Official Singles Chart on 23/12/2016

But the fun is to see how long a song will last. I don't mind a bit if One Dance still on the top 40 or Mr. Brightside has spent 152 wees on the overall chart. It means they are popular right now and the Hot 100 measures popularity. Period.

Yeah, Rockabye is terrible. Clean Bandit are normally great but Rockabye doesn't sound like a Clean Bandit song.

İnteresting. Abba & queen always in album chart but their xmas songs dont. i think they arent in "now thats what i call shitt

Exactly, I'm getting more into rock now and less into dance coz most dance nowadays is meaningless, generic and impossible to dance to

The drummer of the group, Craig Gill, passed away on the 20th of last month. Immediately after his death, there was indeed a campaign to get 'Saturn 5' to Christmas #1.

Painmix, the BBC reported this week streaming views have now reached 990 million and set for over a billion in 2017:

"When the Official Chart Company first started counting streaming in 2014, the number of streams delivered per week was 275 million. That figure has now swollen to 990 million, and is expected to pass 1 billion in the first weeks of next year."

Sales can't be the priority when you compare it to the streaming numbers! Hardly anyone is buying singles (unless the OCC or another music site releases the figures for the sales top 40 and the top 10 singles are high sales - but I assume they're very low sales). The sales chart is like a dinosaur waiting for extinction. It's on the way out! Streaming is the new way to listen to pop music and people have to accept it.

Where can one find the Sales Chart?

Streaming is a awful way for charts and open for manipulation

The point i am trying to make James is that sales are a legitimate way to make a chart as people are buying from i-tunes etc. Whereas streaming is free so anyone could just put a song on repeat all day. Hence why the charts hardly move from week to week and why the OCC are going to alter how the chart is compiled in the new year.

Just look at the bottom of this page and we will see a selection of blue boxes. Just click on the one that says "Sales"

Thanks! I didn't realize that once you clicked "Singles" first, that'd make more options available.

'Against the law'... Are you saying it's a bad song?

Of course not, it's a fantastic song as are millions of other songs, so why this one still in the top 100

That's the idea. Although with the growth of streaming, I'm not so sure that'll work out in the long run.

I haven´t heard. What are the new streaming rules, I mean how will they work and how are the rules different than now?

the UK singles chart rules for streaming is 100 streams = 1 sale. next year, the OCC is lowering the ratio to 150 streams = 1 sale.

source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-38364237

Probably no streaming unfortunately. I actually really liked 'Chip Pan' though!

Probably due to everyone hearing it through video rather than official streaming.

hot 100 chart:

1. 'invisible touch' enters the hot 100 on 5/31/1986 @ #45-37-27-17-8-6-2-1. *spends 1 wk @ #1*

2. 'throwing it all away' enters on 8/16/1986 @ #54-38-27-25-20-17-12-7-4 *final peak*

3. 'land of confusion' enters on 11/1/1986 @ #64-49-37-34-28-26-20-16-13-13-11-8-6-4. *final peak*

well, i was too young for genesis @ this time, so i can't say i knew too much about them or their music. but of course in 1986, the hot 100 is almost 100% radio airplay...so it looks like the 3rd single is having a harder time climbing into the top 10 compared to the 1st 2 singles.

the first single 'invisible touch' is a more of an upbeat pop song, u.s. radio def. likes it :) and a perfect summer song. the 1st single's release date is perfect timing (in my honest opinion) to becoming a summer hit. usually in the u.s., when a lead single becomes a big hit, u.s. radio can't wait for the next single ;). and since genesis is achieving 3 top 5 hits, it's safe to say, u.s. radio couldn't wait for the next single :)

hot 100 chart cont'd.:

4. 'tonight, tonight, tonight' enters on 2/14/1987 @ #45-36-27-16-12-6-4-3 *final peak*.

