Jack Harlow top s the singles chart. Taylor Swift gets a third week at number one in the albums chart.

Jack Harlow escapes from Dua Lipa to win a tight race at the top of the singles chart. Revised versions of two 50-year-old Breatles compilations enter just behind Taylor Swift in the albums chart.

Two new entries fought it out for the number one single this week. While The Beatles’ Now And Then topped the first updates, their weaker performance on streaming meant they were never likely to hold on for a second week at the top.

The final update showed Jack Harlow’s Lovin On Me ahead of Dua Lipa’s Houdini. That gave us a song about whips and chains against a song named after someone who made his name by escaping from chains.

Jack Harlow made his chart debut in 2020 with What’s Poppin and has had a string of equally poor songs in the chart since then. Lovcin On Me is just as bad as the others but has managed to fight off Dua Lipa’s superior song to bag his first number one.Lipa, who has had four number one singles including Dance The Night earlier this year, finishes as the runner-up.

Casso, D-Block Europe and Raye are at number three with Prada. Tate McCrae’s Greedy is at number four. Noah Kahan’s Stick Season climbs to number five. More Noah news later.

The Beatles fall to number six after a week at number one. It is the first of their eighteen chart-topping singles to spend just a week at the summit.

Having already spent six weeks (including this week) in the top forty with a song released in summer 2022, Noah Kahan now has a second single in the chart. Northern Attitude, first released in September last year, is another single from his Stick Season album whose title track reached the top ten two weeks ago. This second single, a new entry at number sixteen, has now gained a second version with additional vocals from Hozier whose chart career peaked with his debut hit Take Me To Church. It’s a really good song, so it’s good to see it get some belated success. The host album continues to climb in the albums chart, soaring sixteen places to number six.

Liverpool rapper Mazza L20 (I suspect that isn’t his real name) makes his chart debut at number eighteen with Murdaside. Up to now, Pink Pantheress and Central Cee have had 24 to forty hits, all of them achieving various degrees of awfulness. Now they have combined their lack of talents on Nice To Meet You, a new entry at number twenty.

The Chase and Status revival continues with the entry of Selecta, their fourth top forty hit of 2023. The duo, who hadn’t graced the top forty in 2013 have now taken their tally of top forty hits up to twelve. Selecta, which features Stefflon Don, is not one of their better efforts. Nonetheless, it enters at number 27.

There are no Christmas re-entries this week. However, last week’s re-entries both enjoy significant climbs. Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You climbs twelve places to number 28 while Wham’s Last Christmas is up eleven places to 26.

Every Beatles studio album went to number one. Some of them stayed there for months. Their debut set, Please Please Me, spent ww30 weeks at number one before being toppled by the follow-up With The Beatles. They were number one with four different albums from May