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Slow curve to singles success G
ANALYSIS Q1 Top 100 SINGLES
otye’s Somebody That I Used To Know became Q1’s top-selling single after securing five weeks at number one, but its
journey to success started way back last summer. At a time when, post-on air/on sale, most
number ones instantly debut at the top, the slow progress of the Belgian-Australian’s single in the UK has been remarkable, having first been released back in July 2011. In its first week it sold just 91 copies, according to the Official Charts Company, and by the end of last year its cumulative total had reached 6,616 units after which it never looked back. Having already become a substantial hit back in
Australia where Gotye has lived since he was two, the Island single entered the UK Top 75 at 36 during the second week of this year and then rapidly climbed 36-21-7-3-1 with its run at the top halted after just seven days later by DJ Fresh’s Hot Right Now before it reclaimed top position a week later for another four weeks. Over the quarter the track, which features the vocals of Kimbra, had sold 742,043 copies, 24.6% more than its closest rival Titanium by David Guetta featuring Sia. Titanium also had a similarly long chart history
to Somebody That I Used To Know, having first entered the chart last August at number 16 as an unbundled track from Guetta’s then new album Nothing But The Beat. After another couple of weeks in the Top 75 it then dropped out before re- entering at 61 in the first week of 2012, climbing to eight the following week and reaching number one for seven days three weeks later. Its Q1 sales were 595,501 units, while Guetta has two other tracks in the quarter-end Top 100 with Turn Me On featuring Nicki Minaj placed 13th and Without You featuring Usher in 59th position. Jessie J’s second UK number one single Domino
was the period’s third top single and highest-placed one by a Brit with 519,770 sales. Her first chart- topper for Lava/Island Price Tag sold another 54,469 to finish 77th for the quarter and surpass one million cumulative sales. Joining Jessie J in the quarter’s Top 10 were both
her Brits Critics’ Choice successor Emeli Sande and fellow Brit School graduates Rizzle Kicks. Following breakthrough hit Heaven, Sande achieved her second single to reach number two with Next To Me debuting in that position the same week her album Our Version Of Events became an instant number one. Next To Me’s sales stood at 384,823 copies by the end of March to make it the period’s fifth most successful single. This put it little more than 10,000 sales ahead of sixth-placed Mama Do The Hump, which spent seven weeks in the Top 10 for Island’s Rizzle Kicks, peaking at two. Atlantic act Flo Rida provides two of the
quarter’s Top 10 singles with one of them – Wild Ones – also helping Australian singer Sia make a double appearance. As well as featuring on David Guetta’s mega hit, she also turned up on Wild
Q1 201217
Ones, the quarter’s fourth favourite single after selling 441,387 copies. Flo Rida’s own double is completed by Good Feeling in 10th position. Like Jessie J, Ministry of Sound’s DJ Fresh
scored his second UK chart-topper in the quarter with Hot Right Now, featuring Rita Ora, placed seventh overall after selling 341,683 copies. RCA act Kelly Clarkson eighth UK Top 10
single Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You) was the quarter’s ninth biggest single with 279,565 sales, even though it only peaked in eighth position on the weekly chart. Despite that, it finished higher on the quarter-end chart than three singles that reached number one in Q1. These include the Global Talent/Polydor-issued Twilight by Cover Drive and Parlophone-signed Coldplay’s Paradise, which were in 12th and 15th positions respectively. This was Coldplay’s second UK number one single and the first by a rock band since Kings of Leon with Sex On Fire in September 2008.
ABOVE
Singles sellers: David Guetta, Jessie J, Sia and DJ Fresh
Virgin act Katy Perry and RCA’s Chris Brown
also reached number one in the quarter but debuted there during the closing stages so their impact on the quarterly chart is minimised. Perry’s Part Of Me ranked 32nd with 131,831 sales after two weeks, while Brown’s Turn Up The Music was 48 having become his first-ever UK number one during the last week of the quarter. Newcomer Lana Del Rey had the quarter’s
second biggest album with her Polydor debut Born To Die, but her presence in the singles market was much less pronounced as she finished in 23rd and 24th places on the quarter-end countdown with Video Games and her album’s title track. Meanwhile, three tracks from the only album to outsell Del Rey’s in the quarter – Adele’s 21 – showed up in the quarterly Top 100 after selling another 237,000 singles combined. Q1 2011’s top seller Someone Like You is 47th, Set Fire To The Rain 60th and Rolling In The Deep 64th.
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