OCC:
Professor Green triumphs this week with his single ‘Read All About It’ ft. Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sande holding firm at Number 1 for a second week, despite a mid-week chart battle with 2010 X Factor finalist Cher Lloyd who had to settle for the Highest New Entry accolade at Number 4 with ‘With Ur Love’ ft. US singer Mike Posner.
‘Read All About It’, the first Official Singles Chart Number 1 for the 27-year-old Hackney native, sometimes dubbed the English Eminem, follows previous hit singles ‘I Need You Tonight’ ft. Ed Drewitt (Number 3, February 2011) and Just Be Good To Green ft. Lily Allen (Number 5, August 2010).
Over on the Official Albums Chart, 25-year-old Florence Welch and her band return in style with second album ‘Ceremonials’ storming straight to the top spot with sales of over 90,000 in its first week. ‘Ceremonials’ follows the band’s debut, the multi-platinum ‘Lungs’ which spent six months in the charts, having entered at Number 2 in July 2009, before taking the Number 1 title in January 2010. The album has spent a total of 79 weeks in the Top 40, 33 of them in the Top 10. ‘Lungs’ won the Mastercard British Album at the 2010 BRIT Awards and Florence & The Machine, nominated Best New Artist at the 53rd Grammy Awards, went on to take the US by storm, notching up a string of memorable appearances that included Saturday Night Live, Good Morning America, the 83rd Academy Awards, Anna Wintour’s annual Met Ball, and the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo. This year Time Magazine ranked Florence at number 51 in their 2011 list of the one hundred most influential people in the world.
The Official Albums Chart Top 10 sees another three new entries behind Florence & The Machine’s ‘Ceremonials’ at Number 1 and Professor Green’s ‘At You Inconvenience’ at Number 3.
The English tenor Alfie Boe, currently performing in the West End production of Les Miserables, lands his best ever Official Charts performance with new album ‘Alfie’, a collection of popular covers, straight in at Number 6; Brighton duo Rizzle Kicks, who scored an Official Singles Chart Number 1 collaborating with Olly Murs on ‘Heart Skips A Beat’ (August 2011), see their debut album ‘Stereo Typical’ straight in at Number 9 and Manic Street Preachers rack up their ninth Official Albums Chart Top 10 with ‘National Treasures – The Complete Singles’ straight in at Number 10. The Manic Street Preachers have had the highest number of consecutive Top 40 hit singles of any British rock band of the last 20 years (33 hits) while Status Quo hold the record for greatest number of consecutive Top 40 rock singles in history (36 hits).
Singles:
Read All About It continues atop the singles chart for Professor Green feat. Emeli Sande, even though its sales are off 44.20% week-on-week at 85,302. The track was lagging in second place on midweek sales flashes to Cher Lloyd’s second single, With UR Love (feat. Mike Posner).
Lloyd’s good start – facilitated by a return to her old stomping ground at The X Factor to publicise the song – faded as the week progressed, but With UR Love’s eventual debut at number four was attended by higher sales than her debut, Swagger Jagger, sold when it entered at number one 12 weeks ago – 74,030 against 66,316. Despite debuting at number one, Swagger Jagger dropped off very quickly, and is already out of the year-to-date Top 100, falling 98-104 this week, with career sales of 184,914 copies. With UR Love’s sales last week were the highest for a number four song since Rihanna’s Only Girl (In The World) sold 74,248 copies when placing fourth some 50 weeks ago.
The other Jagger single, Moves Like Jagger, didn’t make number one and has been available for a week less but has sold over four times as many copies. Holding at number five, it sold 42,707 copies last week, raising its cumulative sales to a mighty 804,538. It’s the first time that Moves Like Jagger has sold fewer than 50,000 copies in a week, ending a run of 11 straight weeks in which it did so. The last single to top the 50k mark more times was Wet Wet Wet’s 1994 chart-topper Love Is All Around, which did it 14 times in a row, although it sold a comparatively modest 83,998 copies in its peak week. The track ended its run by selling 47,154 copies – but the following week it posted a sale of 75,555, primarily because even the band was fed up with it, and announced its deletion, which ironically triggered even more demand, as punters searched for remaining copies. Perhaps surprisingly, Love Is All Around is not that popular in the digital age, with sales of 59,670 copies logged since the OCC started tracking download sales seven years ago to add to its physical sales of 1,298,131.
