Charts analysis: Eminem spends second week at albums summit

Eminem’s first album of new material in more than four years, The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce) (TDOSS) remains atop the chart for a second week, albeit with consumption dipping 59.55% week-on-week to 18,230 units (611 cassettes, 1,129 digital downloads and 16,490 sales-equivalent streams). The 749th new No.1 album of the 21st century, it is the only one to top the chart with cassette as its only physical component. Its unusual release strategy currently calls for CDs to join the mix on 13 September, with vinyl to follow on 25 October. Despite physical sales being limited to cassette, TDOSS is the first rap album to spend its first two weeks at No.1 since 2018, when an earlier Eminem release, Kamikaze, racked up four straight weeks at the summit. Kamikaze’s first week was digital only, with CDs released in week 2, and vinyl in week 14. It was never released on cassette. In fact, TDOSS is only the fifth Eminem album to appear on tape, following 1999 debut The Slim Shady LP (13,895 sales in the format), 2000 second album The Marshall Mathers LP (72,303 sales), 2002 third album The Eminem Show (5,997 sales) and 2020 10th album, Music To Be Murdered By (belatedly released after 48 weeks, 472 sales). After two weeks, TDOSS’ cumulative cassette sales stand at 1,389. Kent punk musicians Isaac Holman and Laurie Vincent released three albums as Slaves, all of which made the Top 10, with 2015’s Are You Satisfied? reaching No.8, 2016’s Take Control peaking at No.6 and 2018’s Acts Of Fear And Love cresting at No.8. They changed their name to Soft Play in 2022, and their first album since then, Heavy Jelly – 11 pithy tracks with a total playing time of just 29 minutes – has received their best reviews and secures their highest chart placing to date, debuting at No.3 (10,250 sales). Only Are You Satisfied?’s chart debut was attended by a higher sale – 10.459 units. Oxford indie quartet Glass Animals’ fourth album, third chart title and second Top 10 entry, I Love You So F***ing Much debuts at No.5 (9,831 sales). Their highest placing came in 2020 when their last album, Dreamland, debuted at No.2 on lower consumption of 9,645 units. All three of their previous albums have been certified silver, with 2014 debut Zaba achieving to-date consumption of 63,277 units despite peaking at No.92, Dreamland achieving 94,055 units, and second album, 2016 release How To Be A Human Being, becoming their first gold album only last month, and achieving to-date consumption of 101,079 units. Its expanded version newly released in double vinyl splatter and zoetrope editions, Guts surges 22-2 (10,564 sales) for Olivia Rodrigo, making its first appearance in the Top 10 for eight weeks and achieving its highest placing for 16 weeks. The 2023 chart-topper has to-date sales of 398,680 copies, including 37,891 on vinyl – with the new editions and the original vinyl album selling a combined 6,363 copies in the latest frame, as it surging back to the top of the vinyl chart. The rest of the Top 10: The Tortured Poets Department (2-4, 10,134 sales) by Taylor Swift, Brat (6-6, 8,960 sales) by Charli XCX, The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess (8-7, 8,912 sales) by Chappell Roan, Hit Me Hard And Soft (5-8, 8,817 sales) by Billie Eilish, The Highlights (9-9, 7,120 sales) by The Weeknd and 50 Years: Don’t Stop (10-10, 6,050 sales) by Fleetwood Mac. All Top 10 debuts a week ago, there are instant expulsions for Early Twenties (7-105, 1,703 sales) by Cat Burns, Vertigo (3-122, 1,520 sales) by Griff and L.A. Times (4-142, 1,361 sales) by Travis. Heavy metal legends Deep Purple extend their album chart span to 56 years, debuting at No.12 (5,393 sales), with 23rd studio album, =1. Their first album since the departure of American guitarist Steve Morse, who was with them for 28 years until 2022, it restores the quintet to all-British status, with Morse’s replacement, Ulsterman Simon McBride (45) joining his septuagenarian colleagues Ian Gillan (78), Roger Glover (78), Ian Paice (76) and Don Airey (76). Including live albums and compilations, it is the band’s 30th Top 75 entry, 26 of which have made the Top 40. That is nothing compared to their record in German, where =1 is their 57th charted album, and 10th No.1. Among British acts, only Depeche Mode (12), Robbie Williams (12), The Beatles (11) and The Rolling Stones (11) have had more No.1s. And, having first topped the German chart with Deep Purple In Rock in 1970, their span at No.1 with new albums – 54 years – is second only to the Rolling Stones’ 58-year span. Formed in Wales in 2006 but with no Welsh members, Emo/indie