Ant and Dec hit the Official Chart Number 1 spot, 19 years on!

Photo: © Mary Ruddy 2013. All rights reserved.

19 years after it was first released, PJ and Duncan - AKA Ant and Dec - score their first ever Official Number 1 single with Let's Get Ready To Rhumble!

If you have been living under a rock this week, then looking at today’s Official Singles Chart, you might be forgiven for thinking you are witnessing an early April Fools gag. But, household TV stars, and ‘90s Geordie pop heroes Ant and Dec (AKA PJ and Duncan), have bagged themselves an Official Chart Number 1 with Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble, 19 years after it’s original release!

Last Saturday night (March 23) Ant and Dec were joined on their Saturday Night Takeaway show by stars of ITV’s Big Reunion, Blue, Atomic Kitten and 5ive, and were goaded into resurrecting their PJ and Duncan alter egos for a rendition of their 1994 Top 10 hit Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble. Thousands of viewers immediately downloaded the track and a media frenzy ensued as Ant and Dec led the midweek race. In the week since, Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble has racked up sales of nearly 84,000 copies; that’s 64% of what it had previously sold in its 19 year existence.

Ant tells OfficialCharts.com: “Wow. This week has been crazy! We never expected such an amazing reaction to us performing the song on the show. To be Number 1 in the Official Charts is just unbelievable!"

"To get a Number 1 single with this song 19 years later is very surreal, but we're genuinely chuffed!” adds Dec. “Thank you to everyone that has bought the single, as you are helping Childline, a charity that we are very passionate about".

Before becoming TV presenters, Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly found fame in Newcastle-based BBC drama Byker Grove in the late ‘80s as the characters PJ and Duncan. They adopted those monikers for their subsequent pop career, which resulted in 14 Top 40 singles. Two decades on, at the age of 37, the pair have scored their first ever Official Number 1 smash.

Less than 5,000 copies behind is P!nk FT Nate Ruess’s melodic pop gem Just Give Me A Reason, ascending again this week to Number 2, while last week’s chart toppers The Saturdays FT Sean Paul’s What About Us? drops two places to Number 3. Justin Timberlake’s Mirrors rests at Number 4, while Bastille’s Pompeii completes the week’s Top 5.

New Entries And High Climbers

London-based singer/songwriter Charlie Brown lands his first Top 10 hit with On My Way (Number 7), while Fall Out Boy’s The Phoenix, the latest track to be taken from the band’s new album Save Rock & Roll, debuts inside the Top 40 at Number 36.

The week’s highest climbers come courtesy of Pitbull’s Feel This Moment FT Christina Aguilera, up 16 places to Number 11. Calvin Harris clocks up his eighth Top 40 hit from his current album, 18 Months; I Need Your Love FT Ellie Goulding climbs 16 places to Number 25, while Blackstreet’s 1996 Top 10 hit No Diggity bounces 34 places to Number 38.

And finally, after a staggering 28 week run, Psy’s Gangnam Style finally drops out of the Top 40, resting at Number 50. The track, which peaked at Number 1 last September, is just one of 130 tracks in chart history to sell over a million copies in the UK.

The Official Singles Chart Top 10 is as follows. Click here to see the Official Singles Chart Top 100 in full after 7pm.

© 2013 The Official Charts Company. All rights reserved.