Rolling UK Pop/Chart/"Few people would dispute that Elbow have given us the album of the year" Thread 2009

Midweeks:

1 Lily
2 GaGa
3 Alesha
4 Eminem - paying the price for having boring 50 Cent on board an otherwise excellent record
5 Tinchy
6 Morrison & Furtado
7 Cudi
8 Beyonce
9 Rudolf
10 Merryweather

New entries for Morrissey at 18, Prodigy at 25 and St Et at a rather disappointing (for them) 26.

In the albums, Lily straight in at the top and the Fray in at number three.

I dunno, first top thirty hit for StEt since May 1998!

Big news in the Radio 1 playlist side of things: this is the year that Taylor Swift gets to happen in the UK. Or at least that's the theory - "Love Story" parachutes onto the C-List anyhow. It's joined by Scouting For Girls, The Script, and Wayyyyysis, along with Flo Rida's reimagining of "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" and The Saturdays' version of "Just Can't Get Enough", BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY IT IS JOINED BY:

New Royksopp single! Whey!

Also on the 1-Upfront side of things we can find Dan Black, Bon Iver, In Case Of Fire, YouMeAtSix and The Noisettes. ILM Trax Poll 2008 superstars Friendly Fires have wound their way onto the B-List, meaning they get to rub shoulders with Gary Go, while Kelly Clarkson, Chase & Status ft. Kano and The Prodigy all get to take up space on the A-List.

Friendly Fires were such a disappointment on the NME tour this week. Hell, even White Lies out-performed them.

The bar raised to Olympian heights there...

'Jump In The Pool' is the new single? good it's the best thing on the album

never mind, that came out in September (man what a shit video too).

They should just outsource everything to Aeroplane and Au Revoir Simone from now on...

Chase & Status ft. Kano

I really like this, even if its a bit LOL Big Beat Grime. The drums seem to suit Kano's flow.

Meanwhile the Royksopp one is so similar to Eple it's difficult to take seriously.

I take back what I said upthread about the Franz 'dub' CD, apparently it's available as a 2CD version of "Tonight", for about a pound more in HMV.

So, fair play.

Still Lily over Lady, with "Breathe Slow" causing a mild upset by sneaking up to number three. Our highest new entry is, er, The Prodigy - "Omen" slots in at number eight. According to Radio 1, their label is Takemetothehospital. Which is possibly news to the people at Cooking Vinyl. "T-Shirt" hits the top 10 for the first time, at number 10.

A five-place slump drops Merriweather to 13, and "Sex On Fire" celebrates TWENTY-THREE SODDING WEEKS on the chart by climbing back into the top 20 at number 19. I'm fairly certain that, of those 23 weeks, only two have been spent outside the top 20. Men'al.

Morrissey's "Y'All Bitches 09" is new at 21. N-Dubz climb 15 to 25, and there's a not-completely-explicable ten-place rebound for "Up" at 27. TI & Timberlake debut at 30, M.I.A.'s kid enters this world to a re-entry for "Paper Planes" at 33, "You Found Me" returns at 37 and The Second Single Off The Killers Are A Very Important Band Indeed debuts at 40. No room at the inn for St Etienne in the end.

Lillah also goes straight to the summit of the albums, in a chart that is perhaps a wee bit distorted by the Valentine's market. UB40 and Luther Vandross go rocketing up to 3 and 4 respectively, which leaves one wondering precisely what kind of person would find Ali Campbell's voice in any way romantic. The Best Bette also enjoys a revival, climbing 26 places to number 6 (just behind James Morrison - man, Britain must be having some seriously joyless sex these days), with The Fray's second album debuting at 8. Seasick Steve climbs from 33 to 24, The View slump from 4 to 27, Slumdog Millionaire's OST enters at 30, and The Airborne Toxic Event make it all the way to number 35.

No Valentine's rebound for Kanye, oddly enough.

"A five-place slump drops Merriweather to 13"

^^^for a minute there I was suddenly confused, and well, happy to see Animal Collective doing amazing. Damn you British public.