5. 'in too deep' enters on 4/25/1987 @ #51-39-34-24-16-11-6-4-4-3 *final peak*.

well, i'll be the first to say 'in too deep' is def. one of my fave songs from the 80s! and it looks like both songs quickly enter the top 40 and keep moving up within the top 40 and into the top 20 in a matter of 1 month. *top 20 is also very good on the chart and being able to stay there for a good length of time*

and since genesis' 5 history making singles were 1st on the hot 100 chart, we've had a number of uk groups who have achieved great success in the u.s such as: def leppard, the spice girls, 1D, the wanted, coldplay...but genesis still holds the unmatched record of 5 top 10's off 1 album for a uk group. *but don't worry, those other groups did great in the u.s. too ;)* and their album also did pretty good in the u.s. too, more on that coming up ;)

200 albums chart:

'invisible touch' *album has same name as lead single* enters albums chart on 6/28/1986 @ #23-10-5-5-3 *final peak*.

album will spend 1 full yr in the top 30 :) and go 6x plat. (that's right, 6mill.). phil collins was also a big solo artist in the u.s. around this time...more on him later on ;). so, def. a big congrats to genesis for their history making feat that still remains unmatched today by any other uk group, incl. the beatles :). and also for being the 2nd uk act behind george michael with the most top 10's from 1 album :)

Great throwbacks as always! :)
Well Genesis earned four UK Top 10 singles, but none of them were actually from their 'Invisible Touch' album. It's still incredible that they were the first & only British group to get five Hot 100 Top 10s from one album, especially considering The Beatles were so dominant on the US charts! :D
Anyway, thanks for posting these as usual. I'm going to sign off now, but hopefully I can be back on later. Chat to you again soon! ;)

mate, you're english right.? it's 'genesis' :D and yes, considering all the uk groups before and since: queen, the rolling stones, pink floyd, spice girls, etc...nope! genesis still holds that record feat...ok, mate i'll catch ya later :P

Yeah, just a typo! :P LOL
Anyway, I wouldn't expect Genesis to have that feat, but it's cool that they do anyway! :)
OK, this is definitely my last post to you for now. See you soon! ;)

LOL!!! sure it was a typo even though your ar*e is english :D! ok, i'll talk to you later

Invisible Touch was among my favorite albums from that era.

i was too young for phil collins back then, but i do remember his music on mtv and on the radio back then.

merry xmas to you too mate :) so, is this the official article before i go thru all the trouble of putting up my throwbacks? ;) or i can wait until next friday :D

Thanks Sunshine Gal! ;)
Yeah, this is the official article now.

Hi Piran hope you're well and Happy Christmas to you, yeah quite a nice song to get the number one, can you do an end of year summary on next week's chart please all the best.

alright mate, did you want to wait 'til next friday though? :D

Hey Chartwatcher! Thanks & I hope you've had a good week too. :)
I'm pleased to hear that you like 'Rockabye'. Of course I'll do an end of year summary, probably reviewing each #1 of 2016. Do you when the Year-End charts will post by the way?

I already answered this! ;) LOL
I don't mind when I see them to be honest. It's up to you as to whether or not you want to do them today or wait until next Friday.

don't worry, i'm just kicking you in the 'you know where' ;) don't wanna get another pending alert :D anyway, i'll break up my throwbacks into smaller posts...can you guess who my throwback is this week?

My guess is 1D for now, but it's probably an older act. ;)

hey!! what's with the 'older' part? not their fault their feats are still unmatched ;) and yes, 1D will be a fun set of throwbacks...i'll def. be dedicating some throwbacks to them in the near future.

Well I just saw that your throwbacks are about Genesis. :)
They had five consecutive #1 studio albums & also got to #1 with a live album. It looks like the singles from their 'Invisible Touch' album performed much better in the US than in the UK according on their discography. I can't wait to see what stats you found out!

i never told you before that genesis had the most top 10's off 1 album for a uk group? cuz the other awesome thing about that is: def leppard would become real big over here about 2 yrs later and even they couldn't match genesis' feat. and def leppard had 2 back to back diamond albums around that time ;) i was a huge def leppard fan back then and they were very big over here! much like adele, the spice girls, 1D...sometime in the future, i'll do a set of def leppard throwbacks ;)

One surprise for me was The Darkness' Christmas song re-entering. I remember my brother particularly liked the song "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" because he thought the singer's falsetto resembled Freddy Mercury's.

Merry Christmas to you as well! Can you believe one I went today to prepare the brine and aromatics for a friend of mine so that she can cook a turkey tomorrow? I do hope it comes out tasty given that I had improvise a little bit in terms of some missing ingredients.

I was going to say that Genesis and Def Leppard are among my favorite all-time bands!

Nice! What are your favourite songs by them then? :)

Thanks! Hopefully it's not too cold where you are & that the turkey goes according to plan. ;)
Based on the chart run of 'Christmas Time', it seems to have re-entered the Top 100 about once every three years. Another interesting observation I found is that 27 Christmas songs are charting inside the UK charts right now, but only 3 Christmas songs are currently on the US Hot 100.
Well 'Christmas Time' & 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love' both peaked at #2 over here. However, with all of these re-entries, 'Mr Brightside' still managed to stay in the Top 100 this week!

