Official Singles Chart on 19/1/2018

Great to see Sigrid and Troye Sivan get their first solo appearances in the top 40! I've been a huge fan of both for quite a long time now. Hopefully both of those tracks will climb, along with Tom Walker, who really deserves a top 40 hit with "Leave a light on". Also good to see Perfect off the top spot, hopefully River will outlast Barking, which is one of the worst tracks I've heard in a while.

Great to see The Cranberries back on both the singles and album charts R.I.P., Dolores O' Riordan Another great artist taken from us too early

Barking? Not my kind of tune. Nice for Eminem to take top spot but hopefully Tom Walker will hit top 40 next week epic track. Also loving sigrid another great tune.

My thoughts on the chart this week:
- Congratulations to Eminem and Ed Sheeran, who finally reach the top spot with River. I'm very glad it finally got a chance at #1, knocking off Perfect, which is frankly boring now to be honest.
- It's also really cool to see Barking by Ramz at #2, it's a really fun track, which i'd like to see at #1 in the future!
- rocketing up 22 places to #7 this week is Camila Cabello's Never Be The Same, after the release of her self-titled debut album. I'm really glad the album release has led to NBTS blowing up in popularity, and I hope it can try and challenge for #1 in the coming weeks!
- The top 10 also sees new peaks for Clean Bandit and Bruno Mars, and Jason Derulo reaches that region for the first time with Tip Toe.
- Dua Lipa is this week's highest climber, with new single IDGAF. Last week I wasn't that much of a fan of the track, but it has grown on me over the last couple of listens and, while it is unlikely to match the success of New Rules, id like to see it become a top 10 hit over the next few weeks!
- I also love seeing climbs for Raye, Jax Jones, Not3s, Steel Banglez and the The Greatest Showman tracks in the top 40! while This Is Me is the most popular and could hit top 10 soon, my favourite of the songs from the soundtrack is Rewrite The Stars at #19. I think Zac and Zendaya have so much chemistry together, and both are great singers! I especially love the part where they duet at the end!
- All this week's top 40 new entries are low down, but are worth waiting for! At #40 is the most popular album track from 'Camila', She Loves Control. It's a great song with a great hook, and is also Camila's first ever top 40 debut as a solo artist! The 3 song rule is very disappointing here, as id have been very interested to see which other tracks form the album could have hit the top 100! I think there could have been three or four more, like Real Friends, All These Years, Consequences and In The Dark, which seemed the most popular album tracks other than She Loves Control.
- After winning Sound Of Music 2018, Sigrid enters at #26 with Strangers. I have known about her since Don't Kill My Vibe hit the top 100 late last spring and especially loved her track Plot Twist in the summer, but she has become big here now, and Strangers is another really good release from her!
- Troye Sivan also enters at #38 with My My My!. This is actually the first time ive heard him sing solo, and its a great song, which I hope can become a bigger hit soon!
- The final debut is from Jorja Smith and Stormzy at #34. I think this is decent, although the worst of this week's debuts. Not a bad track though!
- It was very disappointing that The Greatest Showman managed to stop Camila debuting at #1 with her debut album, but I hope it can get there in the next few weeks because it's an outstanding album with a range of different kinds of tracks!
- Hope everyone has enjoyed reading my review, and my review of 'Camila' will be up either later or tomorrow! :D

My thoughts & observations on the UK charts as always…

- ‘River’ by Eminem ft Ed Sheeran becomes the new #1 on the singles, making it Eminem’s ninth visit to the top spot & Ed’s fifth! Eminem extend his record for the most #1 hits by a rapper.

- ‘Perfect’ does, however, remain at #1 on the airplay chart for an eighth consecutive week.

- As 'Barking' by Ramz rises 4-2 on the new chart, it becomes the highest charting rap song by a British act in three years.

- After eight new arrivals to the Top 40 last week, we have a slightly quieter week this time, with four songs breaking into the region! The first of these comes from Sigrid & those of you who don’t know her, she’s a 21-year-old singer-songwriter from Norway who achieved international success late last year with her previous single, ‘Don’t Kill My Vibe’, but since she recently won the BBC Music Sound Of 2018 awards, it’s ‘Strangers’ which is looking set to become a considerably bigger hit, as it skyrockets 94-26 after last week’s debut. So it looks like we’re starting off with the best new arrival of the week, because I think Sigrid is definitely one to watch going into 2018 indeed! It’s a song that, while there’s the catchy EDM chorus with up-tempo synths & an airy beat in the verses. These production elements are cleverly juxtaposed with the deeper content, where she describes the falsity of love in a generation that’s overly optimistic of that love. Looking at some of her festival performances back in 2017, she definitely had one of the most powerful voices in pop of last year & watching interviews of her, she appears to have a genuinely sweet personality too! I hope this becomes a hit, but it’s growing on me with every listen.

