Big Big Train Smash Into Physical Singles Top 40 At No. 2

BBT

British prog rockers Big Big Train have achieved the remarkable feat of crashing in at No. 2 on the Physical Singles Chart with their current seasonal single, Merry Christmas.

It is an immense effort for a band who choose to handle their career themselves, a shot in the arm for both the genre and its preferred ethos of doing things outside of the once orthodox approach of the mainstream music industry. The Physical Singles Chart relates to actual physical copies sold, rather than downloads or streams, which the Official Chart Company combines with the Physical Singles Chart to create an overall Top 40.

The band were pipped to the top spot by former Smiths man Morrissey, prompting Big Big Train’s Greg Spawton to drily note “Heaven knows I’m miserable now” when he broke the news on Facebook. Regardless, 2017 has been a remarkable year for the band, who released two albums, Grimspound and The Second Brightest Star, and performed a series of sell-out shows at London’s Cadogan Hall. Next year the Big Big Train will appear at Germany’s Night Of The Prog festival.

Merry Christmas is available to purchase from The Merch Desk and Burning Shed.

Jerry Ewing

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.