By Now You Should Have Somehow
You've heard of a tale of two cities, well the story of the charts this week is a tale of two acts. One whose peak was arguably nearly three decades ago, the other at the very height of their present popularity. And I make no apology for treating them as the only stories in town.
Is It My Imagination?
Once upon a time Sabrina Carpenter was the name on nobody's lips, save for being mentioned in passing as the alleged third party in the love triangle depicted in Olivia Rodrigo's Drivers License. But when the story of 2024 comes to be written, her name will be front and centre as the lady who gave us the biggest stories of the year, and behind some of its biggest and most notable hit singles. So it was almost inevitable that the release of her sixth studio album Short N' Sweet was going to be a huge event.
But surely nobody could have predicted just how huge. Her last album Emails I Can't Send barely made a ripple when released in July 2022, charting for a single week at No.76 before dipping out of sight. Her only chart album of any kind until today, it only reappeared for a more impressive chart run (peaking at No.41) in the wake of the success of her two hit singles earlier this summer. Short N' Sweet could hardly stand in greater contrast. The album slams into No.1 with a huge sale of almost 90,000 units - the second-highest one week sale of the year, almost needless to say trailing the 270,000 with which Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department opened its account with in the spring.
Here we should divert briefly from the tale of two artists to express enormous sympathies to Fontaines DC whose new album Romance debuts at No.2 with a sale of 43,000 which in almost any other week would have guaranteed them a No.1 position. But their timing on this occasion basically sucked.
So yes, Sabrina had a strong paid sale, but her streams were also through the roof. And that paved the way for her to do something extraordinary on the Official UK Singles chart. She begins with yet another No.1 single, as the album's standout unheard track Taste slams into No.1 with a huge sale of its own of 67,400
It is her third No.1 single this year, making her only the fourth woman to top the charts three times in a calendar year. Lady Gaga, Rita Ora and Jess Glynne topped the charts three times apiece in 2009, 2012 and 2015 respectively although we should note that for all three woman one of their three No.1 hits was co-credited with a male performer. All of Sabrina Carpenter's No.1s have been entirely solo without a single co-credit in sight which we should rightly celebrate as a spectacular first. Honourable mention however should go to the three all-female acts of the late 90s who also achieved three No.1 singles in a calendar year - The Spice Girls in both 1996 and 1997, All Saints and B*witched both in 1998.
Sabrina Carpenter's three No.1 singles have all come in the space of 120 days, which is fast but not quite a record for female artist - Ariana Grande managing a trio of chart-toppers in the space of 99 days in 2018/19.
Midweek sales flashes indicated that other Sabrina Carpenter tracks would be making a chart impact but in a more understated manner. That was before the granting of an ACR reset (under the Kate Bush rule) to her two previous hit singles. Freed from streaming restrictions Please Please Please jumps 17-2 while Espresso moves 14-3. That means Sabrina Carpenter does something even Taylor Swift hasn't been able to manage and pulls off the singles chart grand slam with a clean sweep of the Top 3 singles. She is only the fourth artist, and notably the first woman, to achieve the stunt - following in the footsteps of Justin Bieber (2015), Ed Sheeran (2017) and Harry Styles (2021). Sheeran of course went one step further and had a clean sweep of the Top 6 - prompting the subsequent implementation of the three chart hits per lead artist rule. Without this almost needless to say Sabrina Carpenter singles would have been an even bigger deal, Good Graces and Bed Chem would have been 11 and 12 respectively had they been eligible. And they may yet wink into life at some point in the next couple of weeks.
Sheeran and Styles of course also duplicated Sabrina Carpenter's feat this week of enjoying all Top 3 singles AND the No.1 album, although she is a record-setter here by doing it at the age of 25 - younger than Sheeran (26) and Styles (28) were in their weeks of chart dominance.
