Doubling (And Tripling) Up
Ladies and gentlemen we are officially in the era of the multi-hit.
OK, well we've been this way for a while in truth. But the charts as of the start of July 2024 are the perfect manifestation of the way the biggest stars of the moment are all charting 2 or sometimes 3 hits all at once in a way that would have been almost unimaginable during the physical era.
Let's start at the very top of the Official UK Singles chart as for the second week on the bounce Sabrina Carpenter occupies positions 1 and 2. For much of the week it was more or less impossible to predict with any kind of certainty just which of her two hits would have ended up the chart leader by the close of play, but in the end it was incumbent No.1 Please Please Please which retained its crown for a second week. Both singles however did huge numbers - 75,800 chart sales for the No.1 hit, with a further 72,300 for Espresso - the same kind of numbers the latter was doing to enjoy a four week run of its own at the top of the charts back in May.
That means we are now 26 weeks into 2024, exactly halfway through the chart year. And during this time not one single British act has had even a sniff of the No.1 position.
After three weeks away Shaboozey's A Bar Song (Tipsy) climbs back to its No.3 peak, a position it has now occupied three times over and for a total of four weeks now. The song sprouted some new remixes this week which explains this new jump, but it all serves to extend the song's already impressive chart run. This is now the country single's ninth straight week as a Top 10 hit. And there's no chance of ACR coming knocking any time soon.
G.O.O.D.W.O.R.K.B.A.B.E.
Another multi-hit artist is Chappell Roan. This week her still utterly magnificent Good Luck Babe finally makes good on its promise and becomes a Top 10 hit with a climb to No.7. The success of the track has had a curiously positive effect on the exposure for her previous album The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess which reaches a new peak of its own on the albums chart at No.6. The big hit single doesn't appear on it, but what are now her two other Top 40 hits do - Hot To Go which climbs to No.33 and Red Wine Supernova which hoves into view at No.40. She is well on her way to become one of the biggest breakout stars of the summer.
More Doubles
We have to skip past many other multi-entry acts such as Billie Eilish (3), Benson Boone (2), and Teddy Swims (2) but let's stop for a moment at the other man the summer Tommy Richman. Million Dollar Baby still continues to plough its own furrow, taking advantage of a lull in proceedings to return to the Top 10 at No.10 (it peaked at No.3 six weeks ago) but it is also now joined on the chart by newer hit Devil Is A Lie which was unlucky to miss the Top 40 last week but which now vaults to No.21 and seems set to overtake its predecessor in fairly short order. Is he the new Prince or the new Rick James? I can't figure it out.
A Long Lifetime For Adventure
They may not be (these days anyway) the most compelling of Pyramid Stage headliners, but on the same weekend that they do so once again it seems entirely appropriate that Coldplay land another hit single. Kicking off promotion for their forthcoming ten album, feelslikeImfallinginlove is a Max Martin-produced track which somehow manages to evolve still further the group's multi-layered keyboard and guitars sound while dragging them still further from their alt-rock origins. The classy single for all that is nothing we haven't heard from Chris Martin et al before, but despite its rather lowly No.25 start as the highest new entry of the week you still get the feeling they will continue to defy fashion and trends and that even if this doesn't become a bigger hit it will still loiter mid table for a good couple of months. It is what Coldplay do after all. And it doesn't yet have a proper video to boost its plays
DAMN
I sneer at Charli XCX for being a bit of an overhyped cult artist, but her current BRAT album is bucking all past trends, its streams more than enough to sustain it for a third straight week in the Top 5. The album this week spawns a fifth hit single as Girl So Confusing debuts at No.28, largely thanks to the release of a brand new remixed version featuring additional vocals from Lorde. But it means the British star continues to be another multi-hit act. 360 is still around, down to No.31 this week with Talk Talk bringing up the rear at No.64.
Post Malone is the other big multi-hit star of the moment, although all three of his presently charting hits are in collaboration with others. His collision with Morgan Wallen on I Had Some Help holds firm at No.8, he falls to No.12 alongside Taylor Swift on Fortnight and now has another of this week's new entries as he helps US country star Blake Shelton to his first ever British hit single as Pour Me A Drink debuts at No.34. Of all the people who were down to reinvent themselves as a country star this year, I would have never have picked him. Yet you hear the records and wonder just why he never tried it before.
Best Kept Secret
No.1 on the albums chart is Gracie Abrams with The Secret Of Us, hard on the heels of her being Taylor Swift's special guest at several of her UK shows in the last week or so. So it seems entirely appropriate that the album's biggest cut is Us, the track on which Ms Swift herself duets, and which is a new entry at No.37. This does of course mean that the present Queen of the multi-hits now stands head and shoulders above her contemporaries with no fewer than four concurrent Top 40 hits. Her own trio of Fortnight, Cruel Summer and I Can Do It With A Broken Heart are at 12,13 and 20 respectively to use up her full Primary Artist quota. But she's still allowed to chart with a secondary credit on Us taking her to a 10% sweep of the present Top 40.
They will doubtless try to spin this as "just a buzz track" which is the normal way to write off a hit record that doesn't quite make the grade, but there's still no doubt that the failure of Perrie's second solo single Tears to chart any higher than No.69 will have raised more than a few eyebrows. Further putting into question the long-term viability of the Little Mix ladies as solo stars. And finally, the Euro 2024 chart run of 3 Lions proved to be no more than a flash across goal as it tumbles to No.99 from last week's No.32. But then again England aren't out of the competition yet. At least not until later this week anyway.
