- Miley Cyrus’s “Flowers” tops the charts as the most popular single of the year
- Raye’s “Escapism” and SZA’s “Kill Bill” among the top-selling albums
- Female artists dominate the top five best-selling recordings, marking a chart history first
According to the Official Charts Company, Miley Cyrus’s Flowers is the most popular single of the year.
The breakup anthem, which spent 10 weeks at the top of the charts earlier this year, has accumulated 147 million streams and over 80,000 downloads.
Raye’s Escapism is the second best-selling album of 2023, and SZA’s Kill Bill is in third place.
The Highlights, a two-year-old greatest hits compilation by The Weeknd, is the most popular album of the year so far.
Harry Styles’ Harry’s House is in second position, followed by Taylor Swift’s Midnights.
Due to the enduring popularity of classic tracks on streaming services – which now account for 86% of UK music consumption – new releases are largely crowded out of the album chart.
The greatest hits compilations of Elton John (at number five), Eminem (at number seven), and Fleetwood Mac (at number nine) are among the best-selling albums of the year, having established a semi-permanent position in the weekly chart.
Only two albums released in 2023 made the list of the ten best-selling albums: Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent by Lewis Capaldi and Subtract by Ed Sheeran.
Taylor Swift has five albums in the Top 40, including Midnights, 1989, Lover, Folklore, and Reputation.
Incredibly, the top five best-selling recordings of the year are all by female artists for the first time in chart history.
Two Afrobeats artists, Rema and Libianca, debuted in the top ten at the beginning of the year with breakout singles. And Ed Sheeran has not been absent from the Top 10 since 2016.
Flowers by Miley Cyrus was the singer’s first number-one since 2014’s Wrecking Ball.
The song was thought to be about her divorce from actor Liam Hemsworth and their 2018 Malibu house fire.
She published the song on Hemsworth’s birthday, March 10, and reportedly wore one of his suits in the music video.
Fans also hypothesized that the lyrics were an interpolation of When I Was Your Man by Bruno Mars, which was reportedly played at the couple’s nuptials.
Where Mars sang, “I should have bought you flowers and held your hand,” Cyrus responded, “I can buy myself flowers and hold my hand.”
In an interview with British Vogue, the singer downplayed the autobiographical nature of the lyrics.
“I do not need to master the art of deceiving an audience,” she told the magazine, dismissing the rumors. It will spontaneously combust by itself.
She denied that the lyrics were explicitly about her marriage, claiming that the message of self-reliance was exactly what she needed to hear after her divorce.
She stated, “I wrote it in a completely different manner.” “The original chorus was, ‘I can purchase myself flowers, write my name in the sand, but I can’t love myself more than you can.’
It used to be more 1950s-esque. The most tragic tune. “Like, ‘Sure, I can be my lover, but you’re so much better.'”
She ultimately resolved to choose courage over sadness.
She concluded, “The song is a little bit of faking it until you make it.” “Of which I am a huge fan.”