No room at the inn for St Etienne in the end.

boo shux

Number 56 in the end, four places behind MCR's version of "Desolation Row". Not much else of note in the 40-75 range, except that, for the second week running, "Black & Gold" has had a sizeable rebound, this week climbing 17 to number 60. Oh, and "Fly On The Wall" just might be hitting the top 40 after all, bouncing up 10 to 44 this week.

it's weird - though heartening - to see that 'spotlight' is still hanging around at no 53 - 22 weeks on the chart without ever reaching the top 10.

It's still getting very heavily rinsed on Tumf and 4Music, at least based on the snatches I caught of both channels last week - from what I can recall, it's still in Hit40UK too, so I'm guessing its life on commercial radio has still got a fair while to go.

Plus she was fairly bloody belting at the Superbowl.

Mids:

1 Lily - I take back everything I've previously said about her; great single and great album
2 GaGa - her PSB cameo was one of the few watchable things in last night's wretched Brits ceremony
3 Prodigy - surprised this has done so well and I'm not sure their new album is a Stunning Return To Form but not too bad
4 Alesha
5 Shontelle - both examples of slow burning "real" hits just as we used to have in the old days when it were all fields and Swinging Blue Jeans, The, around here
6 Eminem - put the blame on Fiddy, Mame, put the blame on Fiddy...
7 Beyonce
8 Tinchy
9 Morrison & Furtado
10 U2 - I wish they'd covered "Kick Your Boots Off" by Sisters instead (ask your dad); sounds like low-budget "Vertigo" crossed with "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and I haven't made my mind up about it yet

Miley C up to 14

In the albums Morrissey gets a hugely predictable number one with his dreary new album and the awful Empire of the Sun get hyped in at 7

awful Empire of the Sun get hyped in at 7

!

bless

Oldest trick in the book - rebrand a failing line (Sleepy Jackson), dress it up in new colours, call in a lot of PR/meejah favours and bingo! A "hot" "new" act!

I assumed U2 would be a lot higher. No wonder they were desperate to open the Brits.

1 Lily - I take back everything I've previously said about her; great single and great album

i know right! when i first heard it i was like, hmm not as bad as she usually is, but i still can't get with her voice - but that packing plastic/fucking fantastic couplet really caught my ear, and the way she delivers it is so razor sharp. and then last week i had to admit that the whole song is pretty great. i have the album but haven't dared listen to all of it yet though, some of the lyrics i've seen quoted look sort of retarded :/

I agree that a lot of the album lyrics look rather cringeworthy when you read them but the way she delivers them - comparatively relaxed, somewhat apologetic but still quietly very defiant - was a pleasant surprise. In the end her voice is definitely a love-it-or-hate-it thing but I think it works much better than it did on the first album. Given Greg Kurstin's involvement I suspect I'll have to hear the new Bird and the Bee album as well because I liked the first (?) one a lot.

I agree that a lot of the album lyrics look rather cringeworthy when you read them

Most pop/rock/whatever lyrics to thread

There's been an ongoing argument in our office as to whether those lyrics are brilliant or terrible (in particular the bit about being a weapon of massive consumption). I'm in the terrible camp.

Stevie T gave Lily's album one star in Uncut and he was previously a casual fan iirc

Ah yes, you can always rely on Uncut.

I find it quite difficult to take her lyrics seriously as well seeing as she was recently bigging up Boris for abolishing the congestion charge in West London.

Um, that palstic/fantastic rhyme is awful and obvious. Has British lyricism really sunk so low that THAT stands out?

The sun sets on the British Empire

i agree it's shit. always find her swearing really ineffective and somewhat trite - altho if she sounded more like TBATB's 'Fucking Boyfriend' then sweet xp

it's the way she delivers it rather than the line itself - for just a second it seems like that cockney street urchin façade slips and she intones it like a proper public school girl. it's funny cuz she means it to be ironic but it's actually true. i mean, obv the entire song would be better performed by paris hilton, but one takes what one can in the endlessly bleak british pop desert innit.

Yeh, Lex is right, I think -- it's all in the delivery. First time I heard it, I thought, OK, that's the worst line I'm going to hear all year. Subsequent listens suggest something rather less flippant/sneery going on.

No I think that Lex was right the second time - it would be better performed by Paris Hilton. The lyrics to her second single are just oh-look-what-I-just-said obnoxious.

