Glitch Has a Stitch
A new season of #PopIndustry is now underway. With that comes a total of four new albums and a slew of new singles. So far, 2018 has been the year of RCA - owning all six number-one singles of the year to date, but, now, there's a 'Digital Disturbance' in the air. Marking her seventh number-one single to date, Rihanna's 'Glitch' takes the number-one spot on this week's Hot Singles Chart - also topping the Digital Songs and Streaming Songs charts. In addition, parent album - 'Digital Disturbance' - takes the top-spot on the Top Albums Chart.
As the aformentioned 'Digital Disturbance' was a last-minute release, it certainly lives up to its name. Disturbing the prior contender for number-one, Rihanna takes the top-spot over the début album of Madonna ('Snap!') - also a last-minute release poised to snatch the number-one award from legacy artist Marina. Madonna, most known for her 2015 collaboration with Katy Perry and Lady Gaga ('Dressed To Kill'), made a return to the industry this week with a significant Twitter presence. Interestingly, Madonna then denounced serial-Tweeters, despite tweeting individual one-letter posts just minutes before this week's chart deadline. We think she was perhaps a little confused, and can only suggest a lie-down for the 600-year old.
On the subject of Madonna, she holds the number-two spot on both the Top Albums Chart and the Hot Singles Chart (as part of P!nk's 'Delicious'). The killer-record that shot to number-one after an epic battle against Rihanna's 'Slowly' failed to win a second week at the topic spot against 'Glitch' But will 'Glitch' suffer from a stitch next week as P!nk begins her newest era with a re-recording of 2013 track 'Betcha Didn't Know'? Earlier this week, Rihanna pushed forward the release of 'Digital Disturbance' to avoid a chart-battle with P!nk's fifth studio album 'Forever Personal'. Earlier today, RCA artist Perrie Edwards tweeted "Wonder if anyone will break P!nk's Twitter record". We're left wondering in the dust as the week two contenders are off to a flying start!
The other contenders for this week's album chart included Kylie Minogue's 'Echoed Silence' and Marina's 'Velvet Dreaming'. Marina - formerly known as Marina and the Diamonds - commonly stated on Twitter that she does not care about the charts. We think this is a good thing as 'Velvet Dreaming' fails to make the top-three and lead single, 'Blue Waves' bombs on all accounts. We do have to wonder if "The Diamonds" was code for desperate feature-remixed singles, and eagerly await to see if Marina employs another similar tactics this season. Minogue's début here is the biggest surprise, as 'Echoed Silence', becomes her highest-peaking album release at #3.
It's not only Minogue's album that surprises this week. Her lead single - titled 'Melody' - was predicted to début around the #12 position this week on the most recent chart update. Minogue pulls through with a complete game-changer as 'Melody' catapults into the top-five - tying 'My My' for her highest solo charting track (#5). Other surprises this week include the number-three début of Troye Sivan's 'The Storm'. We're unsure if 'The Storm' is the one that knocked out his internet access, but if so, it's more than certainly appropriate as the track only barely found shelter in the top-ten of the Streaming Songs Chart. In the words of Sivan himself; "Not like a few tweets and replies is too difficult, though".
The surprises this week are coming in thick and fast, like kids receiving candy on Halloween. On an unrelated note, we wonder what Shawn Mendes is up to these days. To name some of these aforementioned surprises, we have the missed top-three, top-five and top-ten début placements of Erika Jayne, Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift respectively. Swift's 'Bittersweet Love' - predicted to enter the top-ten - charts at number-eleven after Swift delusionally assumed twenty extra tweets about The Sims was a lot.
This downfall also applied to Rey and Jayne. The former's 'Summer We Never Had' becomes 'The Top Five We Never Had'. We can only draw this comparison as 'Summer' was released not in the summer, but in the fall, and hit the top-ten (#6) instead of the top-five. Finally, Jayne's Cherish - predicted to enter the top-three by industry expects and Twitter-resident Rihanna - falls short of the mark at the number-four spot - most likely due to Rihanna's excess tweets diminishing Jayne's points value. Still, 'Cherish' becomes Jayne's biggest solo hit today proving that there may still be some potential there for Jayne (not like there was any to begin with).
The full desktop and mobile editions of this week's published charts have been linked below. As always, more information will be available to label executives and recording artists upon request. The all-time charts and chart-database will be updated tomorrow.