Meghan Trainor holds on for a fourth week at number one in the singles chart. Ben Howard goes to number one with his second album.

Meghan Trainor’s All About That Bass continues to beat all-comers to get a fourth week at number one, the longest stay at the top since Clean Bandit’s Rather Be also spent four weeks there in January and February this year. It is the first song credited to a solo female singer to spend four weeks at number one since Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe in April and May 2012.

Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud moves up another two places to number two to reach a new peak in its 18th week in the chart. Only Imagine Dragon’s Radioactive has taken longer to reach its peak in a single run in the top 75. That took twenty weeks to reach its number twelve peak. Thanks to fchd at Buzzjack for his list of slow-burners. Sheeran has now been in the singles chart with the same three songs for the whole of that 18 weeks. Perhaps a reader can tell us whether that is a record.

Waze & Odyssey are a production and DJ duo from London. They have taken a rubbish song, Bump ‘n’ Grind, reworked it and come up with a version that is still rubbish. After all, R Kelly is still involved. Nevertheless it is a new entry at number three. Odyssey should not be confused with the trio from the US and the Virgin Islands who had hits in the late 1970s and early ‘80s including Native New Yorker, Use It Up And Wear It Out and Going Back To My Roots. They were rubbish too.

Jessie J & Co’s Bang Bang moves back up to number four. Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off falls three places to number five.

Fuse ODG scores his fourth top ten hit (and his third this year) with T.I.N.A. at number nine. He is joined by fellow Londoner Angel (Sirach Charles) who will be able to celebrate his 27th birthday on Thursday (31 October) with a third top ten hit single to his name, all of them peaking at number nine. Angel has a place in the list of names to have appeared as both the name of an act and in the title of a hit song. This is where it gets weird. Among the artists to have had a hit with a song called Angel is Aretha Franklin. She has also appeared in the title of a hit song, Scritti Politti’s Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin). Moreover, she has also had a hit with a song where she spells out the title, Respect. There will be more on Aretha Franklin later.

Just to complete the weirdness though, Madonna has also had a hit with a song called Angel and Lady Madonna was one of The Beatles’ 17 number one singles. The Eurythmics also had a hit with a song of that name as well as There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart). The follow-up hit to the latter song was Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves which featured guest vocals from none other than Aretha Franklin. That’s still not the last time she will be mentioned.

Ariana Grande et al move up to number sixteen with Break Free, its highest position in nine weeks in the chart. It is the only song in the top twenty (and, indeed, the top 24) not to have reached the top ten.

As well as remaining in the top five with Shake It Off Taylor Swift also appears at number 39 with Welcome To New York from her new album 1989 which is released tomorrow (Monday). It is a return to form for Swift. In other words, it is nearly as bad as most of her previous singles. Perhaps Shake It Off will prove to be a one-off. New York is one of the most common cities in song titles. Surely the best song with New York in the title is Fashion Crisis Hits New York by The Frank And Walters.

After three weeks in the lower reaches of the top 75 Maroon 5’s Animals climbs into the top forty at number 32. Last November Martin Garrix became the first artist ever to have a hit with a song called Animals in over sixty years of chart history. It has taken less than a year for Maroon 5 to be the second. It is the band’s 15th top forty hit. Their 14th hit, Maps, re-enters at number 36.

Clean Bandit’s Rather Be re-enters at number 40 after just one week away. We therefore have a chart which is topped and tailed by songs which have spent four weeks at number one.

Another airing on X Factor has helped Pharrell’s Happy to extend its top 40 run into a 47th consecutive week. John Legend’s All Of Me is now on 37 consecutive weeks putting it in joint fifth place in the all-time list alongside Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax and Jim Reeves’ I Love You Because. Mr Probz’ Waves now has an uninterrupted run of 27 weeks. Rather Be has clocked up a total of 39 weeks in the top forty but last week’s fall to number 43 mean it is no longer improving its position in the list of longest unbroken top forty runs.

