Singles
Three weeks after topping Billboard’s US Hot 100, rapper B.o.B.’s Nothin’ On You debuts at number one here.
First-week sales of 85,333 are the highest for a number one single for 11 weeks.
While All Night Long climbs for a seventh straight week for Alexandra Burke feat. Pitbull (8-4, 34,901 sales), Jason DeRulo manages to hang on two the number two slot with Ridin’ Solo (46,550 sales).
The B.o.B/DeRulo combination provides Warner Music with the top two places on the chart for the 10th time in the 21st century, and the first time since May 2008, when 4 Minutes by Madonna and Justin Timberlake and Wearing My Rolex by Wiley were the top two.
After three weeks at number one, Roll Deep’s Good Times dips to number three (37,145 sales).
Meanwhile, with the domestic season at an end and the World Cup approaching rapidly, football songs invade the chart.
Leeds United won League One, and a Facebook campaign has helped their single Leeds Leeds Leeds (Marching On Together) – credited to Leeds United Team & Supporters - to a number 10 debut (21,102 sales). And the England anthem Three Lions, which charted in 1996, 1998 and 2002 in previous incarnations for Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds, debuts at number 21 for The Squad (12,689 sales), with vocals by Russell Brand and Robbie Williams.
From the upcoming film The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Muse’s Neutron Star Collision (Love Is Forever) debuts at number 11 (18,927 sales).
It’s their 23rd hit – 22 more than US band Pretty Reckless who are fronted by actress and model Taylor Momsen, and debut at number 16 (15,122 sales) with their introductory offering Make Me Wanna Die.
Singles sales are down 0.2% week-on-week at 2,569,640 – 3.69% below same week 2009 sales of 2,668,195.
1 B.o.B./Bruno Mars 85333
2 Jason Derulo 46550
3 Roll Deep 37145
4 Alexandra Burke/Pitbull 34901
10 Leeds Utd Team & Supporters 24102
11 Muse 18927
16 Pretty Reckless 15122
21 Squad 12689
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Albums
The battle for artist album chart honours was an intriguing one this week, pitching the repackaged Rolling Stones classic Exile On Main Street against Faithless’ new set, The Dance.
The Stones took an early lead but their advantage was whittled away to the extent that it looked as though it would be the third time in a row they would have had a midweek sales advantage overturned and end as runners-up in less than five years, replicating the fate of their last studio album, 2005’s A Bigger Bang, and the 2008 soundtrack, Shine A Light.
In the end, however, the Stones prevailed, with Exile On Main Street racking up sales of 31,287, over a thousand more than The Dance.
It’s the album’s first appearance in the chart since 1972 when, as a double vinyl set, it reached number one in a 16-week stay on the list. That is a much shorter chart run than many of the band’s other albums but even before its upgrade it was by far the most popular album in the band’s catalogue, outselling nearest challenger Sticky Fingers by 25% in the 16 years of the Millward Brown/OCC era.
Faithless topped the chart with fourth studio album No Roots in 2004, and returned to the summit the following year with Forever Faithless: The Greatest Hits. However, their subsequent album To All New Arrivals, peaked at a lowly number 30, precipitating the band’s departure from Sony – but that album was released at the end of November so its sales on that first week, despite its poor chart performance, were 28,198 – just 6.04% less than the 29,901 copes that The Dance sold last week.
Debuting at number two, The Dance is the first release on Faithless’ own label Nate’s Tune – named after a two minute instrumental on To All New Arrivals – and comes hot on the heels of first single, Not Going Home, which debuted and peaked at number 42 a fortnight ago. The album is available physically only via Tesco, and is the highest charting single retailer album in UK chart history,
LCD Soundsystem achieve their best chart placing to date, debuting at number seven (13,224 sales) with new album This Is Happening, easily besting the number 20 peak of the New York dance/punk act’s self-titled 2005 debut.
Debuting even more strongly, German rock ‘n’ roll revivalists The Baseballs enter at number four (18,212 sales) with their first album Strike!, which has been a hit over much of Europe. The album features tongue-in-cheek retro style versions of contemporary hits like Umbrella, Don’t Cha and Bleeding Love.
While The Foals stumble 8-52 (4,384 sales) with Total Life Forever, the equine banner is kept flying by Seattle’s Band Of Horses who capitalise on an appearance on Later...With Jools Holland to debut at number 21 (8,370 sales) with third album Infinite Arms – that’s 128 places above their previous best placing of number 149, achieved by last album Cease To Begin.
Also new to the Top 40: Brothers (number 29, 6,798 sales), the third chart album by Akron duo The Black Keys; Distant Relatives (number 30, 6,619 sales) the first collaboration between rapper Nas, who has three previous chart albums to his name, and Bob Marley’s son Damian who has none; Save Me San Francisco (number 33, 6,139 sales), the fifth album by Train, whose only previous album chart success here came in 2001, when Drops Of Jupiter reached number eight; and Magical Journey: The Hits Collection (number 27, 7,230 sales) a new compilation by Dutch trance DJ Tiesto.
And Guillemots vocalist Fyfe Dangerfield’s debut solo album Fly Yellow Moon rockets 59-12 (11,479 sales) after being issued in a new edition which adds current hit She’s Always A Woman and two other previously unissued songs.
After debuting last week at number one, Keane’s Night Train crashes to number six (13,934 sales).
Its appeal apparently undiminished by the release of The Remix, Lady GaGa’s debut album The Fame/Fame Monster has passed the 2m sales mark.
Dipping 4-5 the album sold 15,808 copies last week, lifting its 71-week career tally to 2,000,948. It’s the 27th album to sell more than 2m copies in the 21st century but only the sixth by an American act, following The Scissor Sisters’ album of the same name (2,710,395), Come Away With Me by Norah Jones (2,499,245), Only By The Night by the Kings Of Leon (2,409,937), The Marshall Mathers LP by Eminem (2,285,833) and Hot Fuss by The Killers (2,004,634).
Although it will have to sell more than a million further copies to get to the top of the 2000s album rankings (James Blunt’s Back To Bedlam tops that list, with 3,199,652 sales) it is getting close to the top of the list of albums with most weeks in the Top 10 in the 21st century.
It has spent 54 weeks in the top tier to date, the last 24 of them consecutively. Only two albums have endured longer – and they are also by female solo artists.
Dido’s No Angel – which is also the second biggest seller, with sales of 3,055,690 – spent 56 weeks in the Top 10, and Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black stuck around for 54 weeks, while the deluxe edition of the same album was aloft for a further 12 weeks.
The fourth longest-running Top 10 album of the century is another by a female solo artist – Duffy’s Rockferry (42 weeks), while fifth place is shared by David Gray’s White Ladder, Eminem’s Marshall Mathers LP and The Scissor Sisters (41 weeks each). 19 more albums have spent half a year (26 weeks) or more in the Top 10.
Album sales fall 2.56% week-on-week to 1,620,469 – 15.52% below same week 2009 sales of 1,918,225.
1 Rolling Stones 31287
2 Faithless 29901
4 Baseballs 18212
5 Lady GaGa 15808 (To Date: 2,000,948)
6 Keane 13934
7 LCD Soundsystem 13224
12 Fyfe Dangerfield 11479
21 Band Of Horses 8370
27 Tiesto Magikal Journey 7230
29 Black Keys 6798
30 Nas & Damian Marley 6619
33 Train 6139
52 Foals 4384