I was walking down the street the other day and I saw a girl who looked exactly like LA and I reallyhad to right off a very strong reflex action to punch her in the face.

with your cock, amirite?

rebrand a failing line (Sleepy Jackson),

since the album spun off of Steele guesting on L'more and Mayes quite-successful-but-not-mega album and doing some shows with them, it's far more "temporarily rebadging Pnau for the MGMT audience" than rebranding Sleepy Jackson. it's not like Nations By The River made any impact, is it?

The other thing is that I'm really kinda meh on Greg Kurstin. What's he done that's so great? This is still the man responsible for Geggy Tah, a horror nearly up there with Ms Allen. The Bird & The Bee are pretty good but his writing for ver pop stars tends to leave me very cold.

ONE MONTH OF FEAR is completed, together with one month of "Just Dance" at number two. "Use Somebody" climbs back up to three off the back of the Brits, at a guess. The same Brits effect sees "PS Bono Is Wanking As He Writes This" arrowing in at... number 12. Ah. "Fly On The Wall" surges from the undrgrowth and sinks its teeth into number 16, with "Dead & Gone" rising to 17. Taylor Swift becomes the first country artist to chart in the UK, since, ooh, the X-Factor-powered return of Faith Hill last year (and before that? Ooh, probably "Over & Over"...) at 22, "Everybody" makes a rather welcome debut at 24, ahead of the distinctly less welcome Gary Go at 25. Incidentally, cross-promotional conspiracy theory:

http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2009/Feb/Week3/15226957.jpg

http://itn.co.uk/news/story2fa00bf0b578719949173af801e42412_320x240.jpg

Also note preponderance of articles on Google News announcing that Take That have hand-picked "unknown" (this is used in pretty much every single one of the articles) singer Gary Go to support them on their forthcoming tour. Just a bit of a suspiscion, is all.

"Viva La Vida" gets a Brit-effect rebound to 27, and at 31 - HONEY RYDER! What do you mean, "Who?"? Do you not remember their number 32 smash hit "Numb" from August 2008? Srsly? Tchuh. Well, I suppose if no-one else is gonna keep their fingers on the pulse, I'll have to do it for them... Also, this being the third week of the month, that'll be time for another re-entry for "One Day Like This" (number 35 this go-round - and to think they used to use the duet with Richard Hawley as a selling point...), and "Token Jaunty Mark Owen Number" gets its first week in the top 40 at number 37. "The Promise" may or may not be a re-entry at 39, I can't recall.

Kings of Leon also re-soar in the album chart, back to number one, i'faith, ahead of Lallen and Morrissey. As you might expect, the Brit effect is rather more sizeable here: major reboundings for Duffy (4), Elbow (5) and Coldplay (15), obviously, but, rather less obviously, The Ting Tings bother the top 10 for the first time in ages at number eight. Estelle is not in the top 75, btw. That one shot of Seasick Steve in the audience at The Brits is good enough to propel his most recent one up 15 places to number nine; MGMT didn't even turn up but that's still good enough to get them back up to number 14. That quite good closing number affair parachutes PopArt back into the charts at number 19 from, roughly, nowhere, and puts The Killers at 6 and GaGa at 7. Empire Of The Sun's Making Up The Numbers is at 21, Miley Cyrus' album thing climbs from 70 to 30, and there's slight returns for one of the other Kings of Leon albums, Girls Aloud, Adele and N-Dubz between 36 and 39.

Oh, I remember Honey Ryder all right. They supported Will Young on his last tour, and someone else a few months earlier (Alison Moyet? I can't remember). Anyway... a bloody awful act. I lasted three songs at the Will show.

The guy out of Honey Ryder is some merchnat banker who quit and has been ploughing his dosh into a 'new model'pop career right?

Interesting how U2 became to this year's Brits what Adam Ant was to Live Aid.

Promote the new single which promptly tanks.

Available on physical and download and it's their worst first-single-off-the-album performance since 1983.

It's hard to see where they fit in anymore - Coldplay have the anthems, Kings of Leon have the rock, the Killers have the pop and Radiohead have the adventure and U2 are stuck in a limbo in the middle of them all.

And yet the Prodigy come back at exactly the same time and score a huge hit.

"Omen" is a bit Prodigy-by-numbers but it's catchy, it works and it sounds as though it has something to do with 2009.

