Justin Bieber beats Cheryl Cole to Number 1 by 3,181 copies

June 25, 2012 in Music with 0 Comments

On Wednesday Justin Bieber was reportedly around 3,000 copies ahead of Cheryl Cole in the race to the album chart Number 1 spot, and that’s a gap that stayed exactly as-is for the remainder of the week.

Believe, the second proper studio album from the Canadian teen idol, became his first chart-topper in this country with 38,115 sales. A Million Lights from Cole, meanwhile, registered 34,934.

Interestingly, whilst her lack of X Factor platform didn’t particularly prove an issue in the singles market last week (‘Call My Name’ became the fastest-seller of 2012 with 152,000 sales), it really does in this week’s album tally. 34,934 is still a pretty damn good tally for a No. 2 album, but it’s down considerably on the 105,431 who bought 2010′s Messy Little Raindrops on its first week and the 125,271 who picked up 3 Words straight away in 2009.

Music Week also notes that Alexandra Burke’s Heartbreak On Hold – which is now at No94 in what is only its third week, has only sold 10,571 units to date – just 4.73% of the amount managed by Overcome in the same period (223,407).

In singles, Maroon 5′s ‘Payphone’ sold 141,410 to achieve the second fastest-selling single of 2012 and their first ever UK number 1. Chezza’s ‘Call My Name’ shifted another 70,640 and has now sold 222,640 copies in a fortnight.

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Alexandra Burke upset by dire performance of second album

June 22, 2012 in Music with 0 Comments

Alexandra Burke had always been one of The X Factor‘s most successful winners, despite the fact that runners-up JLS frequently outsell her. But this second album campaign has been an absolute disaster, and a gossip mag quotes a tenuous “source” as saying she’s more than a little down about it.

Heartbreak On Hold debuted at No18 on sales of 6,000 copies – an astonishing 95% lower than the first-week sales of her 2009 album Overcome, which has since gone on to shift 800,000 units in all.

To top it all off, trailer single ‘Let It Go’ entered at No33 before swan-diving to No74. It had barely any radio play at all.

Speaking to Reveal, an “insider” said: “All of a sudden, her career is going downhill. She’s working as hard as ever but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. She’s really struggling to come to terms with it.

“Everything that could have gone wrong, did. In her her darker moments, she admits it’s been a ‘sh***y 12 months’.  She almost wishes she hadn’t won the X Factor, because so many of her problems seem to stem from that.”

Of course the unfortunate fact of the matter here is that Heartbreak On Hold is actually pretty good.

 

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What do Aiden Grimshaw, Alexandra Burke and Leanne Mitchell have in common?

June 8, 2012 in Music with 0 Comments

They can all look forward to some negative chart-related press on Monday morning.

Aiden Grimshaw’s fantastic debut single ‘Is This Love’, touted as one of the best songs to ever come from an X Factor finalist, has dropped from its midweek position of No30 to No33 in today’s update, and will probably be skirting round the very edge of the Top 40 by the time the final chart is announced on Sunday. What went wrong with this campaign? Online it got such a good reception, but airplay obviously never took off. Also the ‘arty’ music video – though excellent – is not “commercial” enough for constant rotation on the TV channels.

Alexandra Burke’s new album Heartbreak On Hold follows the disastrous performance of new single ‘Let It Go’, No33 last week, by ‘doing a Pixie Lott’ and showing at No18 in the album chart. It was No14 on Wednesday so the downward momentum means it’ll probably be outside the Top 20 by Sunday. That also happened with The Saturdays’ last album but, in fairness, they were competing at a much busier time of year.

As for Leanne Mitchell, her ‘winner’s single’ ‘Run To You’ is now No36, after already attracting all kinds of “SHE’S A FLOP!” reports for being at No27 on Sunday. Holly Willoughby and Reggie Yates were forbidden by BBC regulations from mentioning it at all during The Voice UK final on Saturday night, and with barely any radio play whatsoever it’s a miracle it’s charted at all. That said, it will probably be outside the Top 40 by Sunday and the media will write her off completely before she’s even got going. Still, she’s shot a music video so all is not lost quite yet.

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Album Review: Alexandra Burke – Heartbreak On Hold ★★★★

June 4, 2012 in Music, Reviews with 0 Comments

Forced to draw up a (brief) list of X Factor winners who’ve gone on to enjoy successful careers, we would almost certainly include Alexandra Burke. Three of her first five singles went to Number One, ‘Hallelujah’ is the second fastest-selling winners’ single to date and she even got invited back to be a guest judge during last year’s run.

And yet, despite the success of Overcome, her second album campaign has been fraught with blunder after blunder. For a start, June 2012 is quite a while after the October 2009 debut, and in that time JLS, who of course Alexandra beat in the 2008 final, have released no less than three LPs themselves. Then, once the billion-year wait finally culminated in the premiere of trailer single ‘Elephant’, we were met with a Grower That Never Was. A euphoric dance-pop track without any euphoria. The titular elephant in the room was, unfortunately, that the early signs of Album No. 2 weren’t too good at all.

‘Let It Go’, the second single from Heartbreak On Hold, is much stronger, but by now radio playlisters have made their stance on this campaign pretty clear – there will be no airplay for it whatsoever. The track limped to No. 33 on a meagre 11,000 sales, and suddenly the importance of this album doing well has gone from solidifying what Overcome started to saving her career altogether.