Say It Loud And Sing It Proud
Remember a time when it was bands and not solo artists who were the biggest thing going? Oasis do. The Manchester group, eventually consisting of a rotating cast of musicians but always with brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher at the core, transformed themselves from the proverbial "next big thing" to legitimately the biggest thing going. Between 1994 and 2005 they had 23 Top 10 hits, including 8 No.1s and topped the albums chart 8 times as well. Their 1997 release Be Here Now set what was then a record, released on a Thursday but still selling over 696,000 copies in that three-day period, a "first week" total not beaten for almost 20 years. So yes kids, they were massive. Evidence of their musical legacy is only cemented by the near-constant presence of their Time Flies greatest hits collection in the upper reaches of the albums chart in the streaming era.
After years of a somewhat fractious relationship, the brothers finally fell out once and for all, Noel dissolving the group in 2009 after one argument too many. He would form the High Flying Birds and release several well-received solo albums. Liam formed Beady Eye with most of the musicians from the final incarnation of Oasis before also transitioning to a solo career. But all the time the question on everyone's lips has been "will they ever reunite".
As surely everyone reading this knows, this week that question was finally answered, Oasis confirming they will reform for a series of live dates in 2025. Not only has that sparked a scramble for tickets (ongoing as I write) but it has also prompted a surge of interest in the group's music - meaning that the current retro-flavour of the singles chart is enhanced still further with the return of some 30 year old songs to the upper reaches.
Once more, this is the Kate Bush rule in action, Official Charts resetting the ACR status of the biggest Oasis tracks to ensure their true popularity of the moment is reflected in a manner that ordinarily would not be the case for catalogue singles. Only three can chart of course - but what they are is quite intriguing.
The biggest turns out to be Don't Look Back In Anger, a 1996 No.1 single taken from their second album (What's The Story) Morning Glory. That's at No.16, followed one pace behind by what most people would regard as their most seminal moment. Also from the same album, all-time classic Wonderwall is No.17 which originally peaked at No.2 in 1995. Finally at No.19 is - perhaps curiously - Live Forever, taken from their debut album Definitely Maybe. Their third chart single, it was Oasis' first Top 10 hit when it peaked at No.10 in August 1994. I can't help but find it amusing that their biggest song of the moment turns out to be one of the rare Oasis tracks to feature a Noel rather than Liam vocal.
Inevitably such a surge of interest in Oasis tracks carried over to the albums chart as well. The aforementioned hits colllection Time Flies - 1994-2009 leads the charge as it surges to No.3 behind the Carpenter and Fontaines DC albums. That's its first appearance in the Top 10 since June 2017, the first time it has been in the Top 3 since its original chart-topping release in June 2010. Close behind is (What's The Story) Morning Glory at No.4 with Definitely Maybe at No.5, both albums reaching the Top 10 for the first time since remastered reissues last pushed them there in 2014.
What may raise a few eyebrows is that they are the only Oasis albums to chart this high. The rest of their back catalogue languishes lower down, Be Here Now stuck at No.86 with b-sides and off-cuts collection The Masterplan at No.98. The reasons for that are down to the slightly opaque manner in which streams are tallied for albums chart purposes. To reward albums for the appeal of their entire tracklisting rather than a single huge hit the streams of the two most popular tracks are downgraded to the average of the rest of the eligible ones. That's most notably why Queen's A Night At The Opera isn't a constant albums chart presence thanks solely to the presence of Bohemian Rhapsody, for example. Oasis' first two albums contain more than two hugely popular tracks, meaning the streams of their biggest ones still count for more. Be Here Now and The Masterplan by contrast only really have one track apiece that anyone wants to hear, meaning their impact on the success of the album is lessened. Simple when you know how.
Maybe...
So that was a tale of two artists, with apologies to everyone else charting this week. Although I'll sign off with the intriguing note that last week's No.1 Backbone slides to No.5 and so is a place below Good Luck Babe. In a world where Sabrina Carpenter's album wasn't released and so Taste didn't chart and the other two weren't reset, Chappell Roan would have finally made it to No.1. Dammit.