The race to get the highest new entry in this week’s albums chart was between the young (Ben Howard, 27), the not-so-young (Slipknot, average age around 41) and the positively ancient (Neil Diamond, 73). In the event youth won the day with Ben Howard taking his second album, I Forget Where We Were to the top of the chart. The Devon-born singer-songwriter’s debut album Every Kingdom (2011) entered the chart at number seven and spent just one more week in the top forty before dropping out. However, it was highly praised by the critics and was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2012. It eventually reached its peak position of number four in February 2013 some sixteen months after release. As so often happens with a slow-burning album, the follow-up is a more instant success.

This week’s inevitable metal album lands at number two in the form of Slipknot’s latest offering 5: The Gray Chapter, their fifth album and the first since the death of founder member Paul Gray. Their eponymous debut got no higher than number 37 but each subsequent album has reached the top five.

Ed Sheeran’s × falls one places to number three.

Neil Diamond made his first appearance in the UK charts in 1970. He has had hits with songs such as Song Sung Blue, Sweet Caroline and Cracklin’ Rosie. While his commercial peak is in the distant past he still has his fans as is demonstrated by the arrival at number four of his latest album Melody Road. It is his 32nd studio album and the 20th to reach the UK top forty. Four live albums and 13 compilations have also made the top forty. One of those compilations, The Very Best Of (the 2012 version) returns at number 28.

Status Quo enter at number five with yet another compilation although this time they have at least put some work into it. As the title suggests Aquostic (Stripped Bare) is an acoustic album containing versions of hits such as Pictures Of Matchstick Men, Rockin’ All Over The World and Caroline (not to be confused with Sweet Caroline although the words “sweet Caroline” do appear in the song) as well as some lesser-known songs. The cover photograph - which appears to have been inspired by that for Sparks’ Plagiarism album which makes it a possible case of plagiarism - was taken by Bryan Adams who entered the albums chart again earlier this month.

Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour drops out of the top five after 21 weeks. Ella Henderson’s Chapter One slumps to number seven after a week atop the chart.

Former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger’s first solo album Killer Love (2011) reached number eight. However, she doesn’t appear to have bothered with any publicity for the follow-up Big Fat Lie. Perhaps that is one reason why it has entered no higher than number 17.

Mark Lanegan Band (fronted by some-time member of Queens Of The Stone Age Mark Lanegan) enter at number 22 withPhantom Radio. It is the band’s second UK hit album (from nine releases) although Lanegan has also had hit albums in collaboration with various other artists.

Whenever songwriters are asked to name their biggest influences, some names crop up repeatedly. One such is Scott Walker. His fans include Julian Cope (Teardrop Explodes), Jarvis Cocker (Pulp), Alex Turner and Miles Kane (Last Shadow Puppets) and Neil Hannon (Divine Comedy). He started out as a member of The Walker Brothers (who were not brothers and none of them were called Walker). They had hits in the 1960s with songs such as The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Any More and Make It Easy On Yourself as well as their 1976 comeback hit, the superb No Regrets (nothing to do with the Robbie Williams song but Midge Ure recorded a version of it for his first solo single).

In the years before No Regrets Scott Walker had pursued a solo career. That career saw him notch up four top ten albums (including a number one) between 1967 and 1969. As well as his own songs he also recorded versions of songs by Belgian songwriter Jacques Brel, a key influence (along with Walker himself) for David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and Marc Almond among others. The best known Brel song he recorded is probably Jackie. The aforementioned Marc Almond had a top twenty hit with a version of the song (renamed Jacky) in 1991. Both versions are well worth checking out if you do not know them. As an aside, Terry Jacks’ Seasons In The Sun, a number one hit in 1974, was based on a Brel song. Westlife later performed one of their ritual slaughters on the song and also took it to number one.

Scott Walker has continued to release solo albums since that run of top ten albums but with little success. There have also been some large gaps between releases. He has always had a reputation for coming up with some bizarre projects but his latest is perhaps one of the most unexpected. He has teamed up with Sunn O))) who are described as shroud-wearing Seattle drone metallers to record Soused. The album contains just five songs but the shortest is over 8 1/2 minutes long. It is a new entry at number 30.

While many British musicians move to the US, Scott Walker has moved in the opposite direction and became a British citizen in 1970. Somehow American audiences never really took to the Walker Brothers. Ah well, that’s their loss.