The good and frustrating news is that ‘Elephant’ is comfortably the weakest song on Heartbreak On Hold, and I’m not just saying that for the sake of being dramatic. Whilst the album is generally as original as ending a text message with an X, it is produced and sung to a  pleasingly high standard – note especially the stereo-hogging opener (the title track), the gloriously camp ‘This Love Will Survive’ and Euro-friendly late-album blaster ‘Ooh La La’. Oh, and the Kylie-like ‘Love You That Much’. OH, and the relatively dark ‘Daylight Robbery’. Basically there are a lot of very good pop songs on here.

The production may thrive when the tempo is up and the hands are aloft, but Alexandra’s powerful voice flaunts its colour a lot more on the slower tracks. ‘Sitting On Top Of The World’ is restrained and beautiful, and has a slight whiff of Robyn’s ‘With Every Heartbeat’ about it, and closing piano ballad ‘What Money Can’t By’, though not particularly strong as an actual song, reminds us why we voted for her over JLS and Eoghan Quigg in the first place – she’s got a bloody big set of lungs on her. And whilst Heartbreak On Hold may not be the most groundbreaking release of the year, it deserves to make a much bigger impact than I fear it might.

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Alexandra Burke reveals new album Heartbreak On Hold artwork

May 2, 2012 in Music with 0 Comments

The prospect of Alexandra Burke’s new album is intrueging. Considering the fact that X Factor runner-ups nearly always do better than the winner, she’s done pretty well for herself. Sure, JLS have done far better, but you can’t argue with three No. 1 singles and a further three Top 10s.

Her new tune ‘Let It Go’ is a marked improvement on ‘Elephant’ (the grower that never actually grew), and the artwork for LP Heartbreak On Hold is decidedly better than the sleeve for Overcome back in 2009 (!!).

Here’s the artwork, released today. The album’s out on June 4.


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Alexandra Burke dances on the tube in Let It Go video

April 25, 2012 in Music with 0 Comments

It had its TV premiere on Monday but it’s only today that Alexandra Burke has shared her ‘Let It Go’ music video with the world via the magic of the interweb.

The clip opens in the same vein as the CLASSIC ‘Bad Boys’ clip (as in you just see her shoe as she steps out a fancy car), before she descends into the London Underground and has a bit of a shindig.

The choreography footage that leaked earlier in the week isn’t really shown off to its full potential, but it’s a good clip and though the lyrics are woeful in places, it’s an infinitely better tune than ‘Elephant’.

LET IT GO GO GO GO LET IT ALL GO:


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American Idol shocker, Rebecca Ferguson abroad, Joe McElderry in the studio and more: It’s this week’s TLTV!

April 14, 2012 in TLTV with 0 Comments

If you’ve missed anything in the poposphere over the past week then you need our 3-minute TLTV round-up.

It’s your essential round-up of all things pop from the last seven days, from Jessica Sanchez’s dramatic near-elimination on American Idol to Emeli Sande’s confirmation as the first guest performer on The Voice.

We also had the exciting news that Joe McElderry is planning his fourth album (and that he wants a duet with the not-so-exciting Dappy), the announcement of Alexandra Burke’s second album title, the chart success of Justin Bieber, Rebecca Ferguson’s international chart invasion, and new videos from Paloma Faith, Jessie J and Lawson. Oh, and a lovely new Diana Vickers cover.

Check it out here:

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Alexandra Burke announces second album title…

April 13, 2012 in Music with 0 Comments

Seventy years after her debut effort Overcome, Alexandra Burke has finally announced the release date and title of her second album.

The collection, which features ‘Elephant’ and new tune ‘Let It Go’, is called Heartbreak On Hold. There’s not too long to wait until it’s release – it’s out on June 4.

She said on Twitter:

My Album is called HeartBreak On Hold and will be released on the 4th June! Can’t wait for you all to hear this album! RT !

David Guetta is apparently behind at least one song on the record, and Alex has said on a number of occasions that it will contain far more uptempo numbers than ballads.

Fingers crossed for a solid listen, then. It’s certainly been a long time coming…

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Alexandra Burke’s Let It Go: Better or worse than Elephant?

April 13, 2012 in Music with 0 Comments

The funny thing about Alexandra Burke’s ‘Elephant’ was that it sounded like it could have been this year’s ‘On The Floor’ – not an immediate smash, but a grower that (with enough radio support) could have become huge.

Maybe it was the lack of airplay or maybe it was just the track itself, but whatever happened, ‘Elephant’ did not turn out to be a grower. It was just average. But after a miraculous Top 3 placement, the follow-up has arrived in the form of ‘Let It Go’.

If ‘Elephant’ was a poor man’s ‘On The Floor’, ‘Let It Go’ is a poor man’s ‘Till The World Ends’. I don’t mean that as harshly as it sounds because it is a lot better than ‘Elephant’ – when the chorus properly gets going it’s great, and “LET IT GO GO GO GO LET IT ALL GO” could become quite the infectious chant. Some of the lyrics are lazy but the up-side is that there’s nowhere near as much autotune as there was last time around.

Listen to ‘Let It Go’ below and make up your own mind:

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Watch: Alexandra Burke débuts Elephant video

February 4, 2012 in Music with 0 Comments

The bad news is Alexandra Burke is two No. 1s behind JLS in the X Factor 2008 stakes, but the good news is she’s a solid three ahead of Eoghan Quigg.

‘Elephant’ is her seventh single release, and here is where it ranks on the ALEXANDRA BURKE SONGS PREMIERSHIP LEAGUE THING:

  1. ‘All Night Long’ (Pitbull notwithstanding)
  2. ‘Bad Boys’ (Flo Rida notwithstanding)
  3. ‘Elephant’
  4. ‘The Silence’
  5. ‘Hallelujah’
  6. ‘Broken Heels’
  7. ‘Start Without You’

The video is quite awksville, but does the job to a good enough standard:

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