Sam Fender performs on stage during Day 1 of Fusion Festival 2019 on Aug. 30, 2019 in Liverpool, England.
Joseph Okpako/WireImageSam Fender is cruising to a second No. 1 in the U.K. with Seventeen Going Under (Polydor), the British singer and songwriter’s sophomore album.
Fender's young career has been going in the right direction. Early on, he won The BRITs Rising Star Award (previously known as the Critics' Choice Award), and converted the hype when his debut album Hypersonic Missiles blasted to No. 1 on the Official Albums Chart in September 2019.
It’ll take a hypersonic missile to stop Seventeen Going Under from reaching its target.
It’s the outright leader on the midweek chart, and is outselling the rest of the Top 10 combined, according to the OCC.
Fender's set has a lead of 20,000 chart sales over his closest competitor, Drake’s Certified Lover Boy (OVO/Republic Records).
Also impacting the Official Chart Update is Trivium, whose tenth album In The Court of the Dragon (Roadrunner) swoops in at No. 3. If it holds its course, Dragon will give the U.S. metal band their second U.K. Top 10 and a peak entry.
Electronic artist James Blake could also net a career-best chart position with Friends That Break Your Heart (Polydor), new at No. 5.
Based on midweek data, fresh sets from Johnny Flynn (Lost In Cedar Wood at No. 11 via Transgressive) and We Are Scientists (Huffy at No. 15 via 100 Percent Records) are eying Top 20 debuts, while The Charlatans' self-titled album starts at No. 17, powered by its first vinyl pressing in 20 years.
The Official U.K. Albums Chart is published late Friday, local time.
Charli XCX has unveiled a striking new single titled ‘Wall Of Sound’. You can hear it below.
Read More: Charli XCX – ‘Brat’ review: pop pioneer fully embraces the dancefloor
The song is the latest preview from Charli’s forthcoming album, created specifically for Emerald Fennell’s upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights. The full project is due out on Friday February 13 and is currently available to pre order.
Until now, listeners have been given a taste of the album through ‘House’, which featured a collaboration with The Velvet Underground’s John Cale and leaned into an unsettling atmosphere, alongside the brooding gothic cut ‘Chains Of Love’.
With ‘Wall Of Sound’, Charli delivers a richly cinematic piece that leans heavily into mood and tension, opening with sweeping orchestral elements and raw, exposed vocals.
“Unbelievable tension/ Wall of sound/ No real reason and I can’t escape it,” she sings, her voice cutting through a chilling swirl of violins. Take a listen below.
The new screen version of Wuthering Heights is scheduled to arrive next month on February 13 and features Margot Robbie in the role of Catherine Earnshaw, with Jacob Elordi portraying Heathcliff.
These latest tracks follow Charli’s recent comments about feeling creatively drawn toward film rather than music, after describing herself as feeling “stuck, empty and barren” in the aftermath of her breakthrough album ‘Brat‘.
“[By the end of ‘Brat’] I sort of felt like I was squeezing blood from a stone, trying to get every last drop of liquid life out of an idea I had already been sat with for years prior,” she shared. “I still love [Brat], don’t get me wrong but I was itching to move on and was simultaneously frustrated that I was so depleted that I couldn’t.”
Back in May, she suggested that her next album outside of the Wuthering Heights project would move in a completely new direction, joking: “You can never really do the same thing twice and my next record will probably be a flop, which I’m down for to be honest.”
Then in February, her producers A.G. Cook, Finn Keane and George Daniel, who is also her husband, explained that the follow up was shaping up as something deliberately opposed to ‘Brat’, with Keane adding: “Some of the conversations we’re having and music we’ve been playing around with the last couple of months have been completely the opposite.”
More recently, Charli revealed that she has been “exploring a lot of stuff with strings” as part of the album’s sound.
Elsewhere, Charli’s upcoming mockumentary The Moment is due to arrive in UK cinemas on February 20.
The film will be released through A24 and focuses on the overwhelming reaction to her 2024 album ‘Brat’ and the tour that followed. Directed by Aidan Zamiri, it blends real footage from the live shows with scripted backstage moments.
Alongside Charli, the cast includes Alexander Skarsgård, Rachel Sennott, Hailey Benton Gates, Jamie Demetriou, Kate Berlant and Rosanna Arquette, with a cameo appearance from Kylie Jenner.
