Need More Time?
Granted, they were from an era which rose-tinted glasses would have you believe was predominantly about the music and massive sales, but Oasis were always the kind of act who were capable of doing some particularly notable things where the charts were concerned.
In December 1994 they were the first act to attempt to pull off the coup of releasing a single in Christmas week itself to try to gatecrash the Christmas chart and enter at No.1. They didn't manage it (Whatever peaked at No.3 behind East 17 and Mariah Carey) but within a couple of years everyone was doing it.
Then there was the program of mass re-releases. Label Creation realised there was no better way of ensuring their charges could be seen as the biggest thing ever than to attempt to give them an ongoing foothold in the singles chart. So during 1996 their entire back catalogue of CD singles was permanently in print, available for purchase at all good record shops. It meant they finished the year with an average of just over two chart hits every week, in an era when having more than 40 weeks on the singles chart in a calendar year was doing something spectacular. This all culminated in a notable week in November that year when they became the first act since The Jam over a decade earlier to enjoy four simultaneous Top 40 hits.
Oh yes, and then there was the time they set a new record in 1998 when all 9:38 of All Around The World made it to No.1 as the chart-topping single with the longest unedited duration.
So yeah, Oasis always did do impressive things.
Which is why it seems only appropriate that as we enter a second week of Oasis-mania they are still there making headlines. The occasion this week is the return to No.1 for their debut album Definitely Maybe. This was in all truth something that was probably on the cards anyway, the album re-released in a new special edition to mark the 30th anniversary of its 1994 release. Nonetheless it seems to be the crowning exclamation point on a month where they have reformed, announced sold-out gigs, announced some more, introduced the world to the concept of "dynamic pricing" (although that is largely Ticketmaster's fault) and God help us even prompted the government to look interested.
Definitely Maybe first topped the charts in September 1994 (naturally). It only spent a week there but has until last week notched up a frightening 556 weeks on the Top 100, standing tall perhaps as their only studio album to be "not as good as the last one". It joins an ever-growing line of classic albums to return to the top of the charts following a new anniversary re-release, albeit the first since Goats Head Soup by The Rolling Stones way back in 2020. During their recording career Oasis had 8 No.1 albums, with Noel Gallagher adding 4 more with his High Flying Birds outfit and Liam Gallagher adding 6 of his own as a solo artist. His Beady Eye continuation of the old band notably never had a No.1 record.
With a full week of newly added sales and streams to their name, most of Oasis' albums make a much better show of things than last week. Hits collection Time Flies and (What's The Story Morning Glory) hold firm at 3 and 4 respectively, but they are joined by The Masterplan at No.41, Be Here Now at No.42 and Heathen Chemistry at No.97. No love for Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants it seems.
Soul Slides Away
Meanwhile they cannot claim domination of the singles chart (that honour belongs to a certain someone else still) but thanks to them we still came damn close to the extraordinary sight of two separate acts each with three side by side Top 10 singles. Live Forever rockets up to No.8 and thus eclipses its original No.10 peak from 30 years ago. Extraordinarily that is enough to make it the first Oasis single ever to hit a chart peak beyond its first week. Just below Don't Look Back In Anger is now No.9 and Wonderwall frustratingly lands at No.11 but despite that we still end up with two acts of distinctly different vintages occupying 50% of the places on the Official UK Singles chart Top 10.
Bitter Tastes?
So yes, sorry Sabrina. You may well have clocked up a significant first of your own this week, but somehow extraordinarily you aren't the biggest story to tell. What she does do though is hold steady. Taste remains No.1, Please Please Please No.2 and Espresso No.3 to ensure she becomes only the second act in chart history to hold down all Top 3 singles for two weeks running - Ed Sheeran's three consecutive weeks in 2017 still the ultimate benchmark. It takes her tally of weeks at No.1 so far this year to 14, matching the run of Olivia Rodrigo in 2021 (the same year in which Ed Sheeran managed 19 weeks at the summit).
All of the fuss of the last two weeks has meant the other Top 10 singles have taken something of a backseat. It would be wrong to note that despite my questioning just exactly where the appeal of Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars' Die With A Smile lay, the single has more than held its own in the face of stiff competition and is No.7 for the third week running. The Oasis invasion has however for the moment brought Dasha's Top 10 run with Austin to a crashing halt, its unbroken 21 week spell now gone forever as the single is booted down to No.12. But I did tell you some weeks ago it was still going to be around until well after the schools went back.
A quick message to the rest of the music industry though: We only have around 10 more weeks of what you might call "normal" singles charts left this year before the Christmas tsunami renders things a bit stupid again. So the window for there to be a new batch of autumnal hits is closing faster than you might think. A paucity of hot new entries means a startling lack of new action to call. Bad news for hopelessly overgrown chart bloggers everywhere.
Land Ho
There is still room for new peaks though. Sailors Song by Gigi Perez comes unglued from the No.35 it has been stranded at for the last fortnight, jumping to No.24. One place behind Gracie Abrams has a new peak of her own as I Love You I'm Sorry hauls itself to No.25.
Rumours of the demise of Coldplay continue to be alarmingly premature. Feelslikeimfallinginlove may have overachieved or underachieved (depending on your point of view) with its No.16 peak back in the summer, but after debuting outside the Top 40 last week the veteran group's latest single We Pray duly becomes their 29th Top 40 single with a climb to No.31, the single set to benefit further with the release of a number of alternative versions featuring differing sets of guest vocals. Both their recent singles are of course from their forthcoming tenth album Moon Music, still a month away from release.
Wrinklies
Coldplay of course can trace their chart career back to the dawn of the millenniun, but they are at least still charting with contemporary hits. It is once more worth pointing out that even with chart rules that are supposed to deprecate catalogue hits, the presence of Oasis has only added to this being one of the most well, retro, Top 40 charts outside of Christmastime for many a long year. The Oasis tracks at the top end date from 1994, 1995 and 1996 and are accompanied by hits from Nsync (2000) and Madonna (1989) with Bruce Springsteen (1984) still kicking around just outside the Top 40. Not that Coldplay are totally immune. They have their own full quota of 3 Top 100 hits this week - their breakthrough hit Yellow (also from 2000) is this week's No.95. And that too is alongside other vintage hits such as Mr Brightside (No.59 from 2004), Iris (No.80 from 1998), Smalltown Boy (No.82 from 1984), Everywhere (No.92 frrom 1988) and Unwritten (No.94 from 2004).
Count them up. 12 of this week's Top 100 hit singles are all hit records at least 20 years old. And not a single Christmas hit between them.
