Raye's Escapism is the first number one single of 2023. Taylor Swift's Midnights returns to the top of the albums chart again.

Raye tops the singles chart for the first time. In a week with no new entries in the albums chart, Taylor Swift returns to number one.

Since the inclusion of streaming data in the singles chart The first chart of the year has become a bit of an oddity. Almost everything from the last chart of the previous year was a Christmas song so they have all disappeared. That includes last week’s chart-topper Wham’s Last Christmas which drops from number one to outside the top 100 for the second time in three years.

The new number one is the one that got close to the top of the chart before the Christmas invasion, Ray and 070 Shake’s refreshingly different Escapism. Despite a number of hits as a featured artist, Raye struggled to get support from her record label. Her decision to quit and go it alone has paid off with her first solo number one.

Taylor Swift’s former number one Anti-Hero leaps back into the top forty at number two. Venbee and Goddard return to the top forty with Messy In Heaven at number three, matching the position they reached in early December. Since then Lionel Messi has finally won a World Cup winner’s medal.

Sza’s Kill Bill climbs 28 places to number four. Meghan Trainor’s Made You Look (a number two hit last year) jumps back into the top forty at number five.

Amidst all the re-entries there is a healthy batch of new entries as well although, it is sometimes hard to tell. One example of that is Heradie One’s 50s which sounds pretty much exactly the same as his previous dreadful hits. As a new entry at number 40 it becomes his fourteenth top forty hit.

Cian Ducrot gets his second top forty hit with I’ll Be Waiting at number 39, a song that doesn’t sound quite as like Lewis Capaldi as All For You ( re-entry at number 35) did. At least that gives some hope that he might develop a style of his own.

Lil Uzi Vert gets his fifth top forty single with Just Wanna Rock at number 38. The song bears very little resemblance to rock of any kind. Still, Madness’s Our House didn't exactly sound like house music so there is a precedent. None of his four previous hits have got any higher than number 25.

Singer-songwriter Peter Sanchez got his first top 100 hit with Until I Found You in the middle of last year, the song having been released in September 2021. It was starting to enjoy an extended run in the top 100 before its progress up the chart was blocked by all the Christmas songs. Now that they are out of the way Until I Found You hits the top forty for the first time at number 28 in its 18th week in the full chart.

TikTok scores another hit in the shape of Lady Gaga’s Bloody Mary at number 22. The song comes from her 2011 album Born This Way which spawned three top ten hits including the title track. Among other cocktails to have charted are T-Spoon’s Sex On The Beach (1998) and Manhattan [Skyline] by A-Ha (1987).

Six former number ones are among the re-entries. Ella Rose & Interplanetary Criminal are back at number 31 with BOTA (Baddest Of Them All) while LF System are at number 34 with Afraid To Feel. Lewis Capaldi’s Forget Me is at number 26. The oldest of them, Harry Styles’ As It Was jumps back in at number nineteen. David Guett and Bebe Rexha are at sixteen with I’m Good (Blue). The songs spent a total of 33 weeks (almost eight months) at number one in 2022.

Another notable re-entry is Eminem’s Mockingbird at number 33. Thanks, inevitably to TikTok it re-entered the top forty last year and is now back again at number 33. I’d rather listen to Barclay James Harvest’s song of the same name (albeit as two words in their case).

Jvke’s Golden Hour returns at number 24 well ahead of it’s pre-Christmas peak of number 36. Dean Lewis’s How Do I Say Goodbye matches its previous peak by re-entering at number 23.

Joel Corry and Tom Grennan are back at number 22 with Lionheart, one place higher than it managed before Christmas. Tiesto and Tate McRae are at number eighteen having managed a solitary top forty week (at 39) late last year. Metro Boomin, The Weeknd and 21 Savage are at number twelve with Creepin', one place ahead of its previous peak.

Tom Odell’s Another Love is at number ten, nine-and--a-half years after its only other week in the upper tier in the same position. BHugzy Malone and TeeDee-’s abysmal Out Of Nowhere reaches the top ten for the first time at number nine. There are also new peaks for Rema’s Calm Down at eight and Central Cee’s predictably dire Let Go at six.

It is highly unusual to have a calendar year when no act has at least two number one singles. Last year, though, was one of those years. The last time it happened was 1992 when there were just twelve new chart-topping singles. Last year saw slightly more number ones, fifteen, but no act managed to top the chart with two different songs.

As with the singles chart, last week’s chart-topper is nowhere to be seen. As the album in question was Michael Buble’s Christmas album this is not exactly a shock. It’s week was its sixth in total accumulated in four separate years since its release in 2011.

With no major releases, the battle at the top was contested by albums already in the chart with Taylor Swifts Midnights finishing coming out the winner, bringing its total run at the top up to four weeks. Swift has four other albums in the top forty.

Sza’s SOS is at number two. The Weeknd’s The Highlights collection is at number three with Ed Sheeran’s = at four. Harry Styles rounds off the top five with Harry’s House, the biggest selling album of 2022 in the UK.

The lack of releases means there are no new entries in the albums chart this week.