By Genesis, among my faves are That's All, Invisible Touch, Land of Confusion and No Son of Mine. :)

By Def Leppard, Photograph, Too Late for Love, Rock of Ages, Hysteria, Pour Some Sugar on Me, Rocket, Let's Get Rocked and Stand Up (Kick Love into Motion). Pyromania and Hysteria are definitely are among my fave albums all-time. :)

It's windy yet sunny but not particularly cold which is probably the weather I like best. It'll be up to my friend to bake the turkey, so hopefully all the improvisation I did with the ingredients works out well for her. ;) BTW, she took a picture with me with her Christmas tree and then she posted it on our friends' class WhatsApp group, which completely caught me by surprise, saying that being able to cook was one of my hidden talents.

Thanks for looking up the info on The Darkness songs. Yes, somebody among the commenters was complaining how much Mr. Brightside managed to chart this week.

Regarding, the # of Christmas songs charting on the Hot 100, you probably forgot to count Hallelujah. Whether that is really a holiday song is debatable, but since it is charting in the Holiday 100, we should count it as such. It'll be interesting to see what happens to Hallelujah after Christmas, though. Sadly, it doesn't appear that any other Holiday song will be able to re-enter the Hot 100 this week, unless Mary, Did You Know? can somehow manage. Applying the 20-week Hot 100 recurrent rule to these older holiday songs seems a bit unfair, don't you think?

Anyway, Piran, since I know you are going to be busy the next couple of day, I'll go ahead and wish a Merry Christmas and Boxing Day! I should be posting my Year-End song review tomorrow, I guess as a gift to all of you. Call it a just in time gift! :D

It's great that Mr Brightside remains in considering the terrible Xmas number 1

It's actually been very similar weather here in England right now! :)
You're welcome! On the Official Charts archives, you can just type an artist's name in the search bar & immediately tells you how many: #1s, Top 10s, Top 40s & Top 75s they had on both the singles & albums chart. It lists every song that charted by that artist & also gives you the full chart run as well. I wish Billboard could do something like this too! :D LOL
Anyway, Merry Christmas to you as well Techfan. Hopefully I'll have a few minutes tomorrow to see your Year-End Hot 100 review, but if not, I'll be here for a bit on Monday & then back to normal on Tuesday. Chat to you soon then! ;)

Well I quite like 'Mr Brightside', but I also really love 'Rockabye' too. Regarding the former, I don't expect to leave anytime soon considering it's currently discounted on iTunes & a lot of Christmas songs will be dropping out next week.
Oh by the way, Merry Christmas for tomorrow! :)

What is this rule?

I'm gonna assume you're not familiar with Billboard's Hot 100. The 20-week recurrent rule states that if a song reaches 20 weeks on the Hot 100, which measures its popularity in the U.S., in order for it to continue charting it would need to be within the Top 50 in any future weeks or else they're only eligible to chart in the Hot 100 Recurrents chart, which is for song that have gone recurrent (basically been unable to beat the rule).

Even though it supposed to be a rule, in its actual application there are exceptions. One of them is for older holiday songs that have been released in the past years and charted. Even though they most haven't necessarily reached 20 weeks charted over the course of their chart runs, the 20-week recurrent rule applies to them. Which is the reason why only All I Want For Christmas Is You, Jingle Bell Rock and Rockin' Around The Christmas are the only older holiday songs that have been able to re-enter. The first one only has charted 17 weeks total, while the second 24 (the recurrent rule would have applied to it regardless), while the last one 17. Hallelujah by Pentatonix, since it was released this year, should be able to chart in any position of the Hot 100 given it hasn't reached 20 weeks yet, but if it does re-enter for the next holiday season, the 20-week recurrent rule would start applying to it and would require the song to chart in the Top 50 to chart in it.

Regarding why this is. The chart editors have decided to apply it that way, even though, I don't think there's anything written and have been pretty strict about it. Regarding what the exceptions are for non-holiday songs, that's a topic for another day.

I'm really glad that Inspiral Carpets - Saturn 5 got into the top 50.

