Look At The People
No way it is it March already, that isn't physically possible.
Sam Fender has always had impressive albums chart form. His debut album Hypersonic Missiles opened its account in 2019 with a none too shabby 41,000 sales. The follow-up Seventeen Going Under performed similarly well two years later, shifting just shy of 44,000 units in its first week available.
But surely nothing could have prepared us for what he did this week. Completing a hat-trick of No.1 albums the British singer-songwriter moves into Sheeran- or Styles-esque territory as his third studio album People Watching charges to the top of the charts with a huge sale of over 107,000 copies. Around 80,000 of those were accounted for at the start of the week, the album doing impressive business physically with 40,000 CDs and 42,000 vinyl copies. But digital sales and streams only served to top those up across the week.
For those keeping track that's the biggest single-week sale for an album since Coldplay moved over 200,000 copies of Moon Music at the tail end of last year.
Sam Fender should feature heavily at the Brit Awards ceremony, something that may well have taken place by the time you read this. People Watching won't be able to manage a Week 2 anywhere near as good as this one - but it will be interesting to see just what further sales it manages to achieve.
A theme of Chart Watch this week is however to note the growing sense of "what the hell is happening to music" as it becomes harder and harder to ignore what you might call the atrophying of the market. The albums chart is in a state, we've long known this. The parade of the biggest long-playing records of the moment has deteriorated into a list that features a handful of new releases (of which there are precious few this week) and an unmoving glut of well-streamed hits collections by legacy stars. Fender's No.1 album is a bright spot this week, but of the Top 40 albums just 19 of them are newly recorded albums released in the last year. A further four are albums that date from the 2020s, but the rest consist of hits collections that have been clogging up the listings for literally years - decades in some cases. When the "weeks on chart" total of the most popular albums consistently hit triple figures you do have to question still the long-term future of the format. At least as a mass-appeal product.
Tweety Still Rules
Meanwhile over on the Official UK Singles chart the curious phenomenon of slow burning singles from last year dominates matters. Enjoying a second week at No.1 is Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us (now celebrating six months on the singles chart) with Chappell Roan's Pink Pony Club taking over as runner up. That single (released in April 2020 lest we forget) now joins Good Luck Babe as her biggest chart hit to date. Sales of the highest charting singles however are limp. Just 37,000 chart sales was all it took for Not Like Us to take pride of place at the top. So the door is open for something else to take over in style. And in theory it could have been Lola Young's Messy - but at precisely the wrong moment it reverses to ACR status and drops to No.9 instead of reclaiming its spot at the top. Irony of ironies.
Little Woman Tate
Unluckiest lady of the week is possibly Tate McRae, her long-awaited album So Close To What destined to be never anything more than the runner up behind Sam Fender. However, the album has had a positive effect on the Canadian starlet's present parade of singles. In its fifth week on the chart Sports Car comes out of reverse, accelerates into overdrive and performs a fifth motoring metaphor that I can't call to mind right now to move to a brand new peak of No.3. This means she too equals her previous chart best, matching the peaks of breakthrough hit You Broke Me First from 2020 and Greedy in 2023.
Tate McRae's album also spawns the week's highest new entry with Revolving Door arriving at No.10 to become her sixth Top 10 hit single and her third in a row. Another album cut I Know Love is also new at No.25.
Please Stay (Longer)
Sports Car and Lady Gaga's Abracadabra (up to No.4) are at least fresh hits that are in their first few weeks of chart life. The No.5 hit of the week however is almost annoyingly familiar. Benson Boone's Beautiful Things continues its astonishing second wind, back in the Top 5 for the first time in ten months and just a few weeks shy of the anniversary of its fortnight spent at No.1.
For a former No.1 single to return for a Top 10 wander a year after it reached the summit is by no means unprecedented but it is, as you will imagine, highly unusual. And there are normal specific reasons for this. Festive hits probably don't count, but it seems churlish not to note the re-release of Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas which meant it was Top 3 in December 1985 a year after it was at the top. A more contemporary example is perhaps the shock return of Sex On Fire by Kings Of Leon, a performance by an X Factor auditionee sending it rocketing back to No.6 in September 2009, just shy of a year after it had spent three weeks at the top.
