Archive for December, 2016

Clean Bandit’s Rockabye logs eighth week at singles Number 1

Friday, December 30th, 2016

They’ve dominated the chart in the run up to Christmas and today Clean Bandit’s Rockabye keeps its place at Number 1 on the last Official Singles Chart of the year.

After bagging this year’s Official Christmas Number 1 last week, Rockabye remains a staggeringly popular record in Britain. This week, predominantly driven by downloads, Rockabye holding firm to log an eighth week at the summit.

Rockabye is the most purchased track of the week in the UK, racking up 44,000 downloads plus 3.4 million streams. Rockabye is the second-longest running chart-topper of the year behind Drake’s One Dance (15 weeks).

Meanwhile, Zara Larsson claims a new personal best with I Would Like, which rises four places to the Number 2 slot. Her previous highest-charting song is the Number 3-peaking Lush Life.

Chart highlights

Elsewhere in the Top 10, Little Mix’s former Number 1 Shout Out To My Ex jumps seven places to Number 6, and Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic is up two spots to 10.

Finally, in addition to the many Christmas songs in this week’s chart, three more festive classics return to the Top 40: Andy Williams’ It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year at 24, Brenda Lee’s Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree at 31 – its first Top 40 placing in 54 years – and Elton John’s Step Into Christmas at 37, its first Top 40 appearance in 42 years.

Check out this week’s Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full

‘Game of Thrones’ is the most pirated TV show of 2016

Tuesday, December 27th, 2016

For the fifth year in a row Game of Thrones has taken the crown for the most pirated TV-show on the Internet. The Walking Dead remains in second place, with newcomer Westworld right behind.

got6For several years in a row Game of Thrones has been the most pirated TV-show, and this year the interest is once again overwhelming.

Game of Thrones has the honor of becoming the most-downloaded TV show through BitTorrent for the fifth year in a row.

This means that its half-decade reign remains unchallenged, despite reports to the contrary.

Although there was no new swarm record, traffic-wise the interest was roughly on par with last year. The highest number of people actively sharing an episode across several torrents was 350,000 at its peak, this was right after the season finale came online.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s no growth in piracy. A lot of people have made the switch from torrents to streaming sites over the past months, which likely had an impact on the numbers.

This year there’s also an important newcomer with the science-fiction western ‘Westworld.’ The new show quickly gained popularity in pirate circles and is in third spot already, which is quite an achievement.

Finally, we see a continuation of the trend of downloaders showing an increased interest in high-quality video. In recent years, many pirates have moved from 480p copies to 720p and 1080p videos, in part thanks to better broadband availability.

Most downloaded TV-shows on BitTorrent, 2016 
rank last year show
torrentfreak.com
1 (1) Game of Thrones
2 (2) The Walking Dead
3 (…) Westworld
4 (5) The Flash
5 (4) Arrow
6 (3) The Big Bang Theory
7 (7) Vikings
8 (…) Lucifer
9 (10) Suits
10 (…) The Grand Tour

This TV news can be discussed here

Clean Bandit beat Little Mix and Louis Tomlinson to claim this year’s Christmas No.1

Friday, December 23rd, 2016

Clean Bandit bring home the most coveted chart accolade of the year – the Official Christmas Number 1 2016, with their huge chart smash Rockabye, the OfficialCharts.com can confirm.

The classical crossover trio have held off competition from Rag‘n’Bone Man, Little Mix and a raft of campaigns and charity singles with Rockabye, a song that first entered the chart nine weeks ago, before later climbing to the top spot to score an impressive seven-week reign at Number 1.

In that time Rockabye has become one of the year’s biggest hits across both downloads and streams, racking up 589,000 combined chart sales to date.

Meanwhile, Clean Bandit have held off competition from breakthrough star and BRITS Critics Choice winner Rag ‘n’ Bone Man who finishes the race in second place with his track Human.

One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson and Steve Aoki slip down one place to Number 3 with Just Hold On, Little Mix new single Touch leaps 19 places this week to land at Number 4, while Zara Larsson’s I Would Like secures its first appearance inside the Top 10 at Number 6.

New entries and high climbers

This year’s race welcomed a host of new contenders battling for the Christmas Number 1 crown, many raising money for worthy causes.

Rangers football fans delivered the highest-charting ‘campaign’ this week, pushing Glad All Over by The Dave Clark Five back into the Official Chart in support of striker Joe Garner, following their 2-1 win over Hamilton last weekend. Glad All Over originally topped the Official Singles Chart back in 1963, toppling The Beatles’ I Wanna Hold Your Hand.

