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Charts analysis: Sabrina Carpenter strengthens grip on singles No.1

Olé, Au Lait: No.1 by the smallest margin in over a year last week, Sabrina Carpenter has an easier second week at the summit with Espresso racking up consumption of 76,506 units (1,134 digital downloads, 75,372 sales-equivalent streams) putting it ...

Analysis

Charts analysis: Dua Lipa scores second No.1 album with Radical Optimism

Already home to three Top 10 hits – Houdini, Training Session and Illusion – Dua Lipa’s highly-anticipated third album Radical Optimism storms to a No.1 debut, delivering her highest weekly sale yet, while earning the honour of dethroning Taylor Swift’s latest magnum opus, The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD).  With first week consumption of 46,298 units (13,388 CDs, 16,772 vinyl albums, 4,779 cassettes, 1,414 digital downloads and 9,945 sales-equivalent streams), Radical Optimism is Lipa’s second No.1 and had a 34.62% bigger first week than immediate predecessor, Future Nostalgia, which launched in March 2020, initially landing at No.2 on consumption of 34,390 units; and 187.92% greater than her eponymous June 2017 debut, which debuted at No.5 with 16,223 sales.  Both improved on their debut positions – something, of course, Radical Optimism cannot do. The self-named first album took 37 weeks to reach its peak position of No.3, doing so immediately after Lipa received BRIT Awards for British Female Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act and performed New Rules at the 2018 ceremony. Future Nostalgia rose 2-1 on its second frame, despite its consumption falling 53.24% week-on-week to 16,080 units. Its to-date consumption is 741,218 units, while Dua Lipa is on 1,032,934 units. Radical Optimism’s first frame is the second highest of the year, behind TTPD, and the highest for a British female artist since Adele’s 30 blasted onto the chart on consumption of 261,856 units in November 2021.  Although dipping to No.2, TTPD’s consumption of 31,897 units is still higher than that achieved by the No.1 album in 12 of the 18 previous weeks that have elapsed in 2024, and Swift’s second highest third week tally behind the 32,589 mark set by Midnights in 2022. TTPD is her 12th No.1 but marks the 15th time she has been dethroned – each time by a different artist. Those who can boast of replacing her at No.1 are, in order of achieving the feat: Calvin Harris, Ed Sheeran, Paloma Faith, Lana Del Rey, Biffy Clyro, Paul McCartney, Barry Gibb, London Grammar, Adele, Drake & 21 Savage, Michael Bublé, The Courteeners, J Hus, Madness and Dua Lipa.   No.1 last time out with FTHC, Frank Turner secures his sixth Top 10 and 11th Top 75 album with Undefeated (No.3, 15,580 sales). The 42-year-old alternative/folk artist wrote, recorded and produced the album all by himself at his Essex studio. Two years after he reached No.1 for the eighth time fronting Stereophonics’ latest album, Oochya!, and less than a year after he reached No.5 as a member of Far From Saints with their eponymous album, Kelly Jones returns to the Top 10 with his second solo studio album, Inevitable Incredible. A rather skimpy eight-song, 24-minute release, it debuts at No.6 (7,022 sales). Jones’ only previous solo chart foray came in 2020, when his live set, Don’t Let The Devil Take Another Day. Jones’ only previous solo studio album, Only The Names Have Been Changed, sold 10,631 copies the week it was released in 2007, enough to earn a No.23 debut, had it not been intentionally excluded from the chart by dint of an eligibility-busting competition. The rest of the Top 10: The Highlights (3-4, 8,367 sales) by The Weeknd, Guts (4-5, 7,845 sales) by Olivia Rodrigo, 50 Years: Don’t Stop (10-7, 6,191 sales) by Fleetwood Mac, Stick Season (9-8, 5,773 sales) by Noah Kahan, Gold: Greatest Hits (11-9, 5,689 sales) by Abba and Sour (14-10, 5,331 sales) by Olivia Rodrigo. As her UK tour continues – she is in Birmingham tonight (May 10) – Sour is at its highest placing for 32 weeks for Rodrigo, who also has simultaneous Top 10 albums for the first time.  Exiting the Top 10: Cowboy Carter (8-12, 4,825 sales) by Beyonce, Nonetheless (2-45, 2,640 sales) by Pet Shop Boys, All Born Screaming (5-179, 1,184 sales) by St. Vincent and - departing the Top 200 in a hurry – last week’s No.6, Jess (1,030 sales) by Jess Glynne and last week’s No.7, The Big Decider (426 sales) by The Zutons. Glynne’s instant departure is a massive contrast to debut album, I Cry When I Laugh, which racked up an initial Top 10 run of 39 weeks, and Top 75 run of 94 weeks in 2015/2017; and follow-up, Always In Between, which was Top 10 for five straight weeks and Top 75 for 58 weeks in 2018/2019.  More than six years after she released her first single, Rachel Chinouriri’s critically acclaimed debut album, What A Devastating Turn Of Events, debuts at No.17 (4,108 sales). It is an excellent achievement for the 25-year-old indie singer/songwriter from London, whose most consumed track is six-year-old So My Darling (56,054 sales), though viral success All I Ever Asked – which is on the album – is catching up fast with a to-date tally of 40,227 units.  Also new to the Top 75: Promised Land (No.19, 4,043 sales), the introductory album by London-based rock quintet, The Karma Effect; Look To The East, Look To The West (No.36, 2,972 sales), the sixth studio album, and third chart entry for Glasgow indie quintet Camera Obscura, who were formed in 1996, but last released an album in 2013; mixtape Signed To The T (No.37, 2,965 sales), the first chart entry for 23-year-old Birmingham rapper KayMuni – Kalid Khan – who was sentenced to nine years in jail on drugs and firearms offences in 2022; and Reasonable Woman (No.59, 2,380 sales), the 10th solo studio album and sixth chart album for Sia (including one as part of LSD). Chappell Roan’s September 2023 debut album, The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess, gets a new peak, climbing 56-50 (2,478 sales). Housing 82 tracks first released 50 years ago, Now Yearbook 74 opens atop the compilation chart on consumption of 5,030 units (3,929 CDs, 841 vinyl albums and 260 digital downloads). It is the 11th regular Now Yearbook album to reach No.1. Six Now Yearbook Extra releases have also reached No.1.  Overall album sales are up 0.08% week-on-week at 2,462,731, 10.24% above same week 2023 sales of 2,233,914. Physical product accounts for 317,346 sales, 12.89% of the total.  

