Chart Review 18th July 2005 with DJ Chris Plant (1/3)	(1/3), (2/3), (3/3).
www.djchrisplant.co.uk

Sorry I haven't done any chart reviews in a while. I've been busy with my American girlfriend. Well, we have a new Number One single this week. Just for a change it isn't a new release that has been hyped to the hills or a record bought in bulk by a small hardcore of fans that will struggle to appeal to a wider audience. Instead the biggest selling single of the week is a song which is no less than seven weeks old, one which has slowly but surely been increasing its appeal to the extent that it has climbed, yes climbed from an initial chart entry of Number 12 right to the very top.

You're Beautiful by James Blunt is the record in question, actually his second single and one which perhaps more than any disc in recent memory has helped to propel him from virtual unknown to being one of the biggest stars of the summer. Don't believe me? Just check out the chart performance of his debut album Back To Bedlam which was first released five months ago. In the week that You're Beautiful was released it finally completed its slow climb into the Top 10 and this week spends a further week at the very top, outselling no less a record than Coldplay's globally-conquering X & Y.

Back to the single however and by moving from 3 to 1 this week it becomes only the third single in the last five years to actually climb the charts to hit Number One. Perhaps most astonishingly it does so in its seventh week on the chart and after no less than four weeks in the Top 3 and indeed four weeks after the single first appeared to peak at Number 2 (its full chart run to date reads 12-6-2-3-3-3-1).

Not since Steps' double a-side Heartbeat/Tragedy took eight weeks to rise to the top in 1998 has a Number One single had to make such patient progress up the listings. The fact that You're Beautiful entered the chart at such a lowly position should not be overlooked. Believe it or not the last single to enter the charts outside the Top 10 and rise to Number One was Boom Boom Boom by the Outhere Brothers which hit Number One in July 1995, four weeks after it first entered at Number 15.

Incidentally for the sake of clarity these statistics overlook DJ Otzi's 2001 hit Hey Baby which made a 45-1 flying leap in its sixth week on the chart due to having been available on import with the same catalogue number as the official release which meant that the chart computer was unable to differentiate between the two records. That was a statistical oddity. James Blunt's performance is a genuine achievement.

Continued ... next page

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