Inspiral Carpets fans helped the Manchester band’s 1994 hit Saturn 5 to its first chart appearance (48) in nearly 23 years, in tribute to drummer Craig Gill who sadly passed away last month.

London Hospices Choir – a team of volunteers and staff from 18 hospices across London debut at Number 81 with their cover of Mike & The Mechanics’ The Living Years.

Festive songs account for nearly one third of this week’s Official Singles Chart Top 100, with a whole host of seasonal classics jingling all the way into the Top 40, led by Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You (5), the song’s highest peak since 2007, The Pogues ft. Kirsty Maccoll’s Fairytale Of New York (15), Wham’s Last Christmas (16), Shakin’ Stevens’ Merry Christmas Everyone (22), Chris Rea’s Driving Home for Christmas (26), Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday (27) and Band Aid’s Do They  Know It’s Christmas (35). Festive songs account for Michael Buble’s It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas hits a new peak of 38, and Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody (39).

Check out the Official Christmas Top 100 in full here

 

Call of Duty claims UK Christmas number one

Monday, December 19th, 2016

Given a relatively weak start, we thought that maybe, just maybe, we wouldn’t see a Call of Duty title on top of the UK retail charts over Christmas. But alas, it was not to be. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has rallied over the last couple of weeks and in the end won this week’s charts comfortably ahead of FIFA 17. Another notable thing was that Grand Theft Auto V climbed back into the top 10. Since its release 170 weeks ago it has spent 130 weeks inside the top 10 on the UK retail charts. Simply incredible.

Further down the chart promotions had a lot of impact as price cuts on Dishonored 2 (from 17 to 8), Mafia III (from 26 to 10) helped them climb. Dead Rising 4 and The Last Guardian subsequently tumbled down the list after strong starts and found themselves just inside the top 20. Pokémon Sun/Moon continues to sell well, but given that they’re counted as two separate games they both land just outside the top 10 (all format 13th and 15th). It’s hard to tell exactly where it would have landed if they had been counted together, but likely ahead of Final Fantasy XV and possibly, but perhaps not likely ahead of GTAV as well.

All Format (all prices):

1. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare / Activision
2. FIFA 17 / EA Sports
3. Battlefield 1 / EA Games
4. Watch Dogs 2 / Ubisoft
5. Grand Theft Auto V / Rockstar
6. Final Fantasy XV / Square Enix
7. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition / Bethesda
8. Dishonored 2 / Bethesda
9. Steep / Ubisoft
10. Mafia III / 2K Games

This gaming news can be discussed here

Clean Bandit hold on to Number 1 for a sixth week

Friday, December 16th, 2016

In the face of some stiff competition, Clean Bandit hold on to the Number 1 spot with Rockabye.

The band’s second chart-topper, featuring Sean Paul and Anne-Marie, logs a sixth consecutive week at Number 1, scoring a comfortable lead of over 15,000 combined sales ahead of its nearest rival.

Challenging them at Number 2 is this week’s highest new entry, Just Hold On from One Direction star Louis Tomlinson, in collaboration with Steve Aoki. The pair performed the track for the first time in Saturday’s X Factor final, and the show’s eventual winner Matt Terry is right behind them at 3 with his winner’s single, the Ed Sheeran-penned When Christmas Comes Around, based on just five days’ sales and streams.

Zara Larsson’s I Would Like breaks the Top 20 for the first time, shooting nine places to 12, and Zayn and Taylor Swift’s collaboration I Don’t Wanna Live Forever, taken from the soundtrack of the new 50 Shades Darker movie, debuts at 16.

Following their electrifying medley performance at The X Factor final at the weekend, Little Mix’s Touch zooms 136 places to land at Number 23, while J Cole’s Deja Vu starts at 30.

Chris Rea’s perennial classic Driving Home For Christmas makes its fourth appearance in the Top 40, at 37 – one of seven festive songs in this week’s countdown – and Lady Gaga’s Million Reasons climbs 21 slots to make its Top 40 debut, at 39.

Check out this week’s Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full

Call of Duty back on top in the UK

Monday, December 12th, 2016

Activision’s Call of Duty has been the winner of the last two Christmas retail charts in the UK with Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. While, this year’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has struggled relative to Black Ops 3 it seems it will still be a popular Christmas gift for UK gamers. This week it reclaimed the top spot on the UK retail charts and it would seem it will be competing with FIFA 17 for Christmas honours.

There were some big new releases this week as well with Dead Rising 4 capturing fifth spot and The Last Guardian taking seventh. Pokémon Sun/Moon and Skyrim Special Edition are still performing really well. Looking at the individual chart we can see that had the two Pokémon SKUs been bunched together it would have landed in fourth spot this week. Final Fantasy XV falls a couple of spots, but puts in a decent second week performance.

