Doja Cat gets a second week at the top of the singles chart. Olivia Rodrigo has her second chart-topping album.

Doja Cat remains at the top of the singles chart. Olivia Rodrigo has the number one album.

Doja Cat gets a second week at number one with Paint The Town Red.That means a break from the 2023 trend for number ones to spend either one week at the top or stay there for at least eight weeks. Let’s hope the break is not a temporary one.

Olivia Rodrigo’s Vampire has still not lost its bite. It climbs back up to number two. Rodrigo also climbs to number three with Bad Idea, Right. The increase in streams is largely due to the release of her new album. That release sees Fodrigo get a third song in the top forty, Get Him Back at number seven.

As if one BTS solo project in the top forty was not enough, there is a second one this week and it is mind-crushingly dull. The offending BTS-er goes by the name of V and has released a song called Slow Dancing which is more like Slow Torture. It enters at number 24.

Leigh-Anne Pinnock gets her second solo hit with My Love at number 28. The song, which is a jolly little number,, features Ayra Starr who also gets her second hit of the year. Pinnock has clearly rejected her own advice; her earlier single was called Don’t Say Love and hear she is saying it again already.

A year that has already seen Kylie Minogue have two top forty hits gets even more bizarre s the Rolling Stones, whose members are old enough to be Minogue’s father, get their first top forty hit since 2005 with Angry at number 34. They had their first hit sixty years ago with Come On and have now had 44 top forty hits including eight number ones. The song comes from their new album Hackney Diamonds due to be released next month.

I haven’t had time to listen to the new single from Cardi B and Meghan Thee Stallion yet. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that I won’t like it. However, they have drummed up enough support for Bongos to enter at number 35.

Florence + The Machine’s brilliant Dog Days Are Over continues its current chart run. It has now spent ten weeks in the top forty this year. Somehow, in its total of 21 weeks in the top forty it has never entered the top twenty.

As mentioned above, Olivia Rodrigo released a new album last week. Her debut set, Sour, spent its first 24 weeks in the top ten, five of them at number one. It has since gone on to accumulate 54 weeks in the top ten. Guts may well struggle to come close to matching that achievement. It has, at least, got off to a good start by going straight to the top of this week’s albums chart.

Travis Scott is at number two with Utopia. The Weeknd’s The Highlights collection is at four.

The Coral took the unusual (but not unprecedented) decision to release two new albums last week. In the past when artists have done this, the two albums have tended to hit similar chart positions. That hasn’t happened this time. Sea Of Mirrors becomes their eighth top ten album by entering at number three. The accompanying set, Holy Joe’s Coral Island medicine Show, is much further down the chart at number 36. This is partly due to the latter only being available as a physical product.

Roisin Murphy, formerly of the band Moloko, is at number five with her new solo album Hit Parade, a name once used to describe the chart. The Chemical Brothers enter at number six with their tenth studio album For That Beautiful Feeling. Eight of their previous nine studio albums all made the top ten. The exception, Further (2010) was declared to be ineligible for the chart because buyers were offered the chance to win an iPad.

M Huncho gets his fourth top ten album with My Neighbours Don’t Know at number nine. If that means his neighbours don’t know what his music sounds like, they are very lucky.

Romy Madley Croft becomes the second member of the XX to have top forty success with a solo album as Mid Air enters at number fifteen. Her bandmate Jamie XX has had two solo albums in the top forty.

One of the greatest things about the BBC is its commitment to promoting new music. From the late, great John Peel through the likes of Gary Crowley and Jo Wiley, they have championed new acts far more than their commercial rivals.

Some of those acts have returned the compliment by praising and supporting the BBC at every opportunity. One such example is the appropriately named Public Service Broadcasting. Their debut album took its name from the BBC’s founding purpose, Inform Educate Entertain. Beyond that, the band were invited by the BBC to write and perform a piece commemorating the corporation’s centenary last year as part of the year’s Proms Concert series.

For those of us who had been following the band from their very early days, it was an emotional occasion. Here was this little band from south London whose stage presence in early shows was two blokes in corduroy, some laptops and old television sets now performing with a large orchestra in one of the most famous concert halls in the world, the Albert Hall. There was even a little nod to the band’s beginnings with a clip first used in the song Lit Up on their debut album.
As a reference to the continuing threat to the future of the national broadcaster, in particular the steady reduction in the corporation’s income, the performance ended with What Of The Future in which members of the orchestra and the band left the stage one by one until there was nothing left. As the BBC gradually finds itself able to do less and less, each cut may not be particularly noticeable. However, there could be a time when there is very little left of the once mighty broadcaster.

Public Service Broadcasting’s last album, the brilliant Bright Magic, gave them their highest chart position to date by entering at number two, behind The Lathums’ debut album. This New Noise, a remastered recording of the Proms concert, enters at number 28.

This New Noise is not the only live album to enter the chart this week. A live version of Fleetwood Mac’s classic album Rumours, recorded in 1977, is at number 34. The original studio recording climbs to number 22.

After being named as the winner of the 2023 Mercury Prize last week, Ezra Collective’s Where I’m Meant To Be re-enters at number 31. The band are the first jazz act to win the prize. Another jazz album, Yussef Dayes’ Black Classical Music, enters at number 37.