Did It My Way
It is no use, we are going to have to come up with a name for it. Taylor Swift has now done this too many times for it not to be unabashedly her thing. All suggestions are welcome.
Throughout most of the week just passed, the only real chart debate was over which of the two women would have the No.1 single this week. Would Sienna Spiro reclaim pole position with Great Expectation, or would Taylor Swift sneak in with Patient Zero for a second week. Up to the final midweek update the two records were genuinely neck and neck.
But fast forward to Friday evening and what do we discover? Taylor Swift is instead the chart winner by some considerable distance. A lead of around 10,000 sales that she simply did not have earlier. If you are now thinking "physical drop", congratulate yourself and select a biscuit from this open pack as a reward. Pre-orders had been taken for CD singles of Patient Zero, scheduled for release sometime after October 9th. Yet as if by magic, just over 10,000 of these were posted in time to qualify for this week's chart. And that's almost the exact margin of sales by which the single leads the chart race. Uncanny how that happens, isn't it?
If there are still biscuits left after everyone has taken one, please take a second if this all seems oddly familiar to you. For indeed back in the spring Taylor Swift's Toy Story 5 soundtrack contribution I Knew It I Knew You seemed set to be deposed from the top of the charts, only to mount a late-week comeback and secure a comfortable second week thanks to the surprise arrival a few days early of a batch of CD singles.
It isn't cheating as such, as it is perfectly within the rules. But it is manipulation so blatant and so brazen that you wonder if anyone at her label has any shame at all. And isn't it odd how the victims of these promotional stunts often seem to be fellow women? Sorry Sienna, you are up against a juggernaut. At the very least it still proves that being No.1 on the charts matters a great deal. So much that your CD drops are timed to ensure it happens. Online chatter suggests they have now become even cleverer: that drop of 10,000 copies wasn't the full set of orders. Meaning there are more left to qualify for next week's chart as well.
Patient Zero is the only one of TayTay's three hits from last week to sustain any kind of chart momentum. Babylon collapses 4-28, while last week's No.3 hit Cleveland is nowhere to be seen, outgunned in streaming performance by the ACR-reset The Fate Of Ophelia which marks the first anniversary of its arrival at No.1 with a re-entry at No.17 having been itself starred-out a week ago.
Gotta Be Them
I like not this news, so let us deal with some better news. The two big fresh hits that this page has been cheerleading for are now nicely placed to be the next biggest of big deals. Jamie Miller's uplifting and joyous Babydoll accelerates to No.3 while the magnificent Ashe with the equally superlative Stop The Wedding is No.4. Either could be a future No.1, and either of them fully deserves to be. It is only a matter of time surely.
Jamie Miller is joined in the Top 10 by Sombr who rebounds 13-10 with My Body Isn't Ready. The pair are the only men in a Top 10 otherwise entirely dominated by solo female stars. And just as notably they are all unique: Taylor Swift, Sienna Spiro, Ashe, Ella Langley, Stella Lefty, Olivia Rodrigo, Adela and Dua Lipa all have just one hit single apiece. Although admittedly four of them have a second concurrent hit lower down the Top 20.
Like Katniss To Music Fans
It is a movie soundtrack that hands Noah Kahan the highest new entry of the week. Taken from The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping, Draw You Out becomes the American's 14th chart hit. He too can boast a second Top 20 hit single, as after more than five months around Willing And Able oozes itself to a brand new peak of No.20. Another example of a slow smouldering hit which sidesteps ACR just long enough to fully establish itself. This didn't used to happen this frequently.
Quack
Special edition fever has also caught up with Drake who dropped a new version of his Habibiti album this week and is duly rewarded with three, shall we say, fairly middling hits. No.22 is Solar Eclipse (with Don Toliver in tow), No.27 the solo credited Quebec, and finally Toliver is back on board with Cold Shoulder which lands at No.36. I cannot get excited here.
Blowing A Gale
When a song leaps 73-37 you kind of get the feeling it has gone massively viral. That's the fate of Storm II, a track by French producer Surkin under the alias of Gener8ion with vocals supplied by Swedish rapper Yung Lean. This single is actually only half the story, as the title suggests Part 2 of a much longer piece that debuted on Gener8ion's album earlier this year, catching attention for its extraordinary accompanying film/video featuring a mass of choreographed uniformed schoolboys. This new surge in popularity is down to the appearance of the pair at the VMAs last weekend in which they recreated the video performance live. There are even bigger and better chart placings in store for this hit - just watch and see.
More Reasons
Also new to the Top 40, Cos Of You from rapper Morrisson which occupies the bottom rung. It is his first credited chart single since he had a cameo role on the Krept & Konan Euros anthem Ole (We Are England) in 2021, but both his first chart hit as a solo artist and his first Top 40 appearance of any kind. His biggest hit before today was House And Garage, an Aitch duet from 2021 which crept to No.46.
An intriguing albums chart race saw Blossoms edge out a victory with Songs From The Wedding Cake. It was neck and neck for most of the week with The Beatles' re-issued Rubber Soul, but in the end youth over veterans prevailed. It is the fifth No.1 album (and third in a row) for the Stockport band - who also maintain their extraordinary record of still never having had a Top 75 chart single.
So Easy (To Be Sued)
Finally, just to prove there is no such thing as bad publicity, Olivia Dean's Art Of Loving album spawns its seventh chart single. Its closing moment I've Seen It finally qualifies for a chart position at No.60. This is almost certainly entirely down to publicity in the week that she and her collaborators are on the wrong end of a plagiarism lawsuit from the publishers of Grover Washington Jnr's Just The Two Of Us who allege that the two melodies are far too close for it to be coincidental. These things normally result in a tactful adjustment to the songwriting credits (eg: Uptown Funk acknowledging the writers of Oops Upside Your Head), but it will be fascinating to see how this all plays out.
By the way, I like Swift Shift myself. Perhaps we'll use that in future.