Hey Piran! How are you doing? Are you listening to the countdown? Anyway, given that there wasn't a midweek update, I guess they'll be some surprises. Talk to you later. :)

Hey Techfan! :)
Well the reason there wasn't a mid-week update was because of the Boxing Day holiday. The mid-week updates don't usually happen on a holiday over here. but the actual Top 40 is always announced on a Friday, no matter if it's a holiday or not.
Also, the weekly charts will update at 5.45pm my time as usual & the Chart Of The Year for 2016 is posted at 7pm. It's 5.15pm in the UK now by the way. Too bad I'm going to be signing off soon! :/
Anyway, I can tell you that 'Rockabye' got an eighth week at #1 on the weekly singles chart & 'Last Christmas' was able to reach the Top 10. Little Mix managed to get two songs in the Top 10 this week; 'Touch' at #4 & 'Shout Out To My Ex' at #6. ;)

Thanks for the update! If I don't get to talk to you before then have a happy but safe New Year! ;)

You're welcome! Hopefully I'll be back on for a bit after 11pm my time tonight. Anyway, Happy New Year to you too if I don't see you later. :)

the dave clark five...are they the same uk band from the 60s?

That's right! :)
Did 'Glad All Over' originally perform well in the US then?

i don't know too much about them, but their name certainly rang a bell! they're still making music? wow! i have to say, that's really cool that over there older artists can still keep their careers going...over here, you can, but it's rare. look @ madonna :/

Actually this was a campaign to get their song to Christmas #1. 'Glad All Over' was released over 50 years ago I believe. :)
I'll tell you more about why it's re-entered the Top 40 later (there's actually some soccer involved in this story!)

if they had any type of u.s. success, it's def. been overshadowed by the beatles :D i really don't know any of their music...but that's great for them! oh, can you find out which beatles' songs were #1 for the xmas weeks over there?

It peaked at #6 on the Hot 100 chart dated April 25, 1964, one of the weeks where Beatles took the whole top 3, making Dave Clark 5 the second-biggest UK act that week.

Thanks for that RIME! :)
I believe The Beatles had the entire Top 5 to themselves just three weeks before that date.

Yep. I read about that one!

There's an article in the Official Charts homepage page that has all the Xmas #1 all the way back to 1952. If I remember they had 4, including 3 in consecutive years. The latter, the Spice Girls also did.

Hey Techfan! I hope your weekend is going well. :)
So what do you think of the UK Christmas Charts today then?

Hey Piran! :)

I really wasn't expecting Human to be #2. I'm glad that all those Christmas songs are charting. There are some I've known over the years, while others are completely new to me. Among those older ones that aren't particular well known in the U.S., I particularly like The Pretenders and Boney M ones. That said charity singles had virtually no chance of charting due to streaming. So that means the Singles chart returns to normal next week.

Hey Piran! I just got here, and actually was able to write a blog article, though it's not really a review...

Charity singles have charted, like "What The World Needs Is Love" by Broadway For Orlando.

I'm glad Human is number 2, it would probably be 1 had 1) it be more mainstream-sounding, 2) if it wasn' t for streaming and 3) if the charts weren't FIXED.

To be honest, I'm not really surprised at 'Human' is #2 to be honest, as it was leading the sales chart all week if I remember correctly. I don't think it will get to #1 though unless as its streaming is too weak for now.
Well some of my favourite Christmas songs here are: 'Merry Xmas Everybody', 'Fairytale Of New York' & 'Last Christmas'! :)
I think only AIWFCIY & maybe 'When Christmas Comes Around' will remain in the Top 40 next week. After that, the entire chart will be completely devoid of Christmas songs once again.

Hey Joseph! :)
Well I bet you're pleased that 'Rockabye' got its seventh consecutive week at #1 in the UK this week & the Christmas #1 of 2016. So what's the link to your blog article then? I would be interested to read it. :D
Oh by the way, considering I'm not on for much longer tonight, Merry Christmas to you for tomorrow. Hopefully I'll chat to you for a bit on Monday, but if not, definitely Tuesday. ;)

Hey Joseph! :)
Well I bet you're pleased that 'Rockabye' got its seventh consecutive week at #1 in the UK this week & the Christmas #1 of 2016. So what's the link to your blog article then? I would be interested to read it. :D
Oh by the way, considering I'm not on for much longer tonight, Merry Christmas to you for tomorrow. Hopefully I'll chat to you for a bit on Monday, or if not, definitely Tuesday. ;)

Yes, I am pleased. Here's the link: josephsmusicreviews.blogspot.com/2016/12/drake-bell-is-sellout-and-im.html

Happy holidays to you.

The Official Charts aren't fixed, but the Spotify Charts probably are.