Resistance is futile, Sheerangeddon is here.
The singer-songwriter released his third album Divide last Friday and, with first-day sales of a staggering 232,000, it was already a foregone conclusion that it would race to number one in the album charts.
However, we weren’t quite prepared for his hostile takeover of virtually the entire UK singles chart, courtesy of the way that streaming data is used to compile it.
The UK chart update currently has Sheeran occupying a scarely-believed nine of the top ten spots in the chart and 15 of the top 20. ‘Save Yourself’ is the worst-performing song on the album and even that’s at number 21. Lorde’s much-anticipated comeback single ‘Green Light’ is languishing at number 24, although really that’s sort of number nine if you only allow Sheeran one entry.
The only thing standing between Sheeran and total domination is Coldplay and Chainsmokers’ cynical averagebanger ‘Something Like This’. Thank you Chris Martin. Thank you.
It’s not expected that anything will change between now and tomorrow’s official chart, meaning that Sheeran will smash all records that previously stand when it comes to occupying chart positions simultaneously.
The Official Charts have come in for criticism for the state of affairs, with one person commenting: “Cmon OCC it's time to sort this mess out. 9 out of 10 tracks in the top 10 is utterly ridiculous. It's time to restrict the top 100 to legitimate singles or else we are the mercy of having the charts constantly clogged up with the same few songs that teenagers listen to on repeat because they have no imagination to listen to anything else.”
Another added: “Just wanted to add my voice to this farce as well. No problem with Ed Sheeran doing well but it's time to admit all the changes to the singles chart over the last few years have finally reached the point where they are now officially broken. Why not just allow people to text or tweet their favourite songs instead (maximum of 1,000 votes per account to prevent any bias). It'll be about as relevant as the current system is.”
Does this render the whole singles chart pointless now? Or is it fair enough – after all, these are (for good or bad) the most popular songs out there right now.
Answers on a postcard to the Official Charts Company...
