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Chart Beat
Patrick Watson’s ‘Uh Oh’ Cracks the Top 20 on Billboard Canadian Albums Chart
The Montreal singer’s collaborative album hits No. 13 on the chart. Plus, country star Cameron Whitcomb notches a new entry with The Hard Way.
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Patrick Watson is continuing his impressive run of chart feats and streaming records with his new album.
The Montreal singer-songwriter’s recently released new record, Uh Oh (out now on Montreal indie label Secret City Records) debuts on Billboard Canadian Albums at No. 13, dated October 11.
Watson’s album meditates on the idea of life being a series of “uh ohs,” a phrase often uttered in response to moments of panic. According to the Polaris Music Prize-winner, the project came to mind when faced with the biggest “uh oh” a singer could endure: losing his voice. Unsure if or when he would be able to sing again, his new album took shape.
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Uh Oh is a collection of collaborations with artists that Watson wanted to hear sing. The majority of the tracklist includes Watson and his bandmates joined by a guest, ranging from veteran singer Martha Wainwright and close friend Charlotte Cardin to local Quebec artist Klô Pelgag and Portuguese singer MARO.
“Every singer has these different magical powers on this record, and each song kind of represents that,” he says.
He reflects on the situation of making music after losing his voice, saying: “I was like, ‘Oh, it’d be cool to write songs for all these different singers that I really want to hear sing – I’ll find my way out of this situation that way.’ Because my voice wasn’t supposed to come back. And when it did, I just thought having all these other singers featured was still a cooler idea for a record than me singing alone.”
Recently, Watson's “Je te laisserai des mots” became the first French-language song to cross one billion streams on Spotify, and experienced a surge after the season finale of The Summer I Turned Pretty. Though he's been making music for two and a half decades, Watson is one of Quebec's biggest recent success stories.
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Rising singer-songwriter Cameron Whitcomb is also hitting the Canadian Albums chart this week. His debut album, The Hard Way, arrives at No. 28.
The B.C.-native is having a major year. The singer, who first broke out as a contestant on American Idol in 2022, landed four straight singles on the Canadian Hot 100 – all before his debut full-length, which is now also charting.
After landing on Spotify and Amazon Music’s Artist to Watch lists, Whitcomb has received various accolades, including two 2025 CCMA awards and the CMA’s Jeff Walker Global Country Artist Award.
This month, he’s embarking on multiple sold-out shows across North America, where he is set to perform some of the album’s biggest singles, including “Quitter,” a charting success across the Billboard Canada Airplay charts, and “Options,” which climbed from No. 91 to No. 71 on this week's Canadian Hot 100.
At the top, The KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack sits at No. 1 for a second week, while British singer Olivia Dean’s The Art of Living earns this week's biggest debut, hitting No. 5 and Doja Cat's Vie arrives at No. 8, the only other new top 10 entry.
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Additional reporting by Stefano Rebuli
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