The Beatles, yes the actual Beatles, have a new number one single. Taylor Swift beats the heavily Beatles-influenced Oasis in the albums chart.

The Beatles get their first number one since 1969 and their eighteenth overall. Taylor Swift tops the albums chart for a second week.

In 1978 John Lennon recorded a demo of a song called Now And Then. The cassette containing the demo was passed to Paul McCartney when ITV were making their documentary series on The Beatles. The plan was to add contributions from the other three band members to three songs, including Now And Then, to produce three new Beatles singles to be released to coincide with the programmes.

Free As A Bird and Real Love were duly released and both reached the top forty. However, Now And Then was abandoned (after George Harrison had recorded a contribution) because the quality of the recording was so poor.

Fast forward to 2017 and the making of another documentary series about the Fab Four, Peter Jackson’s Get Back for Disney+, eventually completed and shown in 2021. The series concentrated on the recording of the Let It Be album (originally due to be called Get Back). As part of the making of the programme, modern technology was used to separate out individual vocals and instruments.

That led on to the idea of using the same techniques to extract John Lennon’s vocal from the demo of Now And Then, clean it up and complete the song with contributions from the two remaining Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. The results of that, produced by Giles Martin (son of George Martin who produced most of the Beatles’ albums) and Jeff Lynne were unveiled last week to a largely favourable reception.

The song was made available to download on Thursday afternoon last week. In the ten hours available, sufficient copies were downloaded for the song to chart just outside the top forty in the Official Chart; it was at number one in the separate aisles-only chart. This week, with the addition of various physical versions and streams, it rises all the way to the top of the chart. The b-side is a remixed version of their first single Love Me Do which, therefore, tops the chart for the first time. We have now seen new material from both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones at the top of the UK charts in the last few weeks.

Now And Then is the Bdeatles’ eighteenth number one single and gives them a 66th week atop the singles chart. Their 176 weeks at the top of the albums chart gives them a total of 242 weeks at the top of the two main UK charts, well ahead of any other act. The Official Charts Company (OCC) consider the 2005 rereleases of early Elvis Pres;ey singles to be separate releases from the originals to give Presley 21 number one singles. If they are counted as returns to number one, Presley also has eighteen. Presley has amassed a “mere” 146 weeks at the top of the UK charts.

The Beatles have also set two new records for the longest gap between number one singles. They had their first number one in 1963 with From Me To You. Or, at least, that’s what the OCC say. At the time there were a number of different charts. In the one used by the OCC for their historical records, Please Please Me stalled at number two. In other charts published at the time, it was number one. In any event, the gap of over sixty years between The Beatles’ first and last number ones is a record.

The Beatles’ most recent number one was The Ballad Of John And Yoko in summer 1669. The 54-year gap between successive chart-topping singles shatters the previous record set last year by Kate Bush when Running Up That Hill was a surprise number one.

Casso, Raye and D-Block Europe climb back up to number two with Prada.

Taylor Swift’s Is It Over Now falls to number three after a week at number one. Her song Cruel Summer jumps back in at number seven, a week after the three-song rule caused it to drop out of the chart from number three.

Tate McRae’s Greedy is at number four. Tyla limbs back up to number five with Water.

The second highest new entry comes from Jung Kook. He is at number six with Standing Next To You, a song which is far less irritating than most of the K-Pop which has reached the UK charts.

K.A.D’s promotional puff states that he enjoyed chart success with I’m Not That Easy. It doesn’t say where it was a chart success; it certainly wasn’t in the UK singles chart. However, he has succeeded with Just How You Like it, a new entry at number 36. It features Kak Hatt who also reaches the chart for the first time. Individual readers can decide for themselves whether Kak Hatt is appropriately named.

Jax Jones, D.O.D and Ina Wrolsden enter at number ??? with Won’t Forget You. It is the second time Jones and Wrolden have enjoyed singles success together. They reached the top ten in 2017 with Breathe. It has taken another Jones collaboration to get Wrolsden back into the chart for the first time since then.

We’ve only just had Bonfire Night, it’s Remembrance weekend and I haven’t felt it necessary to put the heating on yet. However, some people think it is already time to start streaming Christmas songs. Two of them are in this week’s top forty. Wham lead the way with Last Christmas at number 37 while Mariah Carey stretches the words “is” “you” to approximately 38 syllables each in All I Want For Christmas Is You at number 40.

Jung Kook and Latto’s Seven re-enters at number 35. It reached number three in what passed for summer in the UK.

At the start of a week that saw the Beatles get a new number one single, it looked like one of the bands most influenced by them might gain another number one album. Oasis compilation The Masterplan is an album which is very much a 1990s compilation. Until then, b-sides of singles (younger readers may need to ask someone older what a b-side was) were generally regarded as a rather inferior art form. They tended to be songs rejected from an album, probably because they weren’t good enough. However, the 1990s saw acts trying to get a high opening chart position by releasing multiple versions of the single. One obvious way of ensuring that a lot of people bought more than one version was adding different b-sides to each one. Ensuring that those additional tracks were good increased the chances of fans buying multiple versions.

As these songs didn’t appear on albums, the next logical step was to release a compilation album of b-sides. Suede may have been the first with Sci-Fi Lullabies, but the most successful of these b-side compilations was Oasis’s The Masterplan which reached number two in 1998. Like the Suede collection it is packed with fantastic songs which certainly weren’t left off albums because they weren't good enough. To mark the album’s 25th anniversary a number of new physical versions were released last week.

The midweek updates showed Oasis to be ahead Of Taylor Swift although their lead on Wednesday was only a few hundred chart sales. In the event, Oasis have to be satisfied with another week at number two. Taylor Swift’s revamped album 1989 gets a second week at number one.

K-Pop star Yung Kook has a new entry at number three with his debut solo album Golden. It becomes the highest charting album by a Korean solo artist. His band BTS had a number one album with Map Of The Soul: Persona in 2020.

The Rolling Stones get a third week in the top five. Hackney Diamonds falls just one palace to number four.

The last few years has seen a string of albums featuring old songs by veteran artists with a new orchestral accompaniment. Cliff Ricchard has done something slightly different, adding string arrangements rather than a full orchestra. The album Cliff With Strings includes a mixture of songs from the early years of his career such as The Young Ones and Living Doll as well as some of the more tolerable later hits such as Carrie and Wired For Sound. It is at number five, bringing his tally of top ten albums up to 48.

Johnny Marr (the sensible one from The Smiths) enters at number seven with a compilation of his solo material, Spirit Power: The Best Of Johnny Marr. It is his fifth top ten album.

There have already been a number of Christmas albums released this year but this week sees the first of them make the chart. Gregory Porter’s Christmas Wish is at number fourteen. If you feel the need to hear another version of Little Drummer Boy and Silent Night, this may be the album for you.

Scottish singer Caroline Polacheck makes her chart debut at number 23 with her second album Desire I Want To Turn Into You.