Charts – 12 June 2020
The release schedule hasn’t completely ground to a halt during lockdown, but it’s certainly become more scattered. Which means that every now and again we get a week as ludicrously uneventful as this.
1. DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch – “Rockstar”
Four weeks in total. And below it… not much, really. “Breaking Me” by Topic featuring A7S climbs one more place to number 4. “Dinner Guest” by AJ Tracey featuring Mostack, which has been hovering between 8 and 10 for five weeks, reaches the dizzy heights of number 6. “Secrets” by Regard & Raye climbs 18-12, and “Don’t Need Love” by 220 Kid & Gracey moves one place to 13. “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles is another one-place climber, now at 15. “This City” by Sam Fischer, which spent three weeks at number 19, climbs to 17. “Party Girl” by Staysolidrocky climbs 24-18. “ILY (I Love You Baby)” by Surf Mesa featuring Emilee climbs, you guessed it, one place to number 25. “Who’s That What’s That” by Niko B climbs 33-26, which is practically eventful by the standards of this week. And behold this week’s highest – and indeed lowest – new entry…
40. Chris Brown & Young Thug – “Go Crazy”
(more…)New Mutants #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbersgo by the digital edition.
PAGE 1 / COVER: Um… well, it’s the reality-distorting mutant Tashi Repina from the previous issue, wearing braces, with the faces of the New Mutants mounted on her teeth. It’s certainly surreal.
By the way, this isn’t really the sort of issue that requires much annotation, so these probably won’t be too long.
PAGES 2-3. Tashi begs for forgiveness while all the characters she already sucked in to her nightmare murmur along with her.
(more…)Excalibur #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
COVER / PAGE 1. Captain Britain in front of a burning Houses of Parliament, with a Krakoan gate in the foreground. As we’ll see when we get into the story, this isn’t actually our Captain Britain.
PAGE 2. The recap page… which, unfortunately, doesn’t actually recap some of the things you need to know for the story to make any sense.
When we left off, Excalibur were in Otherworld, and Captain Britain was trying to track down Opal Luna Saturnyne. One of the reasons for that was to find out the current status of the Captain Britain Corps, which was meant to have been largely wiped out. For reasons not yet revealed, Saturnyne seemed to be blocking Captain Britain from reaching her. After Excalibur fought some of Saturnyne’s followers, the issue ended with Saturnyne concluding that Krakoa and Excalibur were escalating their war with her, and saying that she would “destroy whatever I see fit” in order to “put a stop to whatever madness threatens the balance of the Omniverse.” The art showed her picking up a small bag, and an image of Jubilee, Gambit, Rictor and Rogue as Captain Britains, the significance of which was less than clear.
Read moreTCharts – 5 June 2020
If it wasn’t for the album releases, there wouldn’t be much going on at all this week…
1 DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch – “Rockstar”
Returning to number one for a third week, after being interrupted by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande last week. Number 5 is “Breaking Me” by Topic featuring A7S, climbing into the top 10 for the first time.
7. Tion Wayne featuring Dutchavelli & Stormzy – “I Dunno”
(more…)Charts – 29 May 2020
A quiet but relatively normal week…
1. Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande – “Rain On Me”
That’s a… somewhat unpleasant video. Not keen on the knives, personally. Anyway, this is the second single from the next Lady Gaga album, so we’re back to more of a normal promotional cycle. Good song, though – fitting enough for the times. Lady Gaga gets her sixth number one, following 2018’s “Shallow”, and four tracks from her imperial period in 2009-10 (“Just Dance”, “Poker Face”, “Bad Romance” and “Telephone”). Since “Shallow” was very much outside her normal style, this is a definite comeback. It’s Ariana Grande’s sixth number one too, though all of hers have come in 2014 or later.
(more…)Marauders #10 annotations
And we’re back. Now, how did this go again…
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
PAGE 1 / COVER. It’s Emma, Storm, Iceman and Forge fighting the guys in the armour that we’ve seen in previous issues. As in X-Force, Forge is using the “organic tech” that he’s been working on since coming to Krakoa.
PAGES 2-5. Sebastian Shaw enjoys Krakoan whiskey. Storm tells Forge that his old power-dampening technology has resurfaced in Russia. Forge admits that one of his underlings from the time had a photographic memory.
Port Genosha. The first time we’ve seen Genosha’s first distillery. For some reason it’s been named after the previous mutant island nation, which was wiped out by Sentinels in New X-Men vol 1 #115. From the scale of this thing, it looks as if Sebastian Shaw is trying to develop a business that isn’t based on pharmaceuticals… which is probably quite sensible for the Krakoan economy, to be honest . But obviously the trope here is the rich villain who’s killed someone and is mostly interested in his luxury goods.
(more…)Charts – 22 May 2020
New comics are apparently imminent once again. In the meantime, we have… well, an extremely uneventful chart, but a format’s a format.
1. DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch – “Rockstar”
Two weeks at number one, and with a comfortable lead. Below that… it’s a long list of climbers before we reach the highest new entry. Deep breath, then. “Say So” by Doja Cat returns to number 2 (after dropping to 3 last week). “Rover” by S1mba featuring DTG climbs 8-4. “Flowers” by Nathan Dawe featuring Jaykae climbs 17-13. A more notable one, moving 24-15, is “Breaking Me” by Topic featuring A7S. “This City” by Sam Fischer edges up one place to 19. “Don’t Need Love” by 220 Kid & Gracey is still climbing (22-20), which is a good performance for a throwback dance record. Doja Cat‘s other single “Boss Bitch” rebounds to 24, beating its previous peak of 28 from a month ago. “Kings & Queens” by Ava Max climbs 29-25. And finally we reach…
30. Regard & Raye – “Secrets”
(more…)Charts – 15 May 2020
Charts – 8 May 2020
We’re back to relative normalcy after a couple of weeks of charity releases. If you’re wondering, the “Times Like These” cover drops straight from 1 to 9. The Michael Ball / Tom Moore track, which was number 1 two weeks ago, dropped to 21 last week, and is now out of the top 100 altogether – as I said at the time, it’s a “join in the moment” record, not a “listen to this for pleasure” record. Instead, this week we have the refreshing normalcy of…
1 Drake – “Toosie Slide”
10. Drake featuring Giveon – “Chicago Freestyle”
17. Drake featuring Playboi Carti – “Pain 1993”
House to Astonish Episode 183
There’s not a huge amount of comics news, and no new comics to review, so we’re leaning in to the last segment of our show and bringing you the biggest Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe to date. Sit back and enjoy the first episode we’ve ever recorded remotely, as we look to rehabilitate all 27 characters introduced in Marvel’s 1993 annuals. Annex! Genis-Vell! Adam-X! Live unbagging of 18 comics! Fun, of a sort!
The episode is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Twitter, via email, or on our Facebook fan page. And remember, you can get our swanky-dan t-shirts over at our Redbubble store.
