Sam Smith returns to number one
Written by admin on 11th January 2015
Sam Smith has taken his debut album, In The Lonely Hour, back to number one on the Official UK Chart.
The record, which recently passed the million sales mark in both the UK and the US, last topped the charts in September and, before that, in June.
It has now spent five non-consecutive weeks at number one.
In the singles chart, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk claimed the top slot for a third week, while dance act Tchami had the highest new entry. The French producer saw his sparse, soulful club track, Promesses, arrive at number seven.
James Bay also scored a new entry with the ballad Hold Back The River. The musician, from Hitchin, climbed from 80 to 36, the Official Chart Company said.
US teen band Echosmith also made their Top 40 debut after their uplifting pop anthem Cool Kids rose to 39 from last week’s number 60.
But it was bad news for former X Factor judge Tulisa, whose comeback song Living Without You failed to breach the Top 40. The single had a strong start to the week, ranking 23rd in the midweek sales update, but dropped out of the countdown by the time the final figures were counted on Sunday.
Similarly, the album chart saw no new entries in the quiet post-Christmas period.
However, Australian pop singer Sia – who has written hits for the likes of Beyoncé and Rihanna – saw her album 1000 Forms Of Fear leap from 72 to 15. The sales boost came in the week she unveiled a controversial new video, which sees actor Shia LeBeouf dancing, shirtless, alongside a 12-year-old girl. Some commentators claimed the video, for the single Elastic Heart, “smacked of child molestation”, and accused the singer of promoting paedophilia.
Writing on Twitter, Sia said she was sorry to anyone who felt “triggered” by the clip, in which the dancers were supposed to represent the two warring sides of her psyche.
“My intention was to create some emotional content, not to upset anybody,” she added.
(Source: BBC News)