But the OG returning No.1 hit will perhaps always be Sailing by Rod Stewart, a song that spent the whole of September 1975 at the top but which was back at No.3 in October 1976 following a public demand re-release after being used as the theme for a fly on the wall TV series following Navy officers. At the time there was genuine intrigue as to whether it might become the first single ever to return to the top of the charts for a second entirely separate run.
I'm not ruling out Benson Boone climbing back to the top either.
Fender Bender
We mentioned Sam Fender's streaming prowess that helped to bump up his album sales, and as you might expect that carries over to the singles chart - albeit not quite to the large extent that others managed. But it is the album release that moves People Watching back to No.13, Arm's Length to No.17 and sends new track Little Bit Closer to No.24 as the week's second biggest new hit.
Yes, that does mean that the two biggest new hits of the week are actually just cuts from the two big new album releases and not tracks necessarily planned to be pushed as singles. The public makes their own choices these days.
Ouch
Moving down the table a little, one notable mover is Raving In The Studio from Aitch and Bou which had a brief Top 40 run three weeks ago but which now rockets back into proper contention with a flying leap up to a new peak of No.22. This isn't quite as organic as it might look, the release of a new remix giving it some extra pairs of ears.
Making records with your better half isn't always a recipe for success and harmony. From Greg n' Cher's Allman And Woman album in the 70s to Rita Ora's lost Calvin Harris work, music history is littered with disasters. But that doesn't seem to be a concern of real life couple Benny Blanco and Selena Gomez who previously collaborated on 2019 track I Can't Get Enough and who are now set to release collaborative album I Said I Love You First later this month. After being previously teased with promotional single Scared Of Loving You (which did not chart) the album is properly heralded with Call Me When You Break Up. It is an entertaining choice given that the single is actually a threesome, featuring additional vocals from Gracie Abrams (who is also listed as co-writer). Another of those tracks which isn't quite as good as its star power suggests it should be, it opens at No.28 to give Selena Gomez her first Top 40 hit since the ironically titled Single Soon made No.21 in September 2023. Blanco has been absent for longer, this is his first chart single of any kind since 2022's No.53 single Bad Decisions, his first Top 40 single since his co-credit on Justin Bieber's Lonely made No.17 way back in 2020.
Free To Chart
It was famously released with the intention of gatecrashing the Christmas No.1 race in 1994 (it failed). Since then the only thing that has prevented Oasis' epic ballad Whatever from being an acknowledged all time classic has been perhaps the fact that the group went on to release records that were even bigger. They are a bit late with it, but this week the track was re-released in commemorative formats to mark its 30th anniversary. Pre-sales meant it was a surprise No.1 on the meaningless First Look chart on Sunday, but those of us who pointed out that it would be lucky to still be in the Top 40 by the end of the week have been proven correct. The re-release lands at No.36, marking the first time it has charted since it first became available digitally in 2010 and its first Top 40 appearance since it reached No.34 as part of a mini invasion of Oasis re-releases in November 1996.
This has been the spring of the Blackpink girls teaming up with big names it seems. First Rose had a smash hit with Bruno Mars (you all know it), then Lisa had a smaller one (I'm still saddened that Born Again wasn't bigger) and now it is the turn of Lisa. For ExtraL she teams up with woman of the moment Doechii on a track which can do no more than enter at No.37. Possibly because it is just no bloody good. It is Jennie's fifth chart hit, her second of 2025 so far after Love Hangover (with Dominic Fike) limped to No.64 a few weeks ago.
We round off the Top 40 with It's Amazing To Be Young, at No.39 giving cult heroes Fontaines D.C. their first ever Top 40 entry. It is brand new track, not taken from their current album Romance but perhaps indicating the follow up is set to be even greater.
