Official Singles Chart on 8/6/2018

If Jess Glynne nabs that number one, 'One Kiss' will become the only sing to achieve eight straight weeks since Shakespears Sister's 'Stay' back in 1992. Correct me if I'm wrong.

"One Kiss" is down to #6 on the Update chart, which means there's a good chance the song will not survive next week.

They should bring back cassette tapes. I used to love them and I hope streaming stays for a long time.

Urban yet again. Kanye's 7 track album under 23 minutes is disgusting and ripping people off so it should not really qualify for the album chart at all. Its really an EP but the OCC dont really know what do to or where to put things anymore. They are so out of touch. personally streaming has killed the uk charts and its so false now unlike proper sales. Rather have a low sales chart than one with streaming that is falsifying the charts just because people like to listen to the same song all day over and over again. In the past if you did that with sales it was looked on as people bulk buying and disqualified.

By the time "One Kiss" blows over, I'm deleting the song from my iTunes and Spotify.

Lenny Kravitz new song Low is not in the top 100! Donald Trump tweeted that this was an outrage!

"China are to blame for Lenny's lack of chart success!"

Don's right! :)

Only three comments? Has the streaming chart era killed off interest? Perhaps we should add Brexit into the debate. :P

http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/19811004/7501/. The Charts from October 1981

Jess Glynne or George Ezra need to clinch that number one spot in next week's chart. 'One Kiss' is still great but it's time for something fresh!

My thoughts & observations on the UK charts as always…

- ‘One Kiss’ by Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa stays at #1 on the singles chart for an eighth week! It was the most streamed song of the week, accumulating 5.5 million plays over the past seven days.

- ‘I’ll Be There’ remains at #1 on the airplay chart for a second consecutive week. It’s also the most downloaded song in the country for a second week in a row.

- This was a very busy week for new music, as there are seven songs that have entered the Top 40 today. However, since three of them are from Kanye West, I’ll just do a short review of his ‘Ye’ album in general. It’s a brief record, just seven tracks long lasting to a total of 23 minutes & while it’s undoubtedly a fascinating listen, it’s also probably one of the weakest performances of his career so far. He discusses some interesting themes that have affected him recently, including: marriage, bipolar disorder & addiction, which is important to both him, his family & his fans, especially when he’s being so candid about the content. However, while the album gets off to a promising start, you begin to realise how lazy this album is & how Kanye’s perfectionism & work ethic just drop off significantly from his earlier discography. The idea of concept & consistency appears to be absent here & when the project feels as unfinished as it does, that’s a problem. I think if this was a longer project, Kanye West could dig deeper into those emotions & there are those flashes of brilliance in his flow & delivery, but those are sadly only few & far between from him & even less of an occurrence from his collaborators here, as well as the producers on this record. Maybe if you’ve been a fan from the start, you can appreciate this more than I did, but I’m not hearing the same spark that his previous albums have brought.

- The 1975 make their chart return with ‘Give Yourself A Try’, entering the new chart at #22. I’ve been trying to get into this band for a while now & while they have some decent to good songs in their discography, none of them have been standouts for me just yet. ‘Give Yourself A Try’ doesn’t get to that level, but I was left reasonably impressed at first listen for sure! It essentially marks a new era in their style of music, as they put the synth-pop & 80s bombast behind them to go for pursue a more raw & analog direction. I like the use of post-punk guitars (reminded me a lot of those from ‘Disorder’ by Joy Division), as well as the springing basslines, although the former does go just a bit too wild for what Matt Healy’s vocals are capable of in my opinion. Not only that, but they’ve significantly ratcheted up the tempo & the lyrics are notably more contemplative than usual. This is definitely something fresh & unexpected from the group, so I’m even more intrigued to see where they’ll go from here. In the meantime, I think they certainly made a right move with this!

