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In Which We Fire Unnecessary Shots At This Week’s British Charts

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Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 02/01/2012 at 4:12 PM News

The Popdust Files: alyssa reid, charts, lana del rey

Every so often, we like to check in on the world charts. Problem is, lately that’s meant checking in on Avicii, Flo Rida (not to be confused of late with Avicii), Rihanna, Calvin Harris and Gotye. (And lately, Brazilian singer Michel Telo.) But we’d like to swivel our lens this post directly across the pond, to the U.K. and its upcoming album and singles charts. And we’d just like to say: yo Britain, we realize you’ve given us the British Invasion and all subsequent British Invasions. You’ve given us Jessie J, but you’ve also given us Adele. We are appreciative. We’d just like to point out that both your charts are kind of baffling and terrible.

ALBUMS
OK, maybe we overstated those. Whether it’s terrible that Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die is going to debut at the top of the U.K. album charts is a question we’re not answering, because the Internet’s written enough words on that album in the past three days to rival some entire Wikipedias.

It isn’t even baffling, either; entertainment has a long, shoddy-storied history of turning critical pans into commercial smashes. The target audience for Born to Die probably exists somewhere, maybe in your local high school, on your Facebook transom or maybe a hypothetical Beverly Hills Renaissance Faire. Somebody’s buying this album, in other words–enough for Billboard to report it’s headed for No. 2 in the U.S., probably the world’s least Lana-friendly turf right now.

See, once you leave these borders, everything changes. Remember “Video Games”? (Late 2011: it seems like last millennium!) It eked out a why-even-bother No. 91 on the U.S. singles chart, but in the U.K., it went top ten. And British critics have generally been far kinder toward that track and Born to Die than the ones in the States. So it’s not baffling at all that Born to Die is slated to top the U.K. album charts, which update midweek.

What is baffling, though, if looked at a certain way? Born to Die is outselling albums by all of the following, combined: Leonard Cohen, Ed Sheeran (think a British Jason Mraz), Adele and Coldplay. Adele and Coldplay. Please don’t let the fact that 21 is an older and Mylo Xyloto an oldish album keep you from your outrage.

SINGLES
We hear a lot of singles here at Popdust. We rate a lot, too. We know what makes bolts go off, and what we’d rather hurl thunderbolts at.

On that note, let’s segue to Alyssa Reid, a former contestant on Canadian talent show The Next Star and the U.K.’s designated next star for… why? Described by Jessica at Poptastic as “a completely un-noteworthy, grumpy-faced Canadian singer,” her single “Alone Again” got panned by notoriously uncritical Digital Spy, whose review went the full Ark Music Factory. The Canadian charts tend to look a little or a lot different than those outside the country because (to oversimplify) radio stations are required to meet certain airplay quotas for Canadian artists. But now it’s cracked the U.K., as in set to take the No. 1 spot on its singles chart, thanks to a push by U.K. dance label All Around the World. What gives?

Here’s what doesn’t give: “Alone Again” is not a dance track. Instead, imagine Alex da Kid recruiting Skylar Grey to pulverize all the rock of Heart’s “Alone”–a song that needed no further covers–into pebbles and dust, then to perform it on The X Factor. Then imagine Alex da Kid stepping out from behind the studio wizard’s curtain to rap all over it. The track’s kind of like that. And the U.K. sent it to No. 1, bumping perfectly perky Rihanna analogues Cover Drive out. Schadenfreude! Now let us never have to speak of this again. Please.