This week's Official UK Singles Chart
This week's Official UK Albums Chart
Returning after a fallow 2012 (the festival equivalent of crop rotation), the world-famous Glastonbury Festival took place in the UK the week before last, with the inevitable knock-on improvement in sales fortunes for many of the headlining acts. Perhaps logically enough, despite the hype attached to their Saturday night appearance, most people already own all the Rolling Stones records they require, so their current hits collection Grrr makes an appropriate but still rather modest 46-20 leap on the brand new Official UK Albums Chart.
Instead, it is left to the festival closers to reap the rewards that came with their slot. Although derided in some quarters for their annoying tweeness and - dare I say it - extensive use of the banjo, Mumford & Sons expanded their fanbase in style as they closed proceedings on Sunday night. The result is a huge 16-1 leap for their 2012 album Babel to ensure it spends its third non-consecutive week at the top of the charts, following on from the two separate spells it enjoyed at the top when first released in October last year. Similarly their 2009 debut Sigh No More also surges in the right direction, climbing back to Number 12. Not that a Number One album was always a foregone conclusion, and indeed Babel takes the crown by the small matter of 125 copies ahead of Michael Buble's To Be Loved.
The Mumfords are the biggest Glastonbury winners on the singles chart too, with their biggest hit to date I Will Wait making a Top 40 return at Number 31, whilst Little Lion Man sits pretty at Number 47, although honourable mention must go to Chase & Status who rise 15-9 with Lost & Not Found and who were mentioned in dispatches as one of the better-received dance acts of the weekend.
Other Glastonbury winners are the Arctic Monkeys whose debut album Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not is at Number 15 and whilst the new Editors album The Weight Of Your Love was always going to make an impact no matter what, another high profile Glastonbury performance will have certainly aided its Number 6 entry although this is still some way short of the chart-topping feats of their last two albums.
After some weeks of relative stability, the Official UK Singles chart starts to speed up again as we have our second brand new Number One single in as many weeks. Proud Yorkshireman John Newman is in the unusual position of celebrating his first ever chart-topping single whilst at the same time having been there done that a year ago. This is thanks to his vocal contribution to Rudimental's Feel The Love which had a week at the top in June 2012, but make no mistake his single Love Me Again is the perfect way for him to kick off his own solo recording career. There is a sense of continuity here as the track is co-produced by Mike Spencer who helmed the Rudimental tracks on which Newman sang, whilst its co-writer is one Steve Booker who celebrates his own second Number One hit single, having penned Duffy's Mercy back in 2008.
Love Me Again storms to Number One with a sale of 125,000 copies to make this the 12th consecutive week that at least one single has sold into six figures - now just one week behind the 13 week run we last saw in 1998. 20 years ago I was a huge fan of soul revivalists the Tyrrell Corporation and watched with disappointment that they remained resolutely hitless. Hearing a Number One single this week which recreates everything that was good about them makes it refreshingly worth the wait.
There is an oft-voiced theory that the British public keeps voting for dance acts in the final of Britain's Got Talent with the sole intention of annoying Simon Cowell as he struggles to sell records off the back of them. This week, however, he has the last laugh as one of the 2013 competition's singing finalists makes their Top 10 debut with a single released off the back of the show in near record time. 15-year-old Gabrielle "Gabz" Gardiner wowed TV audiences as uniquely attired in a baseball cap and patterned onesie she sat at a piano and performed her own composition Lighters (The One), a part sung part rapped tale of teenage heartbreak. Striking whilst the iron is hot she was handed a deal and rushed into a studio - resulting in the young star making her chart debut at Number 6 with the rather sweet yet stirringly anthemic pop song. If her other songs are even half as appealing as this one, she has a very bright future in front of her.
Proving once again that you are only as good as your last hit single, The Saturdays manage the chart equivalent of a wet fart by following Number One smash What About Us with new single Gentleman which charts at Number 14, ensuring they miss the Top 10 for only the third time in their career. Odd really, I can't help but think this single has far more musical chops than the rather weak-kneed composition which sent them to the top last time around.
Amongst the chart also-rans, Ke$ha's Crazy Kids finally shows signs of life with an eight place rise to Number 27 after spending two weeks locked at Number 35. Less good news for Mariah Carey's Beautiful which has intrigued chartwatchers with a languid 8 weeks chart climb, the process of which has included three straight weeks at Number 24 and most recent two at Number 22. For the first time in its two month career, it finally dips, falling back to Number 28.
Clues as to what might be topping the pile a few weeks from now can be gleaned from the way online stores such as iTunes are currently polluted with soundalike cover versions of the new Avicii single Wake Me Up. His label put the track out for pre-order last week to try to sidestep the problem, but this wasn't enough to prevent 'Spark Productions' registering a Top 40 hit at Number 35 with their "tribute" cover.