Analysis

Incoming: Fat White Family's Lias Saoudi talks survival, industry woes and Forgiveness Is Yours

Fat White Family have battled in-fighting and addiction since their inception, but the exit of guitarist Saul Adamczewski during the making of their fourth album Forgiveness Is Yours rocked them to the core. Here, singer Lias Saoudi explains their survival plan and talks indie rock, life on Domino and his industry issues... INTERVIEW: Ben Homewood PHOTO: Louise Mason Given that Saul, your creative partner, left the band for good during recording, are you surprised that the new album even got finished?   “It was a miracle that it came off at all, the interpersonal stuff just got to a point where it was just untenable. After the pandemic, we had grown out of each other in fundamental ways – and then when we tried to patch things up, it wouldn’t budge. It’s messy, your characters bleed into each other in really abstract and unhealthy ways. But that’s as old as the hills, that’s what makes a good band. It’s sad, you go into it when you’re young and naive and there’s all this optimism, but it’s so often the way with British bands where there’s a pair in the middle of it and they always end up fucking hating each other.”  So are those indie rock tropes getting the better of Fat White Family? “We followed that tradition of sensationalism and iconoclasm. But low-life indie rock is a dead medium now, isn’t it? A hopeless anachronism. The progressive arm of capitalism has convinced everybody that it’s just not worth it. Maybe people are right, but also, maybe they’re not. Part of the idea for us is trying to prove them wrong. It’s a way of resistance, just through sheer self-destruction. But then, you approach 40 and it’s like, ‘Well, I’m not dead yet, but I’m tired. I’d like somewhere to live, normal relationships.’ I don’t know, it’s a young person’s game.” The indie generation before yours is still going strong though, bands like The Wombats and The Kooks… “I’ve never even heard of anybody who’s heard of anybody that listens to that stuff. Maybe it’s a psy-op? [Laughs]. Maybe it’s the alt-right, the wokes, Elon Musk, or the Sacklers? I mean, they’ve got that kind of clout, to engineer mobs of fucking sleeper agents. They’ve been faux fans for so long, they can’t remember it was all an act! [Laughs].” Now you’re on your second record with Domino, is the band edging closer to the kind of commercial success Arctic Monkeys and Wet Leg enjoy? “Those are the bands that pay for this band! I like Laurence [Bell, Domino co-founder], he’s into karmic redistribution in the musical landscape, the reallocation of funds! [Laughs]. But I don’t think about things in that sense at all. This album is written in a more intimate way – it’s more lyrical and literary – but I don’t think the songs are going to be any kind of worldwide smash. I see the band as more of a kind of experiential, running art project.” Have you learned any more about the industry since signing to Domino? “Back in the day, a more artsy project would still bring in some [income]. I was reading about Dave Berman, and he had a house in Texas through Silver Jews’ record sales. I found that amazing. Even a little house seems utterly fantastical these days. You can sell 4,000 tickets in London and you still have to play in other bands, write a book and maybe even pull the odd pint just to pay the rent. So, you’re fucked off with that, but then at the same time, you’re pitifully grateful for whatever you can get and you’re in this life of endless precarity because it’s all just completely fucked.” What is your biggest problem with the industry?  “It’s like the world has got together and agreed, ‘We just don’t wish to pay you any more for the job that you do.’ It’s obscene, it’s cataclysmic, where the industry is concerned. Arena shows are going through the roof, while all the grassroots venues are closing. It’s the end of an epoch, from the 1960s up to now – a period with a socio-political and technological situation that was able to cultivate artists capable of scaling incredible heights, where people that were outsiders had backing. Now, banality smothers everything.”  

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