13/02/2011 - Jessie J wins Champion chart battle as Lady Gaga swoops into Top 3
Twenty-two-year-old newcomer Jessie J’s Price Tag featuring B.o.B holds on to the number one slot in the Official Singles Chart for a second week after a tight chart battle with Champion the new single from precocious rap talent Chipmunk featuring R&B superstar Chris Brown, the Official Charts Company confirms today.
Champion, a new entry at number two, was leading the way in the Official Chart Update, announced on Wednesday, but Price Tag regained the lead in the last two days. Both singles recorded strong sales of over 90,000 each; the winning margin was less than 5%.
Champion is the eighth Official Singles Chart Top 40 hit and third Top 10, for the North London Chipmunk (aka Jahmaal Noel Fyffe) who is still just twenty years old and whose career highlights already include a number one single Oopsy Daisy (2009) and a number two album, his platinum-selling debut I Am Chipmunk (2009) as well as picking up two MOBO Awards. Chipmunk broke into the mainstream when he was studying for his A-levels.
Meanwhile global superstar Lady Gaga’s new single Born This Way is straight in at number three selling a phenomenal 60,000 copies plus in just 34 hours. Born This Way was released worldwide at 2pm on Friday 11th February having been moved forward from its original release date of today (Sunday 13th Feb). Born This Way is the lead track from Lady Gaga’s forthcoming album also called Born This Way. Lady Gaga is due to perform at tonight’s Grammy Awards in LA where she has been nominated in five categories.
There are no other new entries in this week’s Official Singles Chart Top 10.
In the Official Albums Chart, Adele holds on to the number one slot for a third week with her second album 21 continuing to post strong weekly sales of over 130,000, more than the rest of the Top 5 combined. Not since 2009, when Susan Boyle’s I Dreamed A Dream was number one, has a UK female singer stayed at the top of the Official Albums Chart for longer than two weeks. Adele’s debut album 19 (2008) is this week’s Official Albums Chart number six.
The Official Albums Chart Top 10 sees two new entries; Computers and Blues, straight in at number eight, gives Streets their fifth Official Albums Chart Top 10 and their last if Streets’ founder Mike Skinner holds to his declaration that there will be no more Streets albums after this. Meanwhile, James Blake who was runner-up to Jessie J in the BBC’s Sound of 2011 poll is straight in at number nine with his debut album, the self-titled James Blake and Take That’s phenomenally successful former number one Progress is a re-entry at number ten up from last week’s number 13.
Official Charts Company managing director Martin Talbot said, “The fact that the Top Four singles this week have each sold more than 50,000 copies, plus the speed at which Lady Gaga’s new single as caught up with the rest of the field along with Adele’s continued impressive album sales, demonstrates just how passionate the public is about music. It’s great to see ahead of a week when music and musicians will be celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic with tonight’s Grammys in the States and Tuesday’s Brit Awards in London.
Source: OCC
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Singles
Apparently fighting a losing battle against Chipmunk’s Champion in midweek sales flashes, Jessie J’s Price Tag faced a further serious challenge from the Friday release of Born This Way.
This is the title track and introductory single from Lady GaGa’s eagerly awaited second album but Chpmunk’s challenge faded and despite excellent sales in the short period it was available, Born This Way was unable to mount a serious challenge, leaving Price Tag to take singles chart honours for the second straight week.
Its successful defence was due in no small part to the fact that, having topped the chart instantly when released under the new ‘On Air, On Sale’ initiative, it was still fresh enough to radio listeners last week to be gaining new admirers, and thus increased its sales week-on-week by 13.77% to 95,657.
Featuring vocals from Chris Brown, Champion is the second single from Tottenham rapper Chpmunk’s second album, Transition. It is his 10th Top 75 entry and although he will be disappointed it didn’t reach number one this week, he must be much happier than he was last November when, in his last week as a teenager, Flyng High - the first single from Transition – was doing anything but, debuting and peaking at a lowly number 72.
With first week sales of 91,249, Champion beats the 82,390 copies that Chpimunk’s only number one hit, Ooopsy Daisy, sold when debuting at the apex in 2009.
Both Price Tag and Champion ended up comfortably ahead of Lady GaGa’s Born This Way, which notched up nevertheless useful sales of 61,448 between its release on Friday and the end of the chart eligibility period at midnight on Saturday. Born This Way is GaGa’s 11th chart entry, and seventh Top 10 hit.
Completing the top five, Bruno Mars’ Grenade dips 2-4 (54,392 sales), while Adele’s Rolling In The Deep continues the orderly decline which has see it move 2-3-4-5. It sold 47,907 copies last week, to raise its career tally to 243,525.
Aside from Price Tag, the only single in the Top 10 to increase sales is Yeah 3X, by Chris Brown. Although leapfrogged by his Chipmunk collaboration, Yeah 3X is a real grower, and climbs 9-6 with sales up 13.21% week-on-week at 41,701.
London urban acts supply four of this week’s five highest debuts. In addition to Champion, they are Pow 2011 (number 33, 8,869 sales) by Lethal Bizzle feat.
Grime Allstars, who include JME, Wiley, Chipmunk, Face, P. Money, Ghetts and Kano; Stuttering (number 36, 8,560 sales) by rapper Loick Essien feat N-Dubz; and Feel Good (number 38, 8,264 sales) by dubstep quartet Modestep.
Also new to the Top 40 are Moment 4 Life by Nicki Minaj feat. Drake (up 55-22, 13,155 sales) and Animal by Neon Trees (43-40, 7,465 sales). In an ever-worsening climate for the genre, Animal is the only rock track in the Top 40 - Noah & The Whale (number 32, 9,793 sales) are higher with L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N but that’s too gentle to qualify as a true rock track.