All Formats (all prices):

1. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare / Activision
2. FIFA 17 / EA Sports
3. Battlefield 1 / EA Games
4. Final Fantasy XV / Square Enix
5. Dead Rising 4 / Microsoft (new)
6. Watch Dogs 2 / Ubisoft
7. The Last Guardian / Sony (new)
8. Pokémon Sun / Nintendo
9. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition
10. Pokémon Moon / Nintendo

This gaming news can be discussed here

Clean Bandit score their longest-running Number 1 single with Rockabye

Friday, December 9th, 2016

Clean Bandit score a personal best this week as Rockabye becomes the band’s longest-running Number 1 single.

The Sean Paul and Anne-Marie featured track today notches up a fifth week at the top of the Official Singles Chart, surpassing the four weeks their former chart-topper Rather Be logged at the summit in 2014.

Combined chart sales of over 70,000 kept Rockabye at Number 1, and also claims the most downloaded (30,000) and most streamed (4.04 million) song of the week.

Neiked’s Sexual reaches a new peak of Number 5 today in its 15th week on chart, while Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You vaults 23 places to Number 6, marking the first time the track has appeared in the Top 10 for nine years.

Rag’n’Bone Man’s Human is another new Top 10 entry this week, up three places to Number 8 following his win of the BRITs Critics’ Choice prize. The track was also the second most downloaded single of the week.

Zara Larsson’s I Would Like rockets from Number 54 to Number 21 following her performance on last weekend’s X Factor semi-final, while John Legend’s Love Me Now hops three places higher to a new peak of Number 30. Charli XCX scores her sixth Top 40 hit with After The Afterparty, up seven to 34.

A further four Christmas songs either climb or re-enter the Top 40 this week. They are: The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl’s Fairytale of New York (16); Last Christmas by Wham (19); Shakin’ Stevens’ Merry Christmas Everyone (28); and I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday by Wizzard (37).

Finally, Michael Buble’s It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas enters the Official Singles Chart Top 40 for the very first time, five years after the song was released, landing at Number 39 today.

Check out this week’s Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full

FIFA 17 edges out Final Fantasy XV

Monday, December 5th, 2016

FIFA 17 is looking like the odds on favourite to win the crown as Christmas number one at UK retail as it managed to stay on top even with the long awaited Final Fantasy XV launching last week. In fact, it was the second best Final Fantasy launch week in the UK, only trailing Final Fantasy XIII. It was also notable that while the PS4 version of Final Fantasy XV was the best-selling SKU of the week, the Xbox One version only landed in 14th spot in the individual charts. Clearly Final Fantasy is still very much associated with PlayStation. Whether or not this showing will help Square Enix achieve its lofty sales targets with Final Fantasy XV remains to be seen.

Other new releases had a more difficult time climbing the charts with Ubisoft’s Steep landing at all format’s 24 and the 3DS version of Super Mario Maker meant it climbed to 25th.

All Formats (all prices):

1. FIFA 17 / EA Sports
2. Final Fantasy XV / Square Enix (new)
3. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare / Activision
4. Battlefield 1 / EA Games
5. Forza Horizon 3 / Microsoft
6. Watch Dogs 3 / Ubisoft
7. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End / Sony
8. Pokémon Moon / Nintendo
9. Pokémon Sun / Nintendo
10. Minecraft: Xbox Edition / Microsoft

This gaming news can be discussed here

Clean Bandit notch up a fourth week at the top of the charts

Saturday, December 3rd, 2016

Clean Bandit aren’t loosening their grip at the top of the charts as they score a fourth week at number one with their hit single ‘Rockabye’.

The group racked up 82,500 combined sales, including 4.24 million streams, over the last week to keep hold of their place at the top.

That means they’ve now equalled the success of their breakthrough hit ‘Rather Be’ in terms of weeks at the top while scoring their seventh Top 40 hit overall.

Elsewhere Rae Sremmurd and Gucci Mane’s ‘Black Beatles’ stays at two while The Weeknd and Daft Punk’s collaboration ‘Starboy’ climbs five places to three.

James Arthur’s ‘Say You Won’t Let Go’ is at four while Little Mix’s ‘Shout Out To My Ex’ drops two places to round off the Top 5.

Rag’n’Bone Man’s ‘Human’ leaps 66 places to 11 as Jonas Blue’s ‘By Your Side’ ft. Raye climbs six places to a new peak of 15.

And now, as it’s December, Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ is back in the Top 40 at 29 after being streamed 1.2 million times in the UK in the last week alone.

On a similarly festive note The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ is at 66, Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ is at 75 and Shakin’ Stevens’ ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ is at 93.

Check out this week’s Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full