septet Los Campesinos’ first album in seven years and seventh album in all, All Hell debuts at No.14 (5,096 sales). It is only their second charted album, far surpassing the No.72 peak of their 2008 debut, Hold On Now Youngster, thanks to a raft of positive reviews, in-store performances, a plethora of physical formats (five vinyl, two CD, cassette) and a 21 song digital version selling for just £5 on their own website. Two of K-Pop’s biggest stars went head-to-head this week, with BTS member Jimin’s second full-length album, the 10-song 28-minute release Muse up against his South Korean compatriots Stray Kids’ seventh EP, the eight-song, 23-minute effort, Ate. K-Pop isn’t nearly as big as it is in South Korea (natch), Japan or even The USA, where Ate will become the 17th K-Pop album to reach No.1 since 2018, and the fifth by Stray Kids alone. Here, Jimin leads the way, with Muse debuting at No.56 (2,515 sales), with Ate following close behind for Stray Kids at No.62 (2,438 sales). These sales and positions don’t tell the whole story, however, as both albums have editions rendered chart-ineligible because their purchase includes complimentary gift vouchers – Jimin’s on the Blooming and Serenade versions of Muse, and Stray Kids on Chk Chk, Boom, Accordion and Ate (sic) versions of Ate. Adding in the excluded versions would give DUS figures of 4,119 for Muse and 10,461 for Ate, earning chart positions of No.23 and No.3, respectively. Enhypen suffered a similar fate last week, when their new album Romance: Untold – No.1 in South Korea and Japan and No.2 in The USA - failed to breach the Top 200 here, although adding its 844 eligible sales to its 1,919 ineligible sales would have given it a No.48 debut. In South Korea, the Enhypen album debuted at No.1 last week, and is dethroned by Ate, which becomes Stray Kids’ 11th No.1 with staggering consumption of 2,654,572 copies, with the separately charted Nemo version selling a further 199,840 copies. Jimin’s Muse debuts at No.2, on sales of 650,339 copies, with the separately charted Weverse version opening at No.5 with 120,790 sales. Also new to the Top 75: British Trap Royalty (No.28, 3,637 sales), the second album and first chart entry for London rapper (Jonathan) Morrisson; and Bando Stone And The New World (No.33, 3,376 sales), the fifth album and third chart entry for 40-year-old American rap/R&B act Childish Gambino. Disaster movie Twisters opened at No.2 (behind Despicable Me 4) in the UK Box Office chart this week – but soundtrack set Twisters: The Album goes one better, spiralling to a No.1 debut on the compilation chart on consumption of 3,118 units (987 CDs, 148 vinyl albums, 422 digital downloads and 1561 sales-equivalent streams). There are one or two outliers but it is essentially all-new country repertoire from the likes of Luke Combs, Miranda Lambert, Thomas Rhett and Kane Brown, becoming the first country album to lead the compilation chart since Now That’s What I Call Country in 2021. Overall album sales are up 1.71% week-on-week at 2,373,985 units, 8.97% above same week 2023 sales of 2,178,485. Physical product accounts for 270,194 sales, 11.38% of the total.

Charts analysis: Espresso is No.1 again - but Please Please Please could rebound to summit next week

Toppled from the chart summit in Tuesday’s sales flashes, Sabrina Carpenter subsequently reasserted herself, and has the nation’s top two singles for the fifth straight week. Espresso – which spent five weeks at the summit, before retreating to No.2 for a further five weeks, and returning to pole position last week – once again the victor, with follow-up, Please Please Please, which itself spent three weeks at the top, remaining at No.2 Consumption of both tracks is down again, with Espresso (1-1, 51,679 sales including 30 CDs, five cassette, 900 digital downloads and 50,744 sales-equivalent streams) off 4.43% week-on-week to the lowest level of its 14-week chart tenure, while Please Please Please (2-2, 49,802 sales) declines 6.23% week-on-week. Espresso’s tally is the lowest for a No.1 so far this year. It will fall into ACR next week, most likely paving the way for Please Please Please to return to the summit. With seven weeks at No.1 in total, Espresso matches Noah Kahan’s Stick Season as the longest-running No.1 of 2024. In the whole of chart history only Ed Sheeran has previously locked up the top two positions for five weeks in a row, doing so in 2017, with Shape Of You at No.1 and Castle On The Hill at No.2 throughout. Shape Of You continued at No.1 the following week, but Castle On The Hill slipped to No.3, with Rag n’ Bone Man’s Human coming between them. The track that overhauled Espresso briefly