Calvin & Ellie’s 4th Miracle and The Lottery Winners numbers come up!

It’s 4 weeks on top for Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding’s Miracle, inspiring one in my Council as my terrible Tory Council bosses get their marching orders. Nearest challenger David Kushner a few thousand sales behind with Daylight holding at 2, as we all get a glimpse of it politically. I could refer to the local elections for all top 5 songs but I’ll leave you to make your own links. Libianca is up yet again with People up 1 at 3, and Lewis Capaldi down 1 at 4, Wish You The Best. That lets Rema back up into the top 5 at 5, Calm Down, calm down!

REACT hits a new peak of 7 for Switch Disco and Ella Henderson, and Nines sneaks up with a new album-boosting of Tony Soprano 2 at 10 and also the highest new entry at 19 with Calendar as Nines spends time moaning about having to shuffle his ladies around his busy calendar, and the song ladies unreasonably get a bit snotty about having to share his supermassive ego with other B’s. Mrs. Slocombe’s pussy has something to do with his whinging but not quite sure in what capacity. Cat food is expensive, granted. I assume Nines is his shoe size. I won’t listen to Favela (featuring J. Styles) new in at 34, I can only be doing with so-much Nines street poetry before I reluctantly move on.

Fifty Fifty meanwhile maintain the momentum of Cupid up 9 to 9 for even more Nines, and Haddaway’s What Is Love is revamped up 6 David Guetta places to a decent 13 peak with Anne-Marie and Coi Leray-assisted boosting. Having dipped last week, Zara Larsson is back on the upwards at 26 proving you really Can’t Tame Her, and Tyler The Creator is up to 27, aided by Kali Uchis on See You Again. No need rush, guys! Says Ayla Starr up to 32, and that’s pretty much that for a dull top 40 “singles” chart other than Labrinth popping back in at 40.

Over on albums, The Lottery Winners’ lucky number is 5. That’s number of albums released in order to get a first top 10 and actual number one - that’s showing some Anxiety Replacement Therapy. The album featured guest vocalists on the Leigh band’s new tracks, notably Boy George who hasn’t been featured on a number one album since Culture Club days 40 years ago. New single Let Me Down is pretty good. Not far from these parts, Andover band The Troggs’ Reg Presley used to be an enthusiast of crop circles back in the day. Lo and behold if someone hasn’t done a follow-up tribute, Crop Circle 2 new in at 2. It’s Nines, but his accent definitely doesn’t sound local so I’m guessing it’s some other form of cereal crop. I expect it grows well with so much available bull manure.

Jessie Ware has her 5th top 10 album out, That! Feels Good! new at 3, and I’m loving the disco-grooved upbeat sound of the singles to date, Pearls and Begin Again. The Radio 2 support has obviously not hurt as it equals her last album’s peak, What’s Your Pleasure? The National are new at 4 with First two Pages Of Frankenstein. Great title, and Young Frankenstein fans all together: “That’s FRONK-en-STEEN!” The band are on their 9th album, the last 5 all going top 5, and have been knocking ‘em out since 2001! Completing the top 5 is, of course, The Weeknd’s Highlights collection.

Just missing the top 5 at 6, my album of the week no question, the fabulous Reverend & The Makers debut Heatwave In The Cold North, a mature soulful, strings-laden return for the noughties band. All of the singles have been great, and current fabulous radio song A Letter To My 21 Year Old Self speaks to those of us of a certain age, some great words of advice some of us could have done with at 21. Rev and co have been going since their 2007 The State Of Things hit 5 on the back of a top 10 single. This, the 7th album is their first top 10 since then, but all have gone top 20. Freya Ridings, Blood Orange, the follow-up to her top 3 self-titled debut, shows the London-born singer seems to be showing consistency considering how many new entries there are this week, new in at 7.

New at 9, The Damned are back with Darkadelic, and amazing (for me) 46 years on from Damned Damned Damned debuting when I was leaving school and moving to Uni. Their 12th album follows up the 11th, Evil Spirits, which incredibly was the Punk bands first-ever top 10. Their biggest, though, remains Phantasmagoria in 1985, though that just missed the top 10 on the back of monster-single Eloise.

New at 24 (it’s a busy week!) it’s Shakin’ Stevens’ Re-Set. It’s a literal re-set, too, as he opts for a more sober and stripped-down sound, as shown by current single slagging off bankers, All You Need Is Greed. Shaky was the biggest singles act of the 80’s and is in the Xmas Top 10 singles every year without fail, but the Welsh rock’n’roll mainstay has been going since, and pause for big breath, 1970. It took him 11 years and 10 albums to get a top 10, This Ole House, and his 21st studio album follows his 20th in going top 30. Shaky is 75 years old, which I find hard to credit, but there ya go!

New at 32 is Jack Harlow, with Jackman, not a tribute to Wolverine actor Hugh, it’s a rap album from the American and his 3rd studio album, and the second to chart after the previous one hit 4 in 2022. Finally, we have Skerryvore at 36 with Tempus. Skerryvore is the name of a Robert Louis Stevenson garden taken from the name of the house that the famed writer lived in from 1884 to 1887 recuperating in his Bournemouth home. It’s named in tribute to R.L. Stevenson’s uncle Alan who built the Scottish lighthouse that the house was named after, and a model of which sits in the grounds of his former house in Bournemouth. There’s no house - the Nazi’s managed to drop the only bomb in that area on his house during the Second World War. Obviously not fans. It’s also the name of the Scottish Celtic Rock band, digression over, who took their name from the lighthouse. Tempus is their ninth studio album, Nines again, and means Time in latin. Tempus Fugit, so I will wrap up by pleasingly going back to where I started and note that Skerryvore in Bournemouth is part of BCP Council which will no longer have a Conservative Council. Beautifully circular.