Whereas I've heard "Boots" maybe two dozen times now and still can't remember any of it.

I am of course obliged to the Brit Awards for relieving me of the onerous duty of having to write about Years Of Refusal. Even the Kings of Leon sometimes have their uses!

xpost: Yup, Honey Ryder are a duo consisting of a former banker for Credit Suisse and a former MTV employee... ooh, CONSPIRACY!

U2 have been around for what seems like forever, and will be, until they die. Bit like the rolling stones, but with more actual effort put in.

"Boots" reminded be, yeah "Pump it up" and "subterranean", the middle bit is quite good though. But heck, it reminded me of another u2 single I couldn't recall (at the time)! And that says a lot of the generic nature of "the U2 single" of which "Boots", and "Elevation" (for it was that one) fall into. Then they produce something as "not bad" as "Stuck in a moment" and it's OK, sort of.

They are, really, Abba. The singles come out, as spaced out as they are, and you don't mind, really. But hearing themall in one go makes you go "Noo! Make it STOP!"

Over on IMM, there's an idea to 'replace' the U2 album with all songs penned by the respective artists with the same titles as the forthcoming U2 album. Seeing this, and having just downloaded 'songstar', I dashed off a lyric in 3 mins flat, and had a go. Then thought better of it and deleted it. Now I've heard the U2 song, I'm not sure mine's not better anyway.

Whereas I've heard "Boots" maybe two dozen times now and still can't remember any of it.

I've heard it a handful of times and it's stuck in my head. Not that it's any endorsement of its quality, juries still out on it. Don't know whether it's just a mess, chockful of hooks or something in between.

it's nice not having heard the U2 yet.

'Omen' is just Prodigy jacking Pendulum which is a sad state of affairs (or would be if i cared about them any more).

Interesting midweeks:

1 Kelly Clarkson (up from 103)
2 Taylor Swift (up from 22 - she's getting the big media push in the UK now for sure)
3 Lily
4 Leon & his Kings
5 GaGa - Just Dance
6 GaGa - Poker Face
7 T.I. & Justin
8 Shontelle
9 PCDs & Missy
10 Alesha

In the albums, the Prodigy at a comfortable #1 (rather more comfortable than Morrissey this time last week, as it turned out) with Lamb of God at 6 and Joe Bonamassa at 12 (is this the Mojo/Bob Harris/Johnnie Walker vote?).

I quite like Omen but it doesn't really sound like Pendulum at all.

it totally does palette-wise. they have some tracks with that kind of beat on their albums too.

REIGN OF FEAR ENDS; REIGN OF SUCK BEGINS as Kelly Clarkson gets her first-ever UK number one with a song that I'm torn between either quite liking or thinking "Nice job on making her sound like Nicki French, there". In something that I can't imagine anyone thinking would ever happen, Taylor Swift - Taylor Actual Frikkin' Swift - is at number two with her slightly uncomfortably zoomed close-up shots (it may just be me that thinks this, but the angle they shoot her from seems really weird), and then in further Gigantic Climber news Poke Of Face is at 3 and TI Knows He Said Some Things But That's The Old Him is at 4. Then Lillah and various other old stagers clutter up the rest of the ten (that Pussycat Dolls single with Missy Elliott is actually a thing, apparently).

Somehow, in the midst of all this upheaval, "Sex On Fire" is still at number 16, one ahead of Take That 'ave A Jolly Old Sing-Song. STILL-ON-TOP-WATCH - "Get On Your Boots" is at number 20.

And in the rest of the chart... erm... "Paper Planes" climbs again, which is, y'know, nice. Madcon re-enter at 35 despite not actually being the version of "Beggin'" used in that Adidas advert but never mind eh, and MGMT occupy both numbers 38 and 39.

Albums: PRODIGY R TEH CHAMPOINS, with KofL dislodged for one week only (probably). The Slumdog Millionaire OST climbs to 13, PopArt is actually up one place to 18, Erasure's Total Pop compilation (looks pretty but can't defend for toffee) is at 21, with Lamb of God, Joe Bonamassa and Connie Fisher occupying slots 25 to 27.

Erasure's Total Pop compilation (looks pretty but can't defend for toffee)

Also known as "Pop! 20 Hits", plus "Solsbury Hill" and a load of tracks you'll skip...