Charts analysis: Doja Cat spends fourth week running at No.1

Female solo artists occupy the top two slots on the singles chart for the seventh week in a row, with Doja Cat’s Paint The Town Red spending its fourth consecutive frame at the apex. Although it notionally received a boost from the release of a CD single – its first physical format – and parent album Scarlet, consumption of Paint The Town Red dipped for the third straight week, falling 2.50% to 48,890 units (559 CDs, 1,076 digital downloads, 47,255 sales-equivalent streams). To-date consumption of the track now stands at 318,283 units, making it her 17th song to surpass the 300,000 mark. Paint The Town Red is, perhaps surprisingly, the first rap single by a female solo artist to spend four weeks at No.1, achieving the feat almost 33 years after Vanilla Ice became the first male to do so with Ice Ice Baby. Another track from Scarlet joins Paint The Town Red in the Top 75, namely Agora Hills (No.29, 11,062 sales), which is Doja Cat’s 21st Top 75 and 16th Top 40 hit. Kenya Grace’s debut hit, Strangers, continues to gain on Paint The Town Red, climbing 3-2 (39,819 sales), while last week’s highest new entry, Greedy, improves 8-5 (28,043 sales) for Canadian singer Tate McRae. Ending an unprecedented sequence which saw female solo acts occupy all of the Top 3 places for six weeks in a row, Cassö, Raye & D-Block Europe reach another new peak with their collaboration, Prada (4-3, 35,165 sales). It also, surprisingly, dethrones Doja Cat (1-2) in Ireland, where Tate McRae holds at No.4, earning the Ministry Of Sound label a 75% share of the Top 4 for the second week in a row. Taking advantage of a somewhat lacklustre top tier, there are re-entries for Disconnect (12-8, 23,655 sales) by Becky Hill and Chase & Status and Baddadan (13-10, 22,777 sales) by Chase & Status and Bou feat. Irah, Flowdan, Trigga & Takura. The rest of the Top 10: Vampire (2-4, 33,188 sales) by Olivia Rodrigo, Adore U (5-6, 26,606 sales) by Fred Again feat. Obongjayar, Cruel Summer (7-7, 26,338 sales) by Taylor Swift and Bad Idea Right? (6-9, 22,814 sales) by Olivia Rodrigo. Falling out of the Top 10 are Get Him Back (9-12, 20,688 sales) by Olivia Rodrigo and America’s current No.1, Slime You Out (10-19, 15,227 sales) by Drake feat. SZA. The highest of seven debuts on the Top 75 this week is Daily Duppy (No.20, 14,013 sales) by Nines feat. GRM Daily. It is the 14th Top 75 entry but only third Top 20 hit for London rapper Nines, and is part of an ongoing series of ‘Daily Duppy’ releases associated with the GRM Daily website which explains the concept thus: “a freestyle series of UK rap (in which) top artists deliver their best lyrics in front of the iconic backdrop’. Nines’ release is the seventh using the title Daily Duppy to make the Top 75, but the first to progress into the Top 20. It is also the seventh Top 75 entry to credit GRM Daily, although only two of the others bear the title Daily Duppy. Altogether, the Daily Duppy series has generated more than 150 releases of that title (with one or two slight variations), which have between them accumulated consumption of 3,658,562 units in the last seven years. The most popular, although it didn’t make the Top 75, was Manchester rapper Aitch’s Daily Duppy, which reached No.99 in 2018, and has consumption to date of 273,390 units. Fredo and J Hus’ Daily Duppy releases are the only other ones to go silver, Fredo’s peaking at No.46 with consumption of 245,500 units, and J Hus’ at No.42, with consumption of 216,772 units. Sussex singer/songwriter Tom Odell has his first new hit since 2016 and his highest charting single since his 2014 Beatles cover Real Love, with new single Black Friday debuting at No.21 (13,499 sales). It is presumably a track from an upcoming album. All of Odell’s five albums to date have made the Top 10, but none of the last three added to his prior tally of six hits. However, his 2013 debut hit Another Love has enjoyed renewed popularity in the last year after going viral on TikTok and itself climbs 74-61 (6,423 sales) on its 62nd week in the Top 75 in total. Although Another Love never climbed higher than No.10, it has to-date consumption of 2,692,192 units. Black Friday is the first hit to include a day of the week in its title since Surfaces’ Sunday Best reached No.36 in 2020. It is the 27th ‘Friday’ hit, placing that day third in the heptad, trailing only Saturday (41 hits) and Sunday (30 hits). The least popular day is Wednesday, which features in only one hit title, Wednesday Week, No.11 for The Undertones in 1980. Also new to the Top 75: One More Time… (No.28, 11,437 sales), the 14th hit for Blink-182, the title track of their upcoming (ninth) album and their highest-charting single since 2004; rap three-way Triple Threat (No.31, 10,881 sales), the 27th hit for Headie One, the ninth for both K-Trap and Clavish; Got Me Started (No.56, 6,968 sales), the ninth hit for Troye Sivan; and Would You (Go To Bed With Me?) (81-75, 5,684 sales), a remake of Touch And Go’s 1998 No.3 hit, and the first hit for drum & bass pairing Campbell & Alcemist. While Mitski’s album, The Land Is Inhospitable… dives 4-57 on its second week in the chart, a track from it – her debut hit single, My Love Mine All Mine – makes impressive progress in the opposite direction, vaulting 63-34 (10,688 sales). There are also new peaks for Water (24-16, 16,724 sales) by Tyla, City Boys (22-17, 15,630 sales) by Burna Boy, DNA (Loving You) (33-30, 10,993 sales) by Billy Gillies feat. Hannah Boleyn, Park Chinos (50-39, 9,317 sales) by Headie One feat. K-Trap, Back On 74 (60-41, 8,138 sales) by Jungle, Ecstacy (65-52, 7,321 sales) by Suicidal-Idol and I Know (64-62, 6,386 sales) by Travis Scott. Overall singles sales are up 0.53% week-on-week to 26,363,022 units, 11.97% above same week 2022 consumption of 23,544,306 units. Paid-for sales are down 0.09% week-on-week at 265,057 – 7.95% below same week 2022 sales of 287,958.

