Sunday, October 25, 2009

UK Singles Chart, October 31, 2009

1. Fight for This Love - Cheryl Cole
2. Bad Boys - Alexandra Burke feat. Flo Rida

One would think that having the year's biggest sales week would guarantee a single a second week at #1. The only that could stop it would be...another single coming along and breaking that record. Such is the case with Cheryl Cole, who stomps all over Alexandra's 187k sold of "Bad Boys" last week with a much more impressive 293K sold of "Fight For This Love." Thus, "Bad Boys'" run at #1 is limited to just one week, with sales dropping to about 122k--still a pretty impressive haul and more than any other #1 hit has sold this year other than "Bad Boys" and "Fight for This Love."

Enough about the sales stats. "Fight for This Love" is the solo debut for Cheryl Cole, one of the five members of Britain's reigning girl group, Girls Aloud. As such, she's been in the limelight for quite some time. During the 7 years since winning in a place in the group on the show Popstars, Cheryl has been on trial for a restroom brawl, married a famous soccer player and become a popular judge on Britain's current reality show singing competition, The X Factor. Of course she's also scored 21 top 40 hits with her group, 20 of which were top 10s (the 21st just missed it at #11), and four went all the way to #1 (but none of those #1s sold as many copies in their first week at the top as "Fight for This Love" has this week--more sales stats for ya).

5. Million Dollar Bill - Whitney Houston

Speaking of X Factor, the show continues to assert its massive influence on the pop charts. Last week "Million Dollar Bill" had dipped two places to #14 after debuting the previous week at #12. This week, following Houston's performance on the show last weekend, the single surges up 9 spots to #5, becoming her 17th top 10 hit and first top 5 single in 10 years. The song is certainly worthy of it--it's a great comeback--although it is a bit of a shame that it took a TV show appearance to convince the public it was so worthwhile.

1o. I Got Soul - Young Soul Rebels

A charity single! The War Child, a British charity that provides aid to children in war-torn areas of the world, put out this track recorded by supergroup Young Soul Rebels, consisting of a number of currently popular acts like Pixie Lott, Tinchy Stryder, N-Dubz, Frankmusic, VV Brown, and Chipmunk, among others. The song heavily reworks The Killers' 2004 hit "All These Things that I've Done."

11. Meet Me Halfway - Black Eyed Peas

BEPs jump 15 places to #11, on the verge of scoring their 10th top 10 hit. The single is out November 2.

20. The Spell - Alphabeat

At one point Alphabeat was being heralded as the next Scissor Sisters. Although their chart prospects have dimmed, they are still quite a bit of fun, and this is another good single from them--the first from their second album of the same name.

25. Hurt - Christina Aguilera

Someone must have sang this on X Factor last week. No other reason it would be here.

5 comments:

rcLoy said...

I love Alphabeat's The Spell, it should go way higher than that. I'm not impressed by Cheryl Cole song, it's so mediocre, whatdya think of it?

Myfizzypop said...

I'm with rcLoy on The Spell - it's magnificent and deserved to go higher! AND! The x factor finalists sang an Alphabeat song this week. It was eerie!

Whitney - definitely deserving of top 5. Loved how long she stared at the floor for last week. Wonderful!!

J.Mensah said...

Good for Cheryl, I hope she crosses a million and becomes the biggest seller of the year /sarcasm ¬_¬ It's not ffaiirrrr!

Anyway, I know this is random, but I'm so into Muse right now! I played their albums Black Holes and the new one, Resistance (sp?) back to back last night. First the Killers, now Muse--I wonder who's next...

Cook In / Dine Out said...

rcLoy - I like "Fight for This Love," but I didn't at first. It took awhile to grow on me.

Paul - I saw a clip of Whitney from X Factor (I need to start scouting YouTube for clips more, it seems like a fun show). She was telling Danyl how to sing "I Didn't Know My Own Strength." She seemed like she was really into it.

J.Mensah - I like Muse, particularly Black Holes, but The Resistance is good too. I really like "Undisclosed Desires," and the three-part finale. Check out Origin of Symmetry from 2001--it's good too.

Myfizzypop said...

ADH - well she was into it when she was with the contestants :) Did a good job there. And her performance of the single was great, despite a few dress problems. It was her interview with Dermot - she was quite disdainful towards him and then when asked a question, she just seemed to lose focus completely and stare at the floor for an eternity. It was bizarre!! But brilliant :)