Miley Cyrus remains at the top of the singles chart. Sam Smith gets a third number one album.

Miley Cyrus leads an unchanged top five in the singles chart. Sam Smith has the number one album.

Miley Cyrus gets a third week at number one with Flowers. Her two previous chart-toppers only managed one week at the summit each.

Unchanged top fives have been a bit of a regular occurrence recently and we have another one this week. Raye and 070 Shake are still at number two with Escapism with Sza’s Kill Bill still at number three. The number four spot is still occupied by Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero while Venbee & Goddard remain at number five with Messy In Heaven.

Youtuber KSI gets his twelfth top twenty hit with Voices at number eleven. It features vocals from Oliver Tree to give him a second top twenty single. Tree blocks himself from getting a second top ten single (for this week at least) as his Miss You (with Robin Schulz) is at number ten.

Kid Laroi gets his first new hit of the year with Love Again at number eighteen. There have been previous chart hits called Never Gonna Fall In Love Again, I’m In Love Again and Back In Love Again but this is the first song simply called Love Again (which could be about a seriously bad tennis player) to be a hit.

Sam Smith released their new album last week and one new track makes it into the singles chart. I’m Not Here To Make Friends, which features one Calvin Harris as well as Jessie Reyez is at number 23. It’s OK but not as much fun as Unholy. It is Harris’s 39th top forty hit and Reyez’ first.

Pink continues to be one of the most enduring chart acts of the day. She enters at number 40 with Never Gonna Dance Again which means she has had at least one top forty hit in most years since her first appearance in 2000. The song has appeared in the top forty in at least one chart update for the last few weeks before dropping out by Friday. This week it finally clings on to give Alecia Moore (as she was originally known) her 38th top forty hit.

Another female American singer who has been around for a while has a re-entry this week. Lavender Haze, the opening track on Taylor Swift’s highly successful Midnights album, originally got to number three last year when the album was released. This week it is back at number 32.

Stay by Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber, a number two hit in 2021, re-enters at number 37. Something to do with Fortnite apparently. There is another re-entry but it isn’t worth talking about.

For the first time this year it was possible to predict with absolute certainty which new release would top the albums chart. There was never any doubt that Sam Smith’s new album Gloria would finish clear of the rest of the field. Indeed, it was such a cast-iron certainty that I wrote this bit on Sunday before any midweek updates were available. Sure enough, Monday’s update did show Smith at the top of the pile by a comfortable, but not overwhelming, margin.

Sam Smith was still at number one on Friday to give them a third number one in four releases.

Two hits collections are in the top five. The Weeknd’s The Highlights is at number two while Eminem’s Curtain Call climbs to number five. Curtain Call was last in the top five in 2006. In between them Taylor Swift’s Midnights is at number three and Sza is at four with SOS.

Bob Dylan’s apparent mission to see everything he has ever recorded released in his lifetime continues. Time Out Of Mind Sessions 17 contains recordings dating from the making of Time Out Of Mind which was released in 1997 when it reached number ten.

The best-known song on Time Out Of Mind (and this collection) is Make You Feel My Love, a song eventually made famous after its inclusion on the debut album of a young singer called Adele. Among other artists to have recorded their own version are Billy Joel, Engelbert Humperdinck (a duet with Willie Nelson), Pink and Neil Diamond. It enters at number nine to give Dylan a 42nd top ten (and 66th trop forty) album in a career dating back almost sixty years.

The first of just two other new albums this week comes from Ava Max. She had a storming start to her chart career with the massive number one hit Sweet But Psycho at the beginning of 2019. However, she still awaits a second top ten single. Her debut album, released over eighteen months after Sweet But Psycho topped the singles chart, reached number two. Her latest set, Diamonds & Dancefloors, is at number eleven.

The final new entry is Lil Yachty’s fifth studio album Let’s Start Here which gives him a first chart appearance at number 32.

Finally for this week, it would be remiss of me to end without paying tribute to singer and guitarist Tom Verlaine who died last weekend at the age of 73. His band Television are generally regarded as one of the pioneers of punk in the 1970s. As well as influencing bands such as the Sex Pistols, they also indirectly helped launch the career of one of the most successful bands of the late 1970s and ‘80s. When they first visited the UK their support band - also playing in the UK for the first time - was Blondie.