was perennial 1996 soccer anthem 3 Lions by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner & The Lightning Seeds. No.20 the previous week, driven by England’s advance to the final of Euro 2024, it enjoyed a 24-hour residency atop the chart on Tuesday, even though the Euros were over, and England had lost to Spain to finish runners-up for the second tournament in a row. Eventually settling at No.8 (33,337 sales), it is at its highest position since reaching No.4 during the 2020 Euros, staged belatedly in 2021 because of Covid. Other football-related chart action includes returns to the Top 75 for Dancing In The Dark (No.36, 12,925 sales) by Bruce Springsteen, Vindaloo (99-46, 11,601 sales) by Fat Les, World In Motion (No.53, 9,946 sales) for EnglandNewOrder, and a 55-44 (11,767 sales) move for Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond. Sung at the Euros with altered lyrics in praise of England star Phil Foden, 1984 release Dancing In The Dark peaked at No.4 the following year, and hadn’t charted since. Currently occupying Springsteen’s highest chart berth since Secret Garden reached No.17 in 1997, it is his most popular title of the digital era (since 2004), with to-date consumption of 1,743,742 units. Beyond the Top 75, The Beatles’ Hey Jude increases consumption again – despite Jude Bellingham’s indifferent performance in the final and the most wretched A1 version on Adidas’ Euro-aimed advert – reaching a 712-week high (6,271 units) as it re-emerges at No.94. Although it drew closer to breaking up Carpenter’s domination, Shaboozey’s debut hit, A Bar Song (Tipsy) spends its seventh week in total – and fourth in a row – at No.3 (46,156 sales). However, it will move to ACR next week, and is therefore no longer a challenger. Eminem’s new album, The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce), debuts at No.1 this week but its streaming tallies are not enough to return introductory single, Houdini, to No.1. The track, which topped the chart on debut six weeks ago, improves 7-4 (44,552 sales) and is joined in chart combat by two more tracks from the album, namely Habits (No.11 28,804 sales) and Renaissance (No.13, 27,347 sales). They raise Eminem’s tally of Top 75 hits to 66, his tally of Top 20 hits to 41. Habits is a collaboration with singer, songwriter and producer White Gold from New York, for whom it is the first hit. Fifteen more tracks from TDOSS are ‘starred-out’ of the Top 75, including Big Sean & Baby Tron collaboration, Tobey, which debuted last week at No.29 as the album’s second preview track. The rest of the Top 10: Birds Of A Feather (4-5, 41,421 sales) by Billie Eilish, Good Luck, Babe! (5-6, 40,149 sales) by Chappell Roan, Stargazing (6-7, 38,229 sales) by Myles Smith, Austin (10-9, 31,530 sales) by Dasha and I Had Some Help (8-10, 31,067 sales) by Post Malone feat. Morgan Wallen. I Had Some Help will fall into ACR and exit the Top 10 next week but Austin escapes, having increased consumption again. Not Like Us (9-12, 28,628 sales) by Kendrick Lamar is the only track to exit the Top 10 this week. Central Cee racks up his sixth hit of 2024 – more than any other act – and 34th chart entry in total with Did It First (No.15, 21,678 sales), a collaboration with American rapper Ice Spice, who has five prior hits to her credit. Much-anticipated but underachieving despite simultaneous physical release, Katy Perry’s Woman’s World is her 34th hit, debuting at No.47 (11,327 sales, including 658 7-inch singles and 461 CDs), while Kylie Minogue’s 62nd hit, My Oh My debuts at No.63 (8,582 sales, including 890 cassettes and 1,260 CDs). Minogue’s ninth charted collaboration, it also features American singer Bebe Rexha and Swedish singer Tove Lo, becoming Rexha’s 13th hit, Lo’s eighth. The sixth and final new entry to the Top 75 is Alibi (No.74, 7,444 sales), a viral collaboration between 36-year-old Iranian singer Sevdaliza, 32-year-old Brazilian singer and drag queen, Pabblo Vittar and 29-year-old French singer Yseult. It is the first hit for all. It’s not much of a week for new peaks, the few in evidence being: Kisses (26-24, 17,750 sales) by Bl3ss & CamrinWatsin feat. Bbyclose Move (46-39, 12,400 sales) by Adam Port, Stryv, Keinemusik, Orso & Malachiii, Apple (64-42, 11,836 sales) by Charli XCX, Lies Lies Lies (62-58, 9,170 sales) by Morgan Wallen, and I Love You, I’m Sorry (71-69, 7,997 sales) by Gracie Abrams. Overall singles consumption is up 3.01% week-on-week to 28,616,078 units, 8.56% above same week 2023 consumption of 26,359,835 units. Paid-for sales are up 4.19% week-on-week at 277,429 – 8.49% below same week 2023 sales of 303,181.

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