A Wartime Singer Has the Bestselling UK Female Album of 2017 So Far

Yet again your fucking gran is ruining music. This is literally all about your nan's birthday, which was in July (she was 77), and was celebrated with a family meal at a Miller & Carter, because she "likes the mash" there, and nans are the sort of people who have the time to develop mash preferences.

Like all grandmas, she is notoriously difficult to buy gifts for. Every year you buy her the same pair of slippers from M&S, and every year you feel sort of bad about it because she knows what's coming, and even though she's old, she's not too old for a nice surprise, is she, your lovely nan? But then, as you're hovering in the shoe section at 4PM on a Sunday, in a moment of last-minute divine inspiration, you remember. Your uncle recently gave her his old stereo system for the living room. You – a genius – are going to buy her a CD. You settle on 100, the compilation released to celebrate the 100th birthday of the wartime singer Dame Vera Lynn, because you remember once seeing her singing along to "We'll Meet Again" on an episode of Eastenders. But then, round the dinner table, limp helium balloon floating behind your old nan, it appears that basically everyone has had the same idea. She unwraps four separate copies of 100 by Dame Vera Lynn. "The mash is lovely, though," she says.

Multiply this by all the thousands of nostalgic nans who populate the UK and you get some idea as to how Vera Lynn, who is 100 years old, has managed to have the bestselling album by any female artist in the UK, in the year 2017.

The UK Official Charts Company yesterday published a list of the bestselling albums of the year so far (they are, at this point in proceedings, unlikely to change). Though 100 has been outsold by Little Mix's Glory Days and Adele's 25, neither of those were actually released in 2017, making Vera Lynn, who is famous for singing to the UK troops during World War Two, the biggest selling female album artist of 2017. Dua Lipa and Zara Larsson, who are also on the list, cower in her shadow.

This has happened before, when the beloved daytime TV game show presenter Bradley Walsh had the UK's best selling record of 2016. And I also talked about the dearth of successful female solo artists when Dua Lipa became the first woman to have a UK number one single since 2015. Basically: 'young people' aren't buying music (streaming isn't as profitable – though for the record Lynn's 'best selling' status does include streams), and internet discussion and promo isn't the same as cold hard cash. So the artists who are actually most relevant aren't necessarily represented in the charts.

The charts were once a measure of what the youth market most closely associated with music gave a shit about. Now, however, it seems that this approach doesn't really work anymore, because physical sales and downloads are no longer the only ways of getting your hands on music. Perhaps, now that your nan is basically saying what goes, they it's time they carried less weight.

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