BRIT Trust Diaries: Stuart Worden on academic results, Ofsted inspection & Mercury Prize recognition

In this edition of the BRIT Trust Diaries, Stuart Worden, principal of the BRIT School in Croydon, tells us about the School’s amazing academic success, achieved in spite of increasing challenges, but with the valued support of the BRIT Trust and the music industry. The BRIT School has started its 33rd year and, indeed, I have just embarked on my 30th year – both with a spring in our stride. We have 1,443 students, and I love it when term starts and you can feel their energy, excitement, fashion and creativity seep through the building. And it comes off an incredible summer and an incredible year. Let me start with our results last month. Over 350 students graduated with the best results The BRIT School has ever produced. When the national average is 25%, three quarters gained a University of the Arts London (UAL) distinction – that is the equivalent of three As at A Level – nearly a 5% rise on last year. In addition we had fabulous results in the increase in A Level grades: 78% A*-C grades and a remarkable 47% A*-B grades. While these are dry statistics these are grades that will open up doors for so many young people – students now heading off from Croydon to St Martins to study Fashion and Graphic Design; actors going to RADA; film students going to Westminster and production students going to Royal Welsh College – a whole bunch of students who have gigs coming up, students setting up their own production companies, putting on plays at the Fringe and a whole load going off to travel and change the world. That too is remarkable. But don’t forget we also have Key Stage 4 and GCSEs where we also delivered. Nearly a third (30%) of our GCSEs were at 9-7, which is 8% above the national average and 86% of our grades were 4 or above which is nearly 20% above the national average. In fact we were in the top three schools in the borough of Croydon for GCSE results. The dream we had of the school being taken seriously as an institution for academic excellence as well as world class vocational training has once again become real. And on the vocational front, in Performing Arts, 94% of students gained a distinction. We should never take the arts achievements for granted. The future is bright …..and all this came after our Ofsted report. For any state-funded school, an Ofsted inspection is one of life’s certainties and after five years since the last one, we knew our time was coming round again. Which it duly did in June. And, as what is known as an ‘ungraded’ report, it would have been hard to have done better. I feel proud for the staff and I feel proud for the students. As I say, this was before our results and I feel proud because of Ofsted's observations around BRITs’ culture – “extraordinarily high standards”, “children are happy”, “no reported bullying”, “staff are happy”, “trustees believe in a broad curriculum”, “all children with special educational needs are supported”, “harmonious community” and more. I love it when term starts and you can feel their energy, excitement, fashion and creativity seep through the building Stuart Worden In our wider community, last year we worked in Croydon schools and PRUs, in prisons, hospices, care homes and dementia centres. Every student has this unique experience in their curriculum to use their art as a force for good and make people’s lives better – values which of course chime with the BRIT Trust. I always like to think of the future as being bright, yet it is getting financially harder and harder to deliver on our aspirations. We have a shortfall in funding of nearly £2,000 per head of student and that will only get higher. It’s not sustainable in the long-term, and if we don’t act soon to secure new sources of revenue, our amazing school will be put at risk. Which of course, would be a significant loss, not just for the students, staff and school given such remarkable achievements, but for the creative industries that we ultimately support. We couldn’t do this without the support of the music industry and my huge thanks to the labels, the BPI and the BRIT Trust. This support continues to grow and PPL, who have provided us with much support over our history, formally now contributes to supporting music careers-focused activity. We bear the BRIT name with pride and whilst none was the final winner, we had three (a record number) former BRIT students at the Mercury Prize in September – Loyle Carner, Raye and Olivia Dean. At last count we have over 50 performers in West End shows alone, not to mention countless backstage, crew, technicians and front of house. Last year, significantly we received sponsorship from Burberry for our Fashion, Styling and Textiles course as well as working with other industry partners including Doc Martens, Mastercard and Royal Bank of Canada. Our pioneering Interactive Digital Design course celebrated 10 years and continues to evolve so the curriculum taught reflects the skills needed in the workplace. Finally, our proudest and most consistent figure is that 98% of students are in education, training or employment within three months of leaving school and this has been the case for the last ten years. Now that is an achievement. https://www.brit.croydon.sch.uk

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