Official Singles Chart on 29/6/2018

Surprised to see Scouting For Girls not in the chart with there England World Cup song. It got quiet a bit of publicity for a couple of days on the radio but must admit haven't heard it played since

Where is World in Motion by New Order. I wish the Singles Charts would stop counting Streams. Just count Sales for f**k sake

This is the sort of pop music that was huge pre-streaming and pre-digital. Very catchy feel good pop:

DNCE - TV In The Morning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHIGQ3mQT1I

This is what the chart used to be like. Strong pop songs. They're still being made but very few make the top 40 chart. It's a shame that many young streaming fans are missing out on pop music like that track. Streaming has not improved chart music. Just my humble opinion, of course.

Can someone please explain to me how No Tears Left To Cry had such a dramatic fall? It's still in the top 10 on spotify and top 15 on itunes so I don't see how it falling to 23 is possible.

My thoughts & observations on the UK charts as always...

- ‘Shotgun’ becomes George Ezra’s first #1 on the singles chart, with a lead of 6.500 combined sales & streams over ‘Solo’ by Clean Bandit ft Demi Lovato.

- ‘I’ll Be There’ by Jess Glynne is back at #1 on the airplay chart.

- The most watched video of the week across the country was ‘Girls Like You’ by Maroon 5 ft Cardi B with 2.36 million views, up 26.2% from last week.

- The highest of the five new entries this week, despite only entering at #32, is ‘Only You’ by Cheat Codes & Little Mix. Along with how many people were anticipating the latter group to put out new music, this song apparently features on the Love Island album & we all know popularity that show is, so I’m surprised that this didn’t debut higher. That’s kind of disappointing too because this absolutely has big hit potential & it’s amazing how solid Little Mix sound over the blend of acoustic elements & the electronic drop. In terms of their singing, their ranges might be more limited than usual, but they certainly put in way more emotion into this than you’d expect, even if I can’t support the chipmunk-style vocal effects in the drop. I read a review of this song where it reminded them of ‘Anywhere’ by Rita Ora & I can kind of see that from what I’ve said so far, but where those songs differ a bit more is lyrically, where here it’s about longing for a past relationship to come back. We don’t get to hear much of Cheat Codes’ vocals, but Little Mix just stand out far more than them in terms of singing anyway. That said, overall, it’s a very likeable song & most Mixers are going to love it too, so I recommend checking it out if you haven’t already!

- Tyga gets his fifth chart appearance inside the Top 40 as ‘Taste’, featuring Migos rapper Offset, climbs 42-34 five weeks after it debuted. I knew given how much everywhere was getting behind this on streaming, it was only a matter of time before it came a minor hit here too & I’m not really all that impressed by this either. That said, I’ve never seen the appeal behind Tyga for various reasons, but here he just goes into bragging using brand names & still has the inability to rhyme consistently, which also isn’t helped by how faint Offset’s verse sound, even if he’s putting on the better performance of the two artists. What I’m willing to support more is the production, especially that rumbling beat & scattering trap beat giving this a decent groove, while the vocal fragment being more soulful than I’d have expected. That being said, there is just a huge lead of rappers who could’ve done a much better job with this. As it is, it’s tolerable, but I don’t see this becoming massive, or I’d be very surprised if it did.

- ‘Apes**t’ by Beyoncé & Jay-Z (titled as The Carters) lifts 43-36 after last week’s debut. Speaking of which, did anyone else think this would crash today? The album seemed very frontloaded & given how sales for ‘Everything Is Love’ have dropped off since the last tracking week, I thought the same would happen to the big track from it, so I didn’t expect to be reviewing this. Despite that, I kind of wanted to talk about it, because it’s grown on me considerably since I first heard it nearly two weeks ago! It’s far from the best thing either artist have done, but they can make this banger work to a reasonable standard mainly thanks to ad-libs from Migos & a wiry beeping beat. Unfortunately, Beyonce’s bag rap does absolutely nothing for me at all, it never really has done. Her delivery is a bit better where Jay-Z adds in some accents on the third verse as Beyonce goes into her lower register, but what’s irritating is that she can’t bring the intensity that she did in previous R&B songs like ‘6 Inch’ from her last album. Jay-Z puts on a better performance though as it sounds like he cares more & his bragging is more justified, but he’s ramming more syllables than he needs to in those triplet flows. It’s certainly an awkward listen & one that many people could dismiss earlier than they need to, but if anything, I could at least say it took me surprise either way regardless of quality & the quality is just average for now in my opinion, because both are capable of way better!