As promised, there is more news of Aretha Franklin. In the same week that one new entry in the singles chart provided a whole host of links to the singer widely regarded as one of the best female singers of her day, she has released a new studio album. Unlike many previous occasions, we can surely be confident that this really is a coincidence.

While Franklin has notched up a decent number of top forty singles - from the aforementioned Respect in 1967 to A Rose Is Still A Rose in 1998 - her performance in the albums chart has been rather more modest. Just three of her studio albums have reached the top forty in the UK and the last of those was Aretha Now in 1968. All her other top forty entries have been compilations of various kinds. She finally breaks that long lean patch this week as her latest studio album Sings The Great Diva Classics enters at number 32. Among the tracks on the album are recent songs such as Rolling In The Deep (Adele) and No One (Alicia Keys) as well as more enduring classics such as At Last (Etta James) and You Keep Me Hanging On (The Supremes).

Back in the late 1970s Billy Idol was a member of punk band Generation X whose biggest hit was King Rocker. Their Top Of The Pops performances suggested that Idol (born William Broad) spent more time perfecting his snarl than on practising miming convincingly. Idol went on to have hits as a solo artist with songs such as Rebel Yell, Eyes Without A Face and White Wedding. He returns to the chart this week withKings & Queens Of The Underground at number 35 It is his first chart appearance with a studio album since Cyberpunk in 1993 which was followed by a twelve year gap before his next album. A Best Of compilation reached number 37 in 2008.

As already mentioned, Madonna is among the artists to have a hit with a song called Angel. By another coincidence her True Blue album has been this week’s 99p album on some download sites. Unfortunately for lovers of links Angel soes not appear on this album. On the other hand, there is a song called Jimmy Jimmy which was also the title of a hit for the Undertones. They get another mention later. True Blue was released in 1986 and was her second number one album. It is back this week at number 21.

Tony Bennett and Lady GaGa performed on a dancing show last weekend. As a result their Cheek To Cheek album bounces back in at number twelve. Maroon 5’s V returns at number 15. One Republic’s Native re-enters at number 31.

This has been a sad week for the music world. On Thursday (23 October) 1970s glam rock star Alvin Stardust died. He had hits with songs such as My Coo-Ca-Choo and Jealous Mind. He managed to be an accidental star on two occasions. In the 1960 a group of teenagers (minus the youth then known as Bernard Jewry) performed under the name Shane Fenton and the Fentones. Someone at the BBC eventually heard them and invited them to record a session. Tragically, by that time, their teenage singer had died due to a heart condition. So, young Bernard - who had worked as a roadie for the band - was asked to join them as “Shane Fenton”. They had a few minor hits before disbanding. Then, in the 1970s, two songwriters wrote and performed My Coo-Ca-Choo under the collective name Alvin Stardust. The original vocalist - and co-writer - was Pete Shelley who had a hit in 1975 with the rather soppy Love Me, Love My Dog. Once again the BBC wanted to see a performance but Shelley didn’t want to reveal himself as the singer. So, Bernard Jewry was again chosen as the front-man and finally became a major star. A new album by Stardust, originally due to be released on 3 November, will now be released tomorrow (Monday).

Yesterday (Saturday) saw the death of legendary bass guitarist Jack Bruce. He made his name as a member of Cream. Their chart career was less than stellar but all three members achieved success in their own right, in particular Eric Clapton. Among their best known songs are I Feel Free, Sunshine Of Your Love and White Room which later became the name of a Channel 4 music show presented by Mark Radcliffe.

Finally, yesterday was also the tenth anniversary of the death of John Peel, one of the greatest radio DJs this country has seen (or should that be heard?). Even now any chart (singles or albums) is likely to see at least one act championed by Peel or one heavily influenced by an act who owe their success largely to him. On the day he died, one of the comments that summed him up best was that he would play some music that an individual listener would think was absolutely terrible. However, that listener would keep listening knowing that the next song might be an absolute gem they hadn’t heard before. That is a perfect description of his shows. Among the groups whose career owes him a great debt are The Undertones (whose Teenage Kicks was his favourite song), Joy Division and Supergrass. One of the last sessions recorded for his Radio 1 programme (not broadcast until after his death) was by the aforementioned Sunn O))).