After debuting at number two last week, Earthquake eases to number three (75,918 sales) for Labrinth feat. Tinie Tempah, while Kelly Clarkson’s Mr Know It All falls 4-9 (35,910 sales). The Rihanna/Calvin Harris collaboration, We Found Love shows greater tenacity and nearly regains pole position from Professor Green, rising 3-2, with sales off a modest 3.90% at 82,089.
Ed Sheeran’s + album surrenders its third Top 10 hit this week, with Lego House clmbing 12-6 (42,655 sales). It’s the fourth week in a row the track has climbed, whereas Sheeran’s first two hits – The A Team and You Need Me, I Don’t Need You – both peaked in their debut positions of number three and number four respectively.
A recent number one in Austria, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland, Danza Kuduro (Throw Your Hands Up) debuts at number 13 (27,706 sales) for Lucenzo & Qwote feat. Don Omar. The trio are truly international: Lucenzo is French, Omar is Puerto Rican and Qwote is Haitian, whilst their hit includes English, Spanish and Portuguese lyrics.
Nicole Scherzinger’s debut solo album Killer Love is being re-released next week, and one of the extra tracks, Try With Me, becomes the set’s sixth hit, debuting at number 18 (21,315 sales).
Overall singles sales are down 4.60% week-on-week at 3,129,214 – 9.68% above same week 2010 sales of 2,853,101.
1 Professor Green/Emile Sande 85,302
2 Rihanna/Calvin Harris 82,089
3 Labrinth/Tinie Tempah 75,918
4 Cher Lloyd/Mike Posner 74,030
5 Maroon 5/Christina 42,707 (Total: 804,538)
6 Ed Sheeran 42,655
9 Kelly Clarkson 35,910
13 Lucenzo & Qwote 27,706
18 Nicole Scherzinger 21,315
170 Justin Bieber / Mariah Carey 1,207
181 Mariah Carey (AIWFCIY) 1,117
Totals
Wet Wet Wet - Love Is All Around 1,357,801
Cher Lloyd - Swagger Jagger 184,914
================================================== =
Albums:
Michael Jackson’s death in June 2009 not only robbed the world of an iconic recording artist – it also prevented Florence + The Machine’s debut album Lungs from making the second best first impression of the 21st century.
There are no such problems for follow-up Ceremonials, which dashes to a number one debut this week on sales of 94,050 copies, even though first two singles – What The Water Gave Me and Shake Out – failed to breach the Top 20, peaking at number 24 and number 27, respectively.
Lungs DID reach number one...at the 28th attempt, in January 2010 but – released only days after Michael Jackson’s death – spent its first five weeks at number two, behind The Essential Michael Jackson. It was the longest run at number two assembled by any album since 2002, when Blue’s One Love endured a similar spell as second best. Had Jackson not died, Lungs would have spent its first five weeks in pole position, a feat achieved by only one debut album in the 21st century, Leona Lewis’ 2007 debut, Spirit, which spent seven weeks at the summit before being overhauled. While Ceremonials is off to a better start than Lungs, it will have its work cut out to remain ahead of its illustrious predecessor, which sold 63,032 copies on its debut, a total which has since swollen to 1,417,810.
Professor Green’s debut album, Alive Till I’m Dead, also entered at number two – albeit in a softer market on sales of 27,409 in September 2010 – but despite the runaway success of introductory single Read All About It, which roared to first week sales of 153,007 last week, and continues to top the singles list, his second album, At Your Inconvenience, has to settle for a lower debut, arriving at number three. That’s clearly more a consequence of being released at a more competitive time of year than anything else – its first week sales were 44.59% higher than Alive Till I’m Dead’s at 39,631.
