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Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee are on track to claim the U.K. singles chart crown with “Despacito” (UMC), while Kasabian is looking to end Ed Sheeran’s reign on the national albums chart.
Powered by a remix featuring Justin Bieber and a performance of the song last week at the 2017 Billboard Latin Music Awards, “Despacito” climbs to the top spot on the Official Singles Chart Update.
Should it stay there at week’s end, “Despacito” will be the first foreign language single to claim the title since PSY’s “Gangnam Style” hit the top for a single week in September 2012. According to the Official Charts Company, the last song featuring Spanish to reach the top was Sak Noel’s “Loca People” back in 2011.
Internationally, "Despacito" has smashed a string of records since its release back in January. According to Spotify, it's the first Spanish-language song to reach No. 1 on the streaming service's Global Chart and is that chart's highest-ranking Spanish-language record to date. It’s also up to 1.3 billion hits on YouTube. The official remix audio clip became the top music debut of 2017 on YouTube, accumulating more than 20 million views in its first 24 hours, according to the platform, and has reached 146 million worldwide views so far.
“Despacito” isn’t a sure thing for the U.K. title. It’s just 1,300 chart equivalent sales ahead of the No. 2 ranked song at the midway stage, DJ Khaled’s all-star jam “I’m The One” (Black Butter/Def Jam) which topped the chart last week.
Meanwhile, Kasabian is looking to end Sheeran’s nine-week run at the top of the albums chart. The British rockers’ latest album For Crying Out Loud (Columbia) is more than 20,000 equivalent sales ahead of Sheeran’s Divide (Asylum) to grab pole position on the Official Albums Chart Update, the OCC reports. If Kasabian stay put, it’ll give the Leicester band a fifth consecutive No. 1 album.
