This week's Official UK Singles Chart
This week's Official UK Albums Chart
It took until 1994 for a chart act from Denmark to ascend to the top of the Official UK Singles chart - the honour falling to Whigfield with the fondly remembered Saturday Night. She was followed three years later by Aqua (despite singer Lene actually hailing from Norway) but since then - nothing. 18 barren years finally comes to an end this week as Lukas Graham dethrone Zayn Malik and rise 6-1 to claim a Number One hit with their first ever British chart single. The group, named after lead singer Lukas Graham Forghammer, have been a sensation in their home country over the past year and a half with five chart-topping singles to their name. 7 Years was the fourth of those and appears well on its way to giving them a worldwide chart presence, of which this conquering of Britain is merely the latest step.
As a curiosity, 7 Years is the first Number One single to feature a numeric character in the title since Duke Dumont's Need U (100 Percent) hit the top in April 2013 and the first to feature a single digit since 4 Minutes by Madonna and Justin Timberlake in 2008. The last Number One hit to feature a '7' in the title? 7 Days by the suddenly feted once more Craig David.
If Masterton is bothering himself with esoteric chart trivia it must be a fairly quiet week for noteworthy hit singles. The only Top 10 arrival is the anticipated climb for Little Mix and Jason Derulo with Secret Love Song which hauls itself up 11-7 to become Derulo's 11th Top 10 hit and the eighth for the former X Factor winners. Derulo is unlucky this week not to pull a Bieber and have two simultaneous hits in the upper reaches, his own Get Ugly topping out for now at Number 12.
Coldplay's A Head Full Of Dreams had already enjoyed a sales surge prior to last weekend - attributed to a 99p promotion for the album on Google Play - but the additional exposure afforded to the group thanks to their Superbowl half time performance easily consolidated that position towards the end of the week. Having notably failed to top the charts when first released against the Adele juggernaut, the group's seventh studio album finally helps to maintain their 100% record as it climbs at long last to Number One in its 10th week on sale. The Coldplay resurgence has extended to the singles chart as well, the album's lead cut Adventure Of A Lifetime rises back up the charts 18-11, its highest placing for a month but still well short of the Number 7 peak it scaled just before Christmas. Their next single is Hymn For The Weekend which thanks to the Superbowl show and the release of its video makes its Top 40 bow at Number 23. The track features an uncredited guest vocal from Beyonce, thus continuing the group's run of unlikely collaborations with transatlantic superstars that began with Rihanna's guest role on Princess Of China in 2012.
The second single from Adele's 25 album is now confirmed as When We Were Young with the track making its chart bow at Number 33 as it belatedly becomes only the second track from the long player to be heard on streaming services. The whole concept of streaming data being used to compile the charts still continues to raise hackles in certain forums online, mainly those populated by older chart fans (and not music fans) who wish to cling to a past that the music industry is due to leave behind. Nonetheless the grumpiness tends to take the form of objecting to singles being granted a higher berth than their sales performance might suggest - which makes the current chart run of one particular single all the more fascinating.
Elle King's Ex's and Oh's has had a strong presence in the download market for a couple of weeks now and on the pure sales tables holds firm at Number 11 for a second week. Yet despite widespread availability on streaming services it has so far failed to make it onto many people's playlists and languishes down at Number 56 on the streaming only chart. That relegates the track to Number 24 on the main combined chart, demonstrating once more than you cannot be a hit without streaming success now. That point is simply non-negotiable.
