This week's Official UK Singles Chart
No. 40: NEW ENTRY. Naomi Campbell - Love And Tears
Time for a shock. The shock is not that the current attempt to turn the supermodel into a Multimedia star has resulted in the release of her first single with an album to follow, but that said single is actually bloddy good. It's a combined formula that should work wonders, one of the most allegedly beautiful women in the world, good producers and songwriters and good marketing and a hit is assured. Some may argue that Naomi Campbell has had no more to do with this record than she has with the current novel that bears her name, but all things aside this rather slinky piece of dance deserves at least a second look.
No. 37: NEW ENTRY. Jam and Spoon - Find Me (Odyssey To Anyoona)
Right In The Night for me will be my favourite dance record of the year and since that track peaked at No.31 back in February the German duo have suddenly started to make a name for themselves in the mainstream, popping up as remixers on a number of hit singles and contributing to the current Pet Shop Boys album. Now they release another single from their album, a slightly ambient piece of Euro-dance that like the previous single may underperform chartwise. Their time will come...
No. 34: NEW ENTRY. Stiltskin - Footsteps
Debut hit: straight in at No.5 with a chart topper a week later. Second hit: Straight in at No.34 and no doubt straight out again. What's missing? A jeans advert is the answer. There is no doubt that Inside was a good record but the TV exposure it received was clearly a major factor in propelling it to the top of the charts. Footsteps is pretty much the same but will now have its work cut out to show that the band are any more than one-hit wonders for a jeans company.
No. 33: NEW ENTRY. Orbital - Are We Here?
Orbital are two lads who in 1990 made a dance record on a couple of keyboards for around 200 quid. They put it out as a single and Chime leaped up the charts to reach No.17 in March that year. Since then the duo have popped up from time to time with a selection of underground dance hits. Are We Here is their first Top 40 appearance since the Radiccio EP in September 1992 and is their fifth appearance in the upper reaches.
No. 27: NEW ENTRY. Crowded House - Pineapple Head
Crowded House are the band it is virtually impossible to criticise. Reviewers and feature writers alike fall over themselves to praise them, meanwhile they just churn out well-crafted hit after hit. The gentle acoustic strum of Pineapple Head is their third Top 40 hit this year... it may not get much further despite being one of the most glorious records in the chart this week.
No. 26: NEW ENTRY. Almighty - Wrench
Hearing both Crowded House and this back to back on the Top 40 countdown on the radio last Sunday was one of the more interesting juxtapositions of the week it has to be said. Loud and proud, the Almighty build on a series of small hits, including a brace of No.38 hits last year, to score their biggest hit to date.
No. 19: NEW ENTRY. Gun - Don't Say Its Over
Gun gave their career an inspired shot in the arm earlier this summer with their rocked up version of Cameo's Word Up which gave them a No.8 chart placing and their biggest hit ever. That success has rebounded onto their own material as well with the followup becoming only their second ever Top 20 hit. Before this year they had never climbed higher than No.24.
No. 18: NEW ENTRY. Suede - We Are The Pigs
Acid test time for Brett and the boys. We Are The Pigs is their first hit single after a long break (February's one-off No.3 hit Stay Together) and the shedding of a guitarist [that's to slightly underplay the sound-altering significance of losing Bernard Butler from their lineup]. What they now have to do is to show that last year's media hysteria and Mercury Music Prize was not just a one-off. We Are The Pigs starts off promisingly then, straight into the Top 20 yet it seems to have none of the inspiration or energy of earlier hits. I could never get very excited by Suede in the first place and it will be interesting to see how this progresses from here.
No. 15: NEW ENTRY. Michelle Gayle - Sweetness
No sooner has Sean Maguire dropped from view than another former Eastenders star arrives in the Top 20. Michelle Gayle started her chart career over a year ago with Looking Up, a classy soul track which reached No.11. The follow-up has been a long time in coming but has been well worth the wait, belying the soap origins of the singer. Radio loves it to death, hence this high entry and I would be very surprised if this does not scrape a Top 10 placing.
No. 13: NEW ENTRY. Prodigy - Voodoo People
Music For The Jilted Generation was one of the more surprising nominees for the recent Mercury Music Prize and the Prodigy are certainly on a roll currently, following in the wake of No Good (Start The Dance) which became their biggest hit for a long time back in June when it peaked at No.4. The new single has little of the commercial charm or potential of that last hit, but its a creditable chart performance nonetheless.
No. 12: CLIMBER. Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories - Stay (I Missed You)
Edging its way up slowly but surely, Miss Bespectacled herself climbs for a third week and may well breach the Top 10 next week.
No. 5: NEW ENTRY. Bon Jovi - Always
There is nothing wrong with a rock band being unashamedly commercial as Bon Jovi have proved for nigh on ten years now. This is admirably demonstrated by their new Greatest Hits package due out soon and is heralded by a new track. Always is an epic ballad of the type they are so fond of penning and a bit of judicious promotion smashes it straight into the Top 5. In doing so it becomes their fifth Top 10 hit ever and equals Keep The Faith as their highest new entry. It is only a small step to becoming their biggest hit ever too - Living On A Prayer having peaked at No.4 in November 1986.
No. 4: FALLER. Wet Wet Wet - Love Is All Around
It looks like the single could be heading for a slow burnout after all, stocks of the single before the decision to delete was announced were so high that at the current rate of decline the track could well be charting right up to the end of October. Current sales are now confirmed as topping 1.65 million units - now enough to make the single the tenth best seller of all time in this country.
No. 1: SECOND WEEK. Whigfield - Saturday Night
Right here's a challenge for you. Guess how many copies Saturday Night sold last week..... Wrong. It was far far more than that. Between the 12th and 17th of September this single sold 220,000 copies. When you consider that in an average week the No.1 single sells around 70,000 copies that is quite a feat in itself [this was the first true indication that the early 90s slump in singles sales was over and that the most popular tracks had the capacity to move some seriously large amount of product. This still pales into insignificance compared to the weekly numbers some singles were doing three years later but at the time this was a watershed moment for the singles market]. That is the highest weekly sale for any single since Band Aid's 'Do They Know It's Christmas' sold 800,000 copies and Wham's 'Last Christmas' sold 600,000 in the same week in December 1984. With sales of over 350,000 in just two weeks Whigfield has notched up the fastest selling single for eight years. Not bad for a tacky little melody penned by an Italian and that soundtracked most people's summer holidays whilst they were tanked up on Sangria. There are no end of facts to reel off about the significance of last week's entry at No.1 but they can wait for over the next few weeks as the girl from Denmark begins what may be a fairly protracted residency at the summit.