- AJ Tracey & Not3s debut at #24 this week with ‘Butterflies’, becoming the former’s first ever appearance in the Top 40. I wasn’t really tracking this song during the past few days, but because of some solid streaming from Apple Music in particular, it appeared to debut a lot higher than I think anyone expected! Thankfully, it helps that AJ Tracey has a more interesting flow than most grime artists currently in the charts & I’d argue he actually outperforms Not3s here, although both of them complement each other well enough, so that honestly doesn’t matter too much. The auto-tune might not have been necessary to give this more of a summery vibe, but when the production is influenced from dancehall that blends in with both rapper’s vocals so well, that’s only a minor issue too. The only concern comes within the lyrics, with problems that annoy me that are used in UK rap as a whole; repeated & cringeworthy rhymes, as well as odd comparisons. That said, while I don’t think it’ll make the top of my summer playlist, I can see it doing well on the urban charts going into the summer, so check it out if you’re interested.

- Maroon 5 get their 21st Top 40 appearance as ‘Girls Like You’, featuring Cardi B, debuts at #28 today. You know, despite me being a fan of this group a few years ago, the fact that they’ve become more mainstream, straying away from rock in pop & collaborating with some newer singers & rappers, has frustrated me a little. I get that it helps them stay relevant on the radio, but at the same time, it’s also made their material a lot more generic & forgettable, with the last song I really like from them being ‘Payphone’ six years ago! Unfortunately, ‘Girls Like You’ comes nowhere close to that level. Cardi B’s vibrant & energetic personality makes the remix a significant step-up from the original, but Maroon 5 just out all of the emotion from the rest of the song, with Adam Levine’s underwhelming vocals & basic acoustics from the rest of the group. The lyrics are that of a standard trap love song, so they’re nothing notable, but inoffensive at the same time. There’s nothing much that bothers me with this, but hardly anything stands out either, so the chances of me caring about this for very long are looking slim at the moment.

- The last of new entries this week is ‘Youngblood’ by 5 Seconds Of Summer, which ascends 52-37 on its eighth week in the chart. I’ve always seen a lot of potential in this band, even if on some of their biggest hits they’ve not completely fulfilled it, but ‘Youngblood’ absolutely gets there & is easily one of my favourite songs from the group! When I heard that 5SOS were moving away from their original pop-punk sound, I was worried that they might become unrecognisable & their fan base would fade out, but the funkier pop sound was arguably a better route to take after hearing this, which introduces pulsating synths, banging drums & a chorus that’ll be stuck in your head for days! The delivery is way more rhythmic & commanding than I thought the band could ever be capable of. On top of that, the emotion is there too, where the honest track looks at a relationship that reaches breaking point & that the couple push each other away, but it comes with the confusion that saying goodbye is hard as they both have strong feelings for one another. If this is what the rest of their upcoming album of the same name is going to sound like, then I’m so looking forward to it, because I absolutely love this song!

- On the albums chart, ‘The Greatest Showman’ spends an 18th cumulative week at #1. Thanks to a recent release on DVD & Blu-ray, it has a sales figure of 38,000 for this past week.

- The rest of the Top 5 is: ‘Ye’ by Kanye West (debuts at #2, most streamed album of the week), ‘Staying At Tamara’s’ by George Ezra (5-3), ‘Noonday Dream’ by Ben Howard (debuts at #4) & ‘Wildness’ by Snow Patrol (2-5).

- Looking ahead to next week, these songs could enter the Top 40 for the first time: ‘Girlfriend’ by Christine & The Queens ft Dam-Funk, ‘Rise’ by Jonas Blue ft Jack & Jack, ‘Lovely’ by Billie Eilish & Khalid, ‘Blue Lights’ by Jorja Smith, ‘Lucid Dreams’ by Juice WRLD & maybe even more.

- Thanks for reading everyone! I hope you all have a good weekend. :)

- My latest Crown Note chart: http://crownnote.com/charts/piran-delves/pirans-top-40-79