En Garde
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the No.1 album in the UK this week (and indeed you suspect eventually most of the English-speaking world) is The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grace) by Eminem. The rapper's 12th studio album becomes his 11th No.1 record and does so with a suitably enormous sale - a shade over 45,000 units making it among the biggest sellers of the year so far - although not a patch on the 270,000 with which Taylor Swift debuted back in May. Fascinatingly virtually all of Eminem's No.1 sales this week were digital, physical versions of the collection due to follow at a later date. Fully 37,000 of his total sales were thanks to streaming points, the rest made up of digital downloads of the album and a small handful of special edition cassettes. He may be a legacy star dating back from the very start of the 21st century, but he still commands a sizeable streaming audience. Or perhaps this was just so big because it was the only way people could listen to the music. You decide.
Eminem now draws level with David Bowie, Rod Stewart and U2 on the list of most No.1 albums - Elvis, Madonna, Bruce and naturally Taylor Swift the only American stars to have enjoyed more.
Last Cup
To the surprise of absolutely nobody Sabrina Carpenter is still top of the Official UK Singles chart - that's pretty much been the case for some weeks now. There's no (re)changing of the guard this week, Espresso clings on to the crown it regained last week for what is now its seventh week in total at No.1. That puts the single level with Noah Kahan's Stick Season as the longest-running chart-topper of the year to date - although Kahan's weeks at the top were all consecutive. With Please Please Please clinging on doggedly at No.2 Ms Carpenter has now spent the past five weeks occupying the top two rungs - putting her level with Ed Sheeran who was the previous record holder for that particular chart feat. Nobody has ever been 1 and 2 for six weeks in a row, and with Espresso falling to ACR next week it seems that particular record is set to stand a little while longer.
International acts have now topped the singles chart for 29 weeks in a row.
Mind you, it might not have been this way. Early sales flashes indicated that Eminem's Houdini was itself on course for a startling return to No.1. As things turned out this was a bit of a false dawn, the initial surge of new interest in the old hit settling down to more expected levels. But the release of its parent album has still forced the former No.1 back up the listings, meaning it sits once more at No.4. The two other cuts from The Death Of Slim Shady to chart are Habits at No.11 and Renaissance at No.13.
Onion Bag
It was a 50/50 shot, but last weekend football alas did not come home and Spain narrowly defeated the England team in the Euro 2024 final. But the colossal interest in football-themed songs in the days and indeed hours leading up to the final inevitably means there are some impressive climbs and surprise returns to report.
Almost needless to say the biggest was 3 Lions. No.20 last week it rockets to No.8, making its best chart showing since England last made the final in 2021 - the single reaching No.4 on this occasion. Indeed the chart run of the 1996 hit appears to have echoed the ups and downs of the national side during the Gareth Southgate era. It has reached at least the Top 10 every time England made a semi final, and charted lower on the one occasion (the 2022 World Cup) when we did not.
Tracking the sales progress of the single as the week went on made for some fascinating studying. No.12 on the Sunday "first look" (with only Friday's streams taken into account) it was No.12. By Monday it was as high as No.5 with 14,000 sales to its name - and would almost certainly have been higher as that figure was without taking Sunday's streams into account. The single was apparently placed at No.1 on the unpublished Tuesday midweek tally once those streams had been added. However by Wednesday equilibrium had returned. By that time 3 Lions had slipped to No.5 and was on 28,000 sales - and it is perhaps telling that it only added about 5,000 more by the end of the week. Its eventual tally was 33,000 sales leaving it to rest where it does.
Did you know it was a football record that inspired the creation of this column? A poster on a newsgroup back in October 1992 wondered why Alive And Kicking by Simple Minds was back in the UK Top 10 (it was being used on a Sky Sports advert) and it struck me that there was a gap in the market for someone to write a piece each week explaining why each record was there. And it seems entirely apt I'm still doing this 32 years later, just because somebody somewhere might be wondering why on earth Dancing In The Dark by Bruce Springsteen is at No.36 on this week's UK chart.
Football is naturally the answer, the propensity of England fans to turn American anthems into their own terrace chants knows no bounds. With its lyrics having been adapted to serve as tribute to Phil Foden the classic now appears to have joined the pantheon of football themed tracks, leading it to return to the charts for the first time since its original 1985 chart run.
Other football anthems all reaching what are inevitably their final highs of this cycle are Sweet Caroline (No.44), Vindaloo (No.46), World In Motion (No.53) and - if we really must - Hey Jude at No.94. No sign of Atomic Kitten though. Southgate no longer the one, alas. Much as we expect tracks such as Thriller and Monster Mash to make a mini chart invasion every October, it appears there is now a defined set of regulars which will make chart returns every time England play in a major tournament. See you again for the 2026 World Cup.
Put The Tip In
The one contemporary new arrival of note is a true transatlantic meeting of minds. Did It First is a collaboration between America's Ice Spice and our very own Central Cee - a project that is very much in keeping with trend. Central Cee after all has already had hit singles this year with the likes of J Cole and Lil Baby while Ice Spice's biggest UK hit to date was her collaboration with Pinkpantheress on Boy's A Liar. The irony of her following up a hit about how boys are trash with a rap single in which two people brag to each other about their infidelity cannot be understated.
New to the Top 40 is Move from Adam Port and collaborators, a haunting and quite beautiful Afrobeats/dance fusion which is the soundtrack to the TikTok video of your dreams. After a full month in the lower reaches it seems finally to be catching fire and moves to a new high of No.39.
But we do have to finish with a note on how the mighty have fallen. Katy Perry's big comeback track Woman's World attracted much comment and attention (not least for the bikini she is almost wearing in the semi-knowing video). But it can only limp into life at No.47. The superstar of the noughties may still have a comeback smash in her to make her relevant for a new generation, but this track alas isn't it.