Forming a buffer zone between the Florence + The Machine and Professor Green albums, last week’s number one, Mylo Xyloto, dips to number two for Coldplay, on sales of 67,132 copies.
Never having previously advanced beyond number 72, Alfie Boe made his breakthrough with last album Bring Him Home. Released at the end of 2010, it debuted at number 24, and eventually peaked at number nine, selling 209,093 copies. Boe consolidates his breakthrough with follow-up Alfie debuting at number six (32,192 sales).
With consecutive number eight hits with first two singles, Down With The Trumpets and When I Was A Youngster, rap duo Rizzle Kicks make a good start with first album Stereo Typical debuting at number nine (24,134 sales).
Michael Buble’s Christmas dips 3-5 (35,885 sales) but is joined in the Top 20 by another unseasonably early selection of songs celebrating December 25, specifically Justin Bieber’s Under The Mistletoe, which debuts at number 13 (14,991 sales). Three songs appear on both albums: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, Silent Night and Mariah Carey’s modern Christmas classic, All I Want For Christmas Is You. Bieber’s version of the latter is a duet with Carey herself, and also debuts on the singles chart at number 170 (1,207 sales). As for the original...it increases its sales for the 12th week in a row, with sales last week of 1,117 – 63.10% more than the previous week. It is back in the Top 200 (number 181) and at the current rate of progress should breach the Top 40 in three or four weeks.
Arriving exactly nine years after their first hits set, Forever Delayed: The Greatest Hits,The Manic Street Preachers’ second hits set, National Treasures: The Complete Singles debuts at number 10 (23,594 sales). Forever Delayed debuted and peaked at number four this week in 2002, with first week sales of 60,801 eventually growing to 638,895.
The Beach Boys’ legendary but previously unreleased Smile debuts at number 25 (8,117 sales), earning the group its 33rd Top 75 entry and its highest charting album since Summer Dreams: 28 Classic Tracks reached number two in 1990.
Achtung Baby failed in its efforts to become U2’s fifth consecutive number one studio album when released in 1991, coming off second best in a head-to-head with Michael Jackson’s Dangerous but the 20th anniversary remastered reissue did well last week, selling 6,316 copies to re-enter the chart at number 35.
Elsewhere on the album chart this week, heavy metal asserts itself with the arrival of Megadeth’s Th1rt3en (number 34, 6,361 sales), the Lou Reed & Metallica collaboration Lulu (number 36, 6,019 sales) and Steel Panther’s Balls Out (number 37, 5,862 sales).
Adele’s 21 recovers 8-7, with sales up 16.73% week-on-week at 26,882. The album has sold 3,254,679 copies since its release 41 weeks ago, and has now passed James Blunt’s Back To Bedlam (3,244,797) to become the second biggest seller of the 21st century, behind Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black.
Overall album sales are up 1.22% week-on-week at 2,011,161 – 11.50% below same week 2010 sales of 2,272,391.
1 Florence + The Machine 94,050
2 Coldplay 67,132
3 Professor Green 39,631
4 Noel Gallagher
5 Michael Buble 35,885
6 Alfie Boe 32,192
7 Adele 26,882
9 Rizzle Kicks 24,134
10 Manic Street Preachers 23,594
13 Justin Bieber 14,991
25 Beach Boys 8,117
34 Megadeth 6,361
35 U2 6,316
36 Lou Reed & Metallica 6,019
37 Steel Panther 5,862
Totals
Adele - 21 3,254,679
James Blunt - Back To Bedlam 3,244,797
Florence + The Machine - Lungs 1,417,810
Manic Street Preachers - Forever Delayed 638,895
Alfie Boe - Bring Home Home 209,093