Rihanna is within an ace of her 17th Top 10 hit, with the controversial S&M – or Come On, as some are now calling it - climbing 20-11, with a whacking 121.30% increase in sales to 32,045.
Overall singles sales are up just 0.34% week-on-week to 3,159,513 . That’s 4.80% below same week 2010 sales of 3,318,733, which were inflated by sales of 453,426 copies of Helping Haiti’s charity single, Everybody Hurts.
1 Jessie J 95657 (179,733)
2 Chipmunk/Chris Brown 91249
3 Lady GaGa 61448
4 Bruno Mars 54392 (464,620)
5 Adele 47907 (247,506)
6 Chris Brown 41701
11 Rihanna [S&M] 32045
22 Nicki Minaj/Drake 13155
32 Noah & The Whale 9793
33 Lethal Bizzle & Guests 8869
36 Loick Essien/N-Dubz 8560
38 Modestep 8264
40 Neon Trees 7465
63 Glee Cast [TW] 4507
72 Glee Cast [TATATATM] 3291
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Albums
Valentine’s Day has provided welcome added impetus to album sales in the second week of February for a long time - but in recent years the effect has declined, and this year it has barely helped the overall market.
Last year, only four of the Top 40 artist albums declined week-on-week, immediately prior to Valentine’s Day. This year, 11 of them did.
Adele’s 21 is one of those to decline but also a likely beneficiary, capping its week-on-week decline at 1%, as it sold 134,241 copies to raise its 20 day total to 477,972. Chase & Status’ No More Idols was clearly not helped, and dips 2-5, with sales off 51.5% week-on-week to 25,560. Its decline allows Bruno Mars’ Doo-Wops & Hooligans to rebound 3-2 (44,395 sales).
With S&M set to become its third Top 10 hit, Rihanna’s Loud also rebounds, advancing 5-3 (31,561 sales). The album has been in the top five throughout its 13 week chart career, and is Rihanna’s second million seller in the UK, with sales to date of 1,058,496 copies. Completing the top five Eva Cassidy’s Simply Eva rises 6-4 (27,353 sales).
Mike Skinner is calling a halt to The Streets but Computers And Blues, his fifth album under that name emulates the first four by finding a home in the Top 10, debuting at number eight (16,153 sales).
That’s enough to make it the week’s highest new entry, ahead of Sound Of 2011 runner-up James Blake’s debut album (number nine, 15,940 sales). The Streets’ career sales of 2.089m albums includes a contribution of 1.101m from A Grand Don’t Come For Free.
A year to the week after they made their album chart debut with Glee – The Music – Season One – Volume 1, the all-conquering Glee Cast rack up their eighth Top 40 album, The Rocky Horror Glee Show (number 23, 10,007 sales). It raises their career album sales to 1.165m.
With the album – which contains seven tracks and has a playing time of less than 22 minutes - being issued simultaneous with its constituent tracks, only two have enough firepower to chart independently inside the Top 75: The Time Warp (number 63, 4,057 sales) and Touch A Touch A Touch A Touch Me (number 72, 3,291 sales).
Number three in February 2009, UB40’s Love Songs has been the subject of renewed TV advertising to push its credentials as a Valentine’s Day gift, and it seems to have worked quite well, with the album - which has recently been selling fewer than 100 copies a week - re-entering the list at number 16.
It sold 11,681 copies last week, to lift its overall sales to 107,780. Aimed at the same market, Roberta Flack’s Love Songs climbs 20-11 (13,809 sales) and Marti Pellow’s Love To Love advances 38-27 (7,219 sales).
Other current Top 40 albums to enjoy a surge in sales last week - whether or not a consequence of the Valentine’s Day effect - are Rumer’s Seasons Of My Soul (up 9-7, 21,214 sales, a week-on-week increase of 59.85%), Take That’s Progress (13-10, 14,412, 33.44%), Pink’s Greatest Hits: So Far (23-17, 11,413, 51.3%), Michael Buble’s Crazy Love (25-20, 10,160, 52.03%), Black Eyed Peas’ The Beginning (34-30, 6,266, 27.90%), The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac (44-31, 6,058, 63.7%) and Robbie Williams’ In And Out Of Consciousness… (39-34, 5,598, 30.55%).
Comparatively few artist albums are created specifically for Valentine’s Day. However, many multi-artist sets are, and this week’s Top 10 compilations includes six such collections, most notably Love Songs: The Ultimate Collection, a Sony/Rhino collaboration which jumps 8-1 on sales of 11,373 copies. It finally brings the curtain down on the 12 week reign of Now That’s What I Call Music! 77, which dips to number six (9,622 sales).
The compilation market grows 16.54% week-on-week, easily outstripping the 4.97% growth of the artist album market. Overall album sales – at 2,069,879 – are up 6.81% week-on-week but down 16.68% on same week 2010 sales of 2,483,969.
1 Adele 134241 (477,972)
2 Bruno Mars 44395
3 Rihanna 31561 (1,058,496)
4 Eva Cassidy 27353
5 Chase & Status 25560
7 Rumer 21214
8 The Streets 16153
9 James Blake 15940
10 Take That 14412
11 Roberta Flack 13809
16 UB40 11682 (107,780)
17 Pink 11413
20 Michael Buble 10160
23 Glee Cast 10007
27 Marti Pellow 7219
30 Black Eyed Peas 6266
31 Fleetwood Mac 6058
34 Robbie Williams 5598