Rolling Stones Blue & Lonesome

Chart Watch and New Releases: 9 December 2016

The Rolling Stones’ new blues album Blue & Lonesome enters the chart at number 1 this week with over 100,000 sales, the second biggest opening week total this year after Bowie’s ★ shifted 146,000 in January. It’s also the first new Stones album to top the chart since Voodoo Lounge back in 1994. Christmas is definitely on its way as the Pogues & Kirsty MacColl leap fifty places to number 16 in the singles chart with Fairytale of New York, Wham! rocket from 75 to 19 with Last Christmas and Shakin’ Stevens leaps from 93 to 28 with Merry Christmas Everyone. There are also festive re-entries for Band Aid (Do They Know It’s Christmas? at 41), Chris Rea (Driving Home For Christmas at 46) and Kylie Minogue’s Santa Baby at 95. Strangely her Kylie Christmas drops 24 places to 65 on the album chart, but it’s a special day for Bob Marley’s Legend (#68) and Queen’s Greatest Hits (#81), both celebrating their 750th week on the chart.

New releases are somewhat thin on the ground as we get closer to the big day, but one of 2016’s many casualties Colin Vearncombe is celebrated with a new version of the 2011 Black compilation Any Colour You Like, featuring sixteen tracks chosen by fans and now augmented with ten of Vearncombe’s personal favourites. Three sessions by The Wedding Present for Marc Riley’s BBC 6 Music show are collected on the straightforwardly titled Marc Riley Sessions Volume 1; the deluxe editions of Public Image Ltd’s Metal Box and Album which should have been out last month are finally in the shops; and some of The Cure’s extra-curricular activities are collected in a new compilation The Many Faces Of The Cure which also includes a full live show from 2011. Finally the Pixies’ Doolittle gets a Blu-ray release including the full album in both 5.1 surround sound and HD stereo.

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