- After a few weeks of hovering beneath the Top 40, ‘Nevermind’ by Dennis Lloyd reaches a new peak as it rises 47-39 on the new chart. I was actually starting to get concerned that this wouldn’t be here today, given that last week was its tenth week in the chart & it could be hit by ACR soon, but at least it finally made it because it’s a really awesome tropical dance track to start the summer with! This gained traction worldwide mainly due to Spotify & virality, but it’s really not hard to see why. Let’s start with Dennis Lloyd himself, who has a range of musical talents, but what stands out most about him is how well he can alternate between the lower, soulful octave to the higher, raspier one in his vocals. The content is about describing the difference between imagination & reality, while being vulnerable in a long-distance relationship & feeling alone or insecure because you fear the worst, which many couples can certainly to (hence, it reminds me of ‘Waves’ by Mr Probz for that reason), although if there’s anything that holds it back a little, it’s how basic & repetitive the structure of the song is. What also stands out here is the virtuosity & mix between the brass & electronic, the jazz & the modern. The only unfortunate thing about this is that it won’t have the opportunity to get much higher, because I really love this!

- The final new arrival of the week is ‘Ring Ring’ by Jax Jones & Mabel ft Rich The Kid, which makes it chart debut at #40. So I’m happy that dance-pop is continuing to have success in the UK, maybe it’s died down a little bit in terms of chart peaks from previous years, but it’s making way for newer artists & that’s mostly a positive for me, but Jax Jones has been mostly hit or miss so far, but the only issue is how predictable is production style has become. Unfortunately, while ‘Ring Ring’ isn’t particularly bad, it’s nowhere near as catchy or interesting as it’s trying to be. The track does have a slightly more urban feel to it because of the singers featured on this & I can respect that Jax Jones wants to try something different, but I’m not hearing that versatility in the instrumentation. With Mabel, if she did bring a bit more sass to this like she usually does it could’ve been decent & while Rich The Kid has certainly done worst, his part here is probably the most forgettable, although he does bring a bit more intensity in his delivery despite yet another basic flow from him. Outside of that, the lyrics are about getting one up over a former lover, so not much else to say there. I don’t know, it’s not so much a song that’ll grow on me & when there are other debuts on this week’s chart that are reasonably better, sorry, but I’m going to stick with those instead, because this is kind of mediocre to be honest.

- On the albums chart, ‘The Greatest Showman’ spends a 21st non-consecutive week at #1, with around a 2,000 combined sales lead of its nearest challenger. It is only the 11th album of all-time to spend at least 21 weeks at #1.

- The rest of the Top 5 is: ‘Pray For The Wicked’ by Panic! At The Disco (debuts at #2, ties personal best), ‘Staying At Tamara’s’ by George Ezra (2-3), ‘?’ by XXXTENTACION (7-4) & ‘÷’ by Ed Sheeran (6-5).

- Looking ahead to next week, these songs could enter the Top 40 for the first time: ‘Get Messy’ by Nicky Nevz, ‘Pyro Ting’ by Rak-Su ft Banx & Ranx, 'Fine Girl' by ZieZie, 'I Wanna Know' by NOTD ft Bea Miller, ‘Panic Room’ by Au/Ra & Camelphat, three tracks from Drake’s latest album (‘Don’t Matter To Me’ with Michael Jackson is the most likely to be one of them) & 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-40-82