- After winning the BRIT’s Critics’ Choice Award for 2018 (following in the likes of: Adele, Ellie Goulding, Sam Smith & more big names), Jorja Smith earns her first Top 40 appearance as a lead artist, as ‘Let Me Down’, featuring Stormzy, is a re-entry at #34 this week. 'On My Mind' charted late last year for a few weeks, but other than that, I've never heard any of Jorja Smith’s solo music; the only time I heard her vocals were featuring on a couple of songs on Drake’s latest project & I was a fan of both! I was looking forward to see what she could do as a lead artist though & it’s certainly interesting, but in a mostly positive way. She has wildly soulful vocals where you can really sense the emotion & that’s been the centre of her R&B ballads. Meanwhile, on this, the production elements include a fractured vocal sample that pulls her voice apart & represents that in an incoherent loop. This effect works well when she’s singing in that cool-girl persona to move on from an unworthy lover with a detached delivery, as she can’t completely commit to the guy in question. The piano line works well opening the song & this is one of the most vulnerable performances I’ve heard from Stormzy, even though he sings so faintly that it was hard for me to make out what he was saying at first. That said, I could see this becoming a bigger hit in the future too & if that happens, I wouldn’t complain!

- ‘My My My!’ becomes Troye Sivan’s highest charting song, as it debuts on the Official Charts at #38 this week. I’ve not really had the chance of talk about Troye in general when doing these reviews, but I’ve always found he’s a decent enough singer (both for his originals & covers), although his voice is always better suited for dance music in my opinion. So with ‘My My My!’, it was very good to hear that nailed that balance between pop & dance well again! He’s always sung with a fair amount of confidence, but he’s never sounded this assured, as he celebrates the feeling of new joy as he feels invincible by this new love. In terms of production, I might not be the biggest fan of those pitch-shifted vocals, but the airy beat is cool enough to make this a decent song. Yeah, it does get a little boring at times in verses, but it’s still a lot of fun to listen to whenever it comes on the radio!

- The last new arrival to the Top 40 today is ‘She Loves Control’ by Camila Cabello at #40, which is from her debut album that was released last week & it becomes her sixth Top 40 hit as a solo artist away from Fifth Harmony. Interestingly, this isn’t even an official single, but it’s probably got off to one of the best starts in streaming of her entire solo discography, so Camila will be likely promoting this at least in the UK, but is the song any good? Well it’s that kind of tune that certainly has likeability, but also has a couple of frustrating issues alongside that. Lyrically, this could be depicted in two different ways; one, it appear to be the profile of a heartbreaker, or two, showing independence from an oppressive employment situation that the singer has outgrown. That said, while the production does have a bit of a groove in the hook (the chorus is undeniably catchy), the Latinate beat just sounds extremely flat overall & this is far from Camila’s best vocal display, as she sounds like she’s forcing her voice at the start of the hook. This appears to be a fan favourite track from that album, but I honestly think it might be the worst we get on ‘Camila’, but given ‘She Loves Control’ is still not bad overall, that’s saying something about how much I really enjoyed her album!

- On the albums chart, ‘The Greatest Showman’ soundtrack spends a second week at #1, which shifted 40,000 copies across purchases & streaming equivalent sales.

- The rest of the Top 5 is: ‘Camila’ by Camila Cabello (debuts at #2), ‘÷’ by Ed Sheeran (2-3), ‘Revival’ by Eminem (5-4) & ‘The Thrill Of It All’ by Sam Smith (3-5).

- Looking ahead to next week, these songs could be entering the Top 40 for the first time: ‘Dancing’ by Kylie Minogue, ‘Leave A Light On’ by Tom Walker, ‘These Days’ by Rudimental ft Jess Glynne, Macklemore & Dan Caplen, ‘Fine Line’ by Not3s & Mabel, 'End Game' by Taylor Swift ft Future & Ed Sheeran & maybe even more.

- Finally, I’ve listened to ‘Camila’ in full & I plan to post a full review of the album here next week!

- In general, I like a lot of this new chart, especially the #1 single & #1 album! It’s also awesome that both ‘Tip Toe’ & ‘Never Be The Same’ reached the Top 10. It would’ve been nice to see The Cranberries make at least one appearance in the Top 40 of the singles chart though.

- 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-40-59