This week's Official UK Singles Chart
This week's Official UK Albums Chart
Nope, no shifting it. Not a chance. The fastest selling January release for 18 years extends its appeal well into February to and proves once more to be impossible to shift from the top of the Official UK Singles chart, Rather Be from Clean Bandit featuring Jess Glynne thus sitting comfortably at Number One for a third straight week, selling a further 103,000 copies to take its total since release to well over 400,000 - quantities which not only mean it should race over the half a million copies sold mark sometime in the next ten days, but also putting it in a strong position to creep over a million copies during the course of 2014 - it does, after all, have another 11 months in which to do so.
At some stage, we may well be remarking on the sales longevity of Rather Be, but for the moment there is another record high up in the Top 10 which theoretically peaked in its appeal several weeks ago. Lest we forget Happy by Pharrell Williams first became a hit in December last year, but for X Factor winner Sam Bailey could well have been Christmas Number One and indeed spent a total of three weeks at Number One in January, its run at the top only ended by the release of the Clean Bandit single. Yet still it continues to sell, snapping at the heels of Rather Be and climbing back to Number 2 this week, Pharrell Williams now spending an eighth straight week as the singer of a Top 3 hit single. Not that he is any stranger of late to this kind of extended chart run, his two 2013 million sellers Get Lucky and Blurred Lines spending 8 and 10 weeks respectively as Top 3 hits. Happy has now sold over three-quarters of a million copies itself - almost 600,000 of those since the start of 2014 and remains by some distance the year's biggest seller to date.
Daniel "DJ Fresh" Stein is no stranger himself to the top end of the singles chart, having had a brace of Number One hits in 2011 and 2012, first with Louder and then Hot Right Now, the single which introduced Rita Ora to the world. This week he lands his biggest chart hit since as the extraordinary titled (and indeed sounding) Dibby Dibby Sound crashes onto the singles chart at Number 3. A record which will surely be incomprehensible to anyone under the age of 25, the track is actually a remixed reworking of an older single, the moombahton track Dibby Dibby by Jay Fay whose original recording features so heavily here that he merits equal performer billing on the record. DJ Fresh's production adds a new vocal line from no less a legend than Ms Dynamite. Her last foray into the Top 10 came in 2011 when a guest vocal on the Katy B track Lights On saw her reach as high as Number 4 for the first time ever. Needless to say, the Number 3 peak thus far of Dibby Dibby Sound means it takes over as the highest charting single of her career.
Arriving as expected in the Top 10 after a three-place climb to Number 8 is OneRepublic's If I Lose Myself. Effectively the follow-up to Number One hit Chasing Stars (despite actually having been released before it at the start of last year), the version which has finally become a hit in the UK is the Alesso remix which saw some measure of success in countries such as Holland and Sweden in spring 2013, although sales of both this and the band's own original album version are being combined for its chart position. One look at the live tables of any of the online stores should, however, indicate which version is the most popular.
Can't Remember To Forget You as performed by Shakira and Rihanna made an immediate chart impact when first released three weeks ago, landing at Number 11 to become the Colombian star's biggest hit single since 2009. It appeared, however, to be a one week wonder, diving 20 places the following week and last week almost falling out of the Top 40 altogether with a further slip to Number 38. Never underestimate the benefit of a provocative video however and with the single now in a position to be aired on music channels the track has experienced what we might call a dramatic uptick in sales - rocketing back to Number 15 with consummate ease.
Rihanna is no stranger to the phenomenon of multiple simultaneous hit singles and the resurgence of Can't Remember To Forget You means she is nicely placed to outdo Beyonce this week and boast a presence on three different Top 40 hits. Alongside the Shakira track is the Eminem hit The Monster (down three at 25 this week) along with her own single What Now which soars 53-21 to neatly eclipse the Number 25 peak it scaled in December last year. The sudden spike in interest for the track (which has been available since the release of her Unapologetic album in late 2012) appears to be its use in a promotional trail for the drama offerings of TV channel ITV1, one which has brought the single to the attention of people whom it had eluded when first promoted as a single at the end of last year.
Another minor chart hit from 2013 making a chart comeback this week is Disclosure's F For You, originally a Number 20 hit last August. This week the single makes a Top 40 return at Number 29, its new-found popularity thanks to the release of a reworked version featuring a new guest vocal from Mary J Blige. Although fully credited on the single that everyone is purchasing, the singles chart fails to list the group's new found friend as it inherits the chart history and database entry of the original issue and so remains credited to Disclosure alone - a similar situation to the Lady Gaga hit Do What U Want which remained co-credited to R Kelly even when sales of the version featuring Christina Aguilera overtook the original.
Honours for the barmiest chart entry of the week, however, have to go to the single at Number 24. A testament both to the pent-up demand for the original version and the ability of a section of the British public to not pay attention to what they are clicking on means that a craptacular copycat cover version of the forthcoming Zedd and Hayley Williams hit single Stay The Night - credited here to "DJ Stay The Night" - becomes the first such single to reach the Top 40 in almost a year. The new ability of labels to make singles available for pre-release purchase on iTunes and elsewhere has more or less eradicated the problem in recent months, but with the Zedd single not available in such a manner until the middle of last week has meant the anonymous music factory behind the cover has been able to steal a march. One of the most anticipated releases of the month to date, the original version of Stay The Night stands a better chance than any of removing Clean Bandit from the top of the charts next week - lost sales to the imposter notwithstanding.
The Number One album of the week is So Long See You Tomorrow by Bombay Bicycle Club, the London group's fourth album and easily their highest charting, eclipsing the Number 6 peak scaled by their last offering A Different Kind Of Fix which reached Number 6 in September 2011. That they should have their biggest ever hit record at this moment seems somehow appropriate, guitarist Jamie McColl being the great-nephew of legendary folk singer Pete Seeger who passed away at the end of January.
