The lead track from Harry’s third solo album Harry’s House, As It Was totalled a mammoth 10 weeks atop the Official Singles Chart earlier this year, making it the longest-running Number 1 of 2022 to date. The single holds its place as the biggest song in the country since 2022’s second quarter, when it dethroned Encanto soundtrack phenomenon We Don’t Talk About Bruno.
With over 1.3 million combined chart units so far, driven by an impressive 149.6 million streams, As It Was boasts the accolade of the being most-streamed track of the year so far, too. The single is also the most physically purchased (12,000 units) and digitally downloaded (47,000 units) song of the year-to-date in the UK.
With such impressive numbers, will it hold on to be crowned the year’s biggest track overall?
Afrobeats star Fireboy DML and Ed Sheeran stay strong in second place on the year-to-date list. While Peru peaked at Number 2 on the Official Singles Chart, it remains ahead Encanto’s We Don’t Talk About Bruno, the track that kept it off the top spot, year-to-date. Boasting 122 million streams, the track has undeniably helped promote Afrobeats as one of the biggest rising genres in the UK.
Ed Sheeran logs a total of three entries in the Top 10; alongside Peru, two Number 1 hits Bad Habits (3) and Shivers (5) also prove among the UK’s Official biggest tracks of 2022 so far. Elsewhere in the Top 40 list, he can be found with Camila Cabello collaboration Bam Bam (25), Overpass Graffiti (33) and 2Step (38).
Cat Burns’ Go vaults up to Number 4, a chart breakthrough which gave the singer-songwriter her first ever Top 10 single, two years after Go’s original release (thank you, TikTok!)
Speaking to OfficialCharts.com earlier this year about Go’s success, Cat Burns said: “If someone told me Go was going to be in the Top 10 of the Official Singles Chart, let alone the unbelievable success it has brought to me as an artist a year ago, I would’ve laughed! The song has taken on a life of its own and I’m incredibly grateful for everyone’s support.”
Kate Bush’s 2022 chart revival saw the singer break several Official Charts Records earlier this year with 1985 classic Running Up That Hill.
Now, the Stranger Things anthem owns its place as one of the biggest tracks of 2022 to date, 37 years after its original release. The single stands at Number 6 on our year-to-date list, having also been crowned the UK’s Official Song of the Summer recently.
Rounding out the Top 10, we have Glass Animals’ hit Heat Waves (7), Lost Frequencies and Calum Scott’s dance smash Where Are You Now (8) and Sam Fender’s rock anthem Seventeen Going Under (10).
Former Number 1 smash We Don’t Talk About Bruno, the Encanto mega-hit, places at Number 9, but is still the fourth most-streamed track of the year so far (120 million), massively bolstered by its video streams (38 million), the most of any track in 2022.
Just outside the Top 10, we see Dave’s former Number 1 Starlight (12), closely followed by Scottish DJ duo LF SYSTEM with mammoth breakthrough single Afraid To Feel (14), which topped the Official Singles Chart for eight weeks this summer and gifted the lads the longest-running dance Number 1 of the decade.
Other major tracks from 2022 to make the list include Aitch & Ashanti’s summer bop Baby (16), Australian DJ Luude and Men At Work’s Colin Hay’s Down Under (18) and Lizzo’s euphoric About Damn Time (21).
The lowest-charting song to make the end-of-quarter list is Tate McRae’s brilliant pop-punk kiss-off She’s All I Wanna Be (34), which peaked at Number 14 on the Official Singles Chart.