Hot Shot Debut
No. 6: Rihanna
"Shut Up And Drive"
- For a fourth week running is Schnuffel's "Kuschel Song". In downloads the track is down to #3 after one week at the summit. Leona Lewis (still #2 on the overall chart) re-captures the digital crown and the Top 100 top new entry moves to #2 in downloads: "Shut Up And Drive". The fourth song taken from the album "Good Girl Gone Bad" becomes Rihanna's tenth chart entry and her sixth top 10 hit. It also is her fourth consecutive single to make the top 11. Talk about hit-laden albums. In different countries the song by the way was already charting last fall.
- Second new entry is "Disappear", the 16th chart single by the original 'Popstars' winners No Angels. They made a comeback last year which did not yield the results most people had hoped for. So to revitalize their success the girls entered the German Eurovision preselection. And in contrast to most other comebacks they have a strange chart picture to look at. Comeback track "Goodbye To Yesterday" made the expected top 10 entry, peaking at #4 although dieing down fast. Many fears became true when the follow-up, "Maybe", bombed at #36. But since then they are on a surprising upswing. "Amaze Me" was no long-runner but at least debuted at #25 and now their song for Belgrad comes in at #12, only narrowly missing becoming the foursome's 12th top 10 hit. The ESC show also brings three of the four other contestants onto the survey with musical star Carolin Fortenbacher making her bow at #71 with "Hinterm Ozean", Marquess trying to match last year's #2 hit "Vayamos compañeros" (78 Re) with "La histeria" (#20 new) and Cinema Bizarre despite the TV exposure on a slippery road following up #9 and #36 positions with a debut at #44 for "Forever Or Never".
- But this week's top story comes courtesy of the next debut. And it sets some records by the way: the one for longest chart gap and for longest chart span in the history of the weekly surveys. 68-year old Serbian-born German-Language Schlager singer Bata Illic participated in the latest edition of the jungle experience 'I'm A Celebrity! Get Me Out Of Here'. He made his chart debut with "Die Welt ist voller Liebe" on 1. March 1967 which spent a solitary week at #28. Only one and a half years later he returned to the charts. His first top 10 entry came at the time when the former listings were replaced by weekly surveys starting in January 1971. "Candida" reached #4 and was his best showing until in 1972 "Michaela" (#1.2) became his biggest and so far only charttopping hit. He was last seen on the survey with "Mit meiner Balalaika war ich der König auf Jamaika" which left the charts on 23. May 1977. Now he sets a record as almost 31 years later he ends this dry spell with his entry at #18: "Wie ein Liebeslied". To get a view how long this gap was remember that Bata last charted when the listing was only 50 positions deep and the CD was not even invented! "Liebeslied" by the way is a duet recording and accompanying him, collecting money for an urgently needed operation, is Eike Immel, former national Soccer goalkeeper for Germany. (Does this qualify this song as a charity recording?) Thus he joins a very elite list of soccer players to chart a single. And Immel is not even the first goalkeeper among them. Goalie Petar "Radi" Radenkovic was the first and is most famous for his song "Bin I Radi - bin I König" (#5 in 1965). He even had a second chart hit with "Bißchen Glück in Liebe" (#36 in 1965). Just a year later came the most common known German soccer player with his immortal hit: "Gute Freunde kann niemand trennen" (#31 in 1966). Yes, Franz Beckenbauer has a chart single under his belt! If I have not overlooked somebody than the last soccer player on the singles chart was British player Kevin Keegan who during his tenure in Hamburg placed "Head Over Heels In Love" (#10 in 1979) and "England" (#61 in 1980) onto the survey.
No. 12: No Angels
"Disappear"
No. 18: Bata Illic & Eike Immel
"Wie ein Liebeslied" ["Like A Love Song"]
No. 19: Flo Rida feat. T-Pain
"Low"
No. 20: Marquess
"La Histeria"
No. 44: Cinema Bizarre
"Forever Or Never"
