Tonight, We Are Young

The change that we had all so long hoped for is finally upon us. Because for the first time this year we have a brand new No.1 single.

And to widespread shock it wasn't APT, the song that was leading the way in all published midweeks right up to Wednesday evening. Instead it was the event anticipated on these pages as far back as the start of December: after an 11 week chart climb (and a full 43 weeks after it was first released) the magnificent and mesmerising Messy by Lola Young is No.1 on the Official UK Singles chart. And it surely goes down as the best No.1 single we have had in a very long time.

It has been a patient journey in more ways than you might care to imagine. A graduate of the Brit School, Lola Young was snapped up by Island Records more than five years ago, her first write-ups in the music press coming just weeks before the pandemic shut everything down. But these days there is an acknowledgement that not everyone can be an overnight success, and slowly but surely Lola Young has emerged not only as an artist with a voice but now an artist with a certified smash hit to her name.

And it almost goes without saying it means more that she is British. She and Charli XCX are the only British females to have topped the charts in the last twelve months. More extraordinarily than that she is the first truly solo British female star to enjoy a No.1 since Dua Lipa hit the top with Dance The Night in August 2023.

The paucity of huge mainstream British talent meant that the nominations for this year's BRIT Awards announced this week began to resemble the tracklisting of a Now That's What I Call Music album. In that there were the obvious big name choices followed by an ever growing list of "who dey". Lola Young has a BRIT nomination already - one of five contenders for Best Pop Act. And Messy should be fresh in the minds of voters when it comes to choosing.

Always The Bridesmaids

It was a tight race at the top, but not as tight as last week. Messy eventually triumphed as it surged to a best yet total of over 50,000 sales - aided just a tad by a physical release which meant just over 1,000 of those sales were on vinyl. But it all meant APT remains the eternal bridesmaid, still locked at No.2 over 3,000 chart sales behind. The outgoing No.1 single That's So True slumped to 45,000 sales. In truth it was never destined for a ninth week at the summit.

Currency Conversion

This time last week I was reading speculation that the No.1 single could well be a brand new entry. In the end it wasn't, and in fact the hottest new hit of the week eventually fell well short of that, landing at a still commendable No.6. The track in question is GBP which returns reigning British rap king Central Cee to the Top 10 for the first time since Band4Band was a No.3 hit in June last year. The new track is, like this one, a collaboration as he adds 21 Savage to his list of chart collaborators, the British-born star back on the charts for the first time since his trio of hits almost exactly one year ago and in the Top 10 himself for the first time since his turn on Metro Boomin's Creepin' hit No.7 in the first weeks of 2023. The track itself has little to endear itself to a casual audience, a back to basics British drill track with little in the way of a hook. But adherents to the cause have lapped it up regardless.

Brace For Bruno

Bruno Mars presently resides at No.2 alongside Rose on APT and at No.10 alongside Lady Gaga with the still evergreen Die With A Smile. I only mention this as he is set for a huge debut next week with the provocative and unabashedly filthy Sexyy Red collaboration Fat, Juicy And Wet meaning he might well end up with three simultaneous Top 10 hits with three different women. Watch this space.

I haven't got many other new things to write about alas, although more chart waves are made by Pawsa and The Adventures Of Stevie V as the reworking of the 35 year old Dirty Cash (Money Talks) reaches the Top 20 for the first time with a climb to No.17.

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

Puerto Rican singer and rapper Bad Bunny is phenomenally huge in certain parts of America, that popularity ensuring that in the past he has managed some impressive dominations of the Hot 100. On these shores he's struggled to get a foothold, not helped by the fact that he performs mostly in Spanish meaning there is little for the British to relate to. But perhaps something viral is afoot. DTMF was one of three Bunny tracks which entered just outside the Top 40 last week, all of them grow in chart position a little, but this one is far and away the biggest of them all. It peeks above the horizon at No.26 - becoming only his fourth Top 40 hit single on these shores and his first not in collaboration with anyone else. His only other hits: a turn on Cardi B's No.8 hit I Like It in 2018, with Drake on guest vocals on his own MIA which made No.13 at the end of that year, and finally the Travis Scott track K-Pop on which he guested alongside The Weeknd, that hit creeping to No.24. Dial up DTMF, you never know where this quite mesmerising track is heading. Oh yes, and despite my pun the title has nothing to do with telephone tones. The track's full title is DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (I Should Have Taken More Photos).

I Don't Wanna Feel

So we must turn to the albums chart for the other good headline of the week. The soundtrack to his extraordinary biopic in which he is played by a CGI monkey throughout, Better Man was released digitally just before Christmas to little fanfare. A physical release this week propels it into the charts for the first time and with a huge sale of over 43,000 copies straight to the top of the charts. The movie itself may have been branded a flop in the US, but home audiences are still adoring it and are ready to snap up its songs at the first opportunity.

And here is the funny bit. The tracklisting reads like a Robbie's Greatest Hits rundown, but in actual fact most of the tracks are performed by the other artists who pop up in the film. It qualifies however as a Robbie Williams album as he has a vocal turn of some kind on just about all the tracks, thus meriting his inclusion as the credited artist. This is oddly reminiscent of the same kind of conceit that has led to 1997's Evita movie soundtrack being famously (and retrospectively) regarded as a No.1 album for Madonna - despite the fact many of its tracks were performed by the other stars of the film.

But a Robbie Williams No.1 album it is, notably the 15th of his career. That brings him level with The Beatles on the all-time list with the most of all time (The Beatles are sometimes erroneously credited with 16 No.1 albums, but that is regarding the 2019 special edition of Abbey Road as a separate release to the original). Robbie has of course had a further career before and during his solo years, appearing on three studio albums with Take That as well as their 1996 Greatest Hits and many of the track on 2018 retrospective Odyssey. That then means he's featured on 20 different No.1 albums since 1995 - only Paul McCartney with a combined total of 23 can boast more.

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