Sales
Singles:
With Top 10 debuts from Professor Green, Kelis and Selena Gomez and a new number one from Usher feat. will.i.am, singles sales improve 2.9% week-on-week from a 26 week low to 2,437,018 but are 0.62% below same week 2009 sales of 2,452,341.
The star performer is OMG, the introductory single from Usher’s new album Raymond V. Raymond. The track jumps 2-1 (58,385 sales, up 42.5% week-on-week) to provide the 31-year-old Texan with his fourth UK number one single, following You Make Me Wanna (1998), and the 2004 hits Yeah (feat. Lil Jon and Ludacris) and Burn.
Usher co-wrote the tune with Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am, who also produced the song and contributes vocals to it. It’s the sixth number one will.i.am has at least partly written, following the BEP hits Where Is The Love, Boom Boom Pow, I Gotta Feeling and Meet Me Halfway and the Estelle & Kanye West collaboration, American Boy.
Will.i.am’s fingerprints are also all over Kelis’ new smash Acapella, which debuts at number five (37,888 sales). The track is the first single from Kelis’ new album Flesh Tone, which was recorded for the will.i.am Music Group label, through Interscope. Although Will.i.am didn’t write or produce the track himself, his French pal David Guetta did. Charting exactly 10 years after her introductory smash single, Caught Out There, Acapella is Kelis’ ninth Top 10 single.
Borrowing heavily from the INXS hit of the same title, I Need You Tonight debuts at number three (48,265 sales) for Professor Green feat. Ed Drewett. The Virgin single is Professor Green’s second release, following a 2006 Beats Recordings/Warner Music single which sold fewer than 4,000 copies and didn’t make the Top 200.
17-year-old singer/actress Selena Gomez and her band The Scene are the latest hitmakers from Disney’s Hollywood stable, and enter at number seven (30,112 sales) with first single Naturally, which recently reached number 29 on the US Hot 100.
Kate Nash reached number two with debut hit Foundations but two further singles from her album Made Of Bricks both peaked at number 23. More than two years on, her new album, My Best Friend Is You, is set to drop, and first single, Do-Wah-Doo, debuts at number 13 (14,098 sales).
Paul Weller is also about to unveil his latest magnum opus, Wake Up The Nation, from which the first single pairs No Tears To Cry and the title track. Debuting at number 26 (9,301 sales), it brings 51 year old Weller his 70th hit – 65 of them Top 40 – since his 1977 debut with The Jam.
1 Usher/Will.i.am
2 Scouting For Girls
3 Professor Green/Ed Drewett
4 Plan B
5 Kelis
7 Selena Gomez & The Scene
12 Taio Cruz
15 Kate Nash
22 Eliza Doolittle
26 Paul Weller
34 Futureheads
36 Snow Patrol/Martha Wainwright
38 Jay-Z/Swizz Beatz
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Albums:
here’s a bit of compass trouble for Scouting For Girls this week, with single This Ain’t A Love Song heading south, while their second album, Everybody Wants To Be On TV, ventures less far north than had been anticipated.
This Ain’t A Love Song topped early midweek sales flashes with Professor Green feat. Ed Drewett’s Need You Tonight in close attendance but both tracks were eventually overhauled by OMG from Usher feat. will.i.am. Meanwhile, despite high expectations, Everybody Wants To Be On TV was beaten to album chart honours by Plan B’s The Defamation Of Strickland Banks.
After the Top 10 success of singles Stay Too Long and She Said, Plan B’s second album was always going to out-perform his first, Who Needs Actions When You Got Words, which debuted and peaked at number 30 in 2006, and has thus far sold 66,181 copies. A concept album, The Defamation Of Strickland Banks sold more than that – 68,173 copies – in just six days.
Scouting For Girls’ self-titled 2007 debut has sold more than 12 times as many copies - 834,515 - as Plan B’s debut in a shorter time but Everybody Wants To Be On TV never really mounted a serious challenge for chart honours, and sold 47,796 copies to debut at number two. It could, of course, yet reach number one - the first Scouting For Girls album debuted at number 12 on sales of 15,159 copies, and didn’t top the chart until its 18th week on the list.
In other album chart action this week, there are also debuts for new sets from MGMT, Joshua Radin, Jeff Beck, Coheed & Cambria and The Cancer Bats, the re-appearance of newly refurbished albums from Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Madness, and a new Judy Garland compilation.
MGMT’s first album, Oracular Spectacular spun off three Top 40 hits and peaked at number eight, selling 567,696 copies. MGMT have decreed that no singles will be taken from follow-up set, Congratulations, but there’s enough buzz about the band for it to sell 17,596 copies, and debut at number four.
Radin made his chart debut a week ago, with first single I’d Rather Be With You, and follows through with debut album Simple Times, which arrives at number nine (11,929 sales), while I’d Rather Be With You holds at number 11 (18,252 sales). Hardcore Canadian punk band The Cancer Bats also draw blood for the first time, debuting at number 58 (2,551 sales) with Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones, having fallen short of the Top 200 with 2006 debut Birthing The Giant and 2008 follow-up, Hail Destroyer.
Coheed & Dambria’s first two albums were also no-shows on the chart but they reached number 92 with third album From Fear Through The Eyes Of Madness, and improved to number 41 with fourth offering, No World For Tomorrow. Fifth set, Year Of The Black Rainbow, continues the upward trend, debuting at number 35 (3,962 sales).
Pensioner pop rears its head again, with the arrival of guitar legend Jeff Beck’s latest set, Emotion & Commotion at number 21 (6,041 sales). Produced by Steve Lipson and Trevor Horn, and featuring a 64 piece orchestra and Joss Stone, it’s the highest charting album yet for the venerated 65 year old. His Grammy-winning last album, Jeff, failed to chart in the wake of its 2003 release, and has thus far sold only 10,518 copies. In the whole of his career, Beck’s previous highest charting solo albums – 1974’s Wired and 1982’s There And Back – both peaked at number 38. A 1973 supergroup collaboration – by and called Jeff Beck, Tom Bogert And Carmen Appice – reached number 28.
Despite her perennial popularity, Judy Garland has not made the charts since her death in 1969. As of last week, Garland’s only chart appearance came in 1962, when the Judy At Carnegie Hall album enjoyed a three-week chart run, peaking at number 13. More than 48 years on, she’s finally back in the chart, with the new compilation Over The Rainbow debuting at number 66 (2,258 sales). It’s the latest in a series of revivals of moribund chart careers from the Decca label, which also enjoyed success with recent Vera Lynn and Gracie Fields compilations.
Repackaging is also the name of the game for Union Square’s Salvo labels, which falls just chart of the Top 75 with upgraded versions of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Welcome To The Pleasuredome and Madness’s Absolutely and Seven this week. Arriving at number 79 (1,798 sales), number 87 (1,640 sales) and number 107 (1,344 sales), the albums originally peaked at number one (1984), number two (1980) and number five (1981), respectively.
The video release of Alvin & The Chipmunks:The Squeakquel creates a sympathetic updraught for the soundtrack album which rockets 36-16, achieving its highest chart placing for eight weeks on sales of 6,876 copies. The movie debuts atop the video chart with sales of 351,987 copies.
After sinking to a 516 week low last week, album sales benefitted from a decent release slate, and good shopping weather, but barely improved, climbing 2.1% week-on-week to 1,603,726 – 4.57% below same week 2009 sales of 1,680,544.
1 Plan B 68k
2 Scouting For Girls
3 Lady GaGa
4 MGMT
5 Justin Bieber
9 Joshua Radin
16 Alvin & The Chipmunks
21 Jeff Beck
26 Scouting For Girls
31 The XX
35 Coheed & Cambria
60 MGMT