m completely fine with that!

- After winning the seventh series of the voice, Ruti Olajugbagbe (who was mentored by Tom Jones) enters the chart at #14 with her cover of ‘Dreams’ by The Cranberries. The initial response for this was absolutely massive but quickly died down during the week; it was leading the mid-week update & it’s easily the best-selling song of the week, but negligible streaming & airplay means it places it outside the Top 10 & it probably won’t stick around for long. Now I had a bad feeling about this when it started playing, as it seems to bore me with a sustained piano line & Ruti’s upper register being nowhere near on the level of the original & that can be a problem when this version lasts just under two minutes! However, get past that forgettable introduction & there’s at least a bit of momentum when the beat kicks in, then we get an explosive chorus with some really powerful vocals, but the issue is that given the length of the song, it takes too long to get going & we could’ve got a bridge or final hook. I get that Ruti’s still young & she’s clearly got the pipes, but I’m going to be sticking to the original if I choose to hear the song.

- Banx & Ranx make their debut Top 40 appearance as ‘Answerphone’ soars 49-25 after a month on the chart, with a little help from Ella Eyre & Yxng Bane. Although, to be honest, this feels more like Ella Eyre should be the lead artist more than anything! Banx & Ranx are adding some summery electro-Caribbean production which I really like, but what caught me off guard was the content, where Ella Eyre contacts a guy who never picks up or responds to her calls & she questions whether or not he still loves her. The lyrics are fairly sad in comparison to the production here! I also think how Ella Eyre’s hook flows into Yxng Bane’s verse is good & vice versa, as well as their harmonies at the end of the song, although Ella Eyre kind of drowned out Yxng Bane’s vocals a bit more than I would’ve liked as both are decent singers. As a whole, I’ve been coming back to this more frequently each week & that hook is so catchy that it would be cool to see this keep gaining traction!

- Cardi B makes her fifth Top 40 appearance as ‘Be Careful’ rockets 72-27 after last week’s debut. I think it’s fair to say that Cardi B has grown on me considerably since I first heard about her. I might not have liked ‘Bodak Yellow’, but all of her featured appearances (especially ‘Finesse’) have been fine enough & has shown improvement with her own material & here’s the thing, I get why she is leading the way in female rap right now, as she always brings attitude to her music. With ‘Be Careful’, it sees her take a more serious tone where she cusses out a unnamed guy (probably Offset) for cheating on her & she discusses the insecurities of being cheated on. The production is what lets this down a little for me, with a tepid sample & a flat synth melody, but for a song warning someone to “be careful”, there’s no danger or dark presence to her vocals at all. I do like her more melodic flow in the hook, so she can tackle more dimensions with her delivery, but there are better tracks from that new album of hers that could become hits. I’m not really going to remember this for very long unfortunately, but it gets a pass from me for now at least.

- Rapper Nines makes his debut chart appearance as ‘I See You Shining’ debuts at #37! I’ll keep this one brief because it’s not much different to the usual new grime artist you get coming & going inside the Top 40, sounding completely generic despite the flow being fine. The chilled production from Steel Banglez & Zeph Ellis is pleasant but barely stands out & Nines’ rapping about his success uses more surreal lyrics than usual, but that’s all too this song really. It’s not bad, but that's only because there’s not enough here to make this a poor track, just a boring one.

- Thanks to the release of her latest album & all of the promotion for it, ‘Dancing’ by Kylie Minogue re-enters the Official Chart at #38, becoming her 51st Top 40 appearance! I think it’s really cool that Kylie is still having hits chart this high being in the music industry for just over 30 years now, even with the streaming disadvantage she has. That being said, while I’m a massive fan of her biggest hits & even the music she put out earlier this decade, I wish I liked ‘Dancing’ more than I actually do. I will say that I like the fusion of genres here, with the acoustic guitar fingerpicking as well as the innovations of electronic dance music today & while it’s immediately accessible, there is some depth within the lyrics. However, Kylie’s vocal style here with her brandishing some twang into her voice does not suit her at all & the hook kills any momentum with that mediocre vocal sampling being blended with the EDM elements. Overall, yeah, it’s nice to see Kylie back, but I just wish it was with a stronger lead single. Still not bad though, so check it out if you’re curious!

- After becoming a minor hit across Europe a few weeks ago, ‘Mad Love’ by Sean Paul & David Guetta ft Becky G is starting to gain traction in the UK, as it lifts 44-39 on its eighth week in the chart. If there’s a song that I think has potential to be a slow gainer to eventually become a big summer radio smash, it’s this! The main reason for that is because the song is just full of energy, although it’s definitely more $exiness than love in this! David Guetta certainly makes everything come together well, especially with the bounce of the EDM beat that he provides here. Vocally, Becky G sounds amazing with both her English & some Spanish vocals & Sean Paul immediately jumps into his quick Jamaican flow that I’ve always been a fan of! Like I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes a much bigger hit over time & I hope that happens, because I really like this!

- Finally, Cardi B has another album track inside the Top 40, as ‘I Like It’, which features Latino acts J Balvin & Bad Bunny. This is heavily indebted to the world of Latin hip-hop, which is a fusion you very rarely see on the Official Charts, with Cardi B delivering a fun hook & I actually don’t mind the flows of both rappers here. In other words, my opinion on this track is the same as the title & I think it could definitely work as an official single!

- On the albums chart, ‘Golden’ becomes Kylie Minogue’s sixth #1 & her 14th studio album overall. It sold 48,000 copies across all metrics this week, with a 13,000 copies lead over its nearest contender. It is also the fastest selling album on vinyl so far in 2018!

- The rest of the Top 5 is: ‘The Greatest Showman’ soundtrack (1-2), ‘Staying At Tamara’s’ by George Ezra (2-3), ‘America’ by 30 Seconds To Mars (debuts at #4) & ‘St Jude Re:Wired’ by The Courteeners (debuts at #5). ‘÷’ by Ed Sheeran reaches its lowest charting position so far, as it drops 5-7 this week.

- Looking ahead to next week, these songs could enter the Top 40 for the first time: ‘Chun-Li’ & ‘Barbie Tingz’ by Nicki Minaj, ‘Let Me’ by ZAYN, ‘Sky Full Of Song’ by Florence + The Machine & 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-40-71

Poor Calvin Harris never stood the chance. At least he is number one in both Scotland and Ireland.

Everyone Knew That Drake Would Be Number one he gained 9 million streams in 2 days
Also though I Wouldn't Of minded any of the top three being number one. Just hope that freaky Friday or one kiss can be number one and that answerphone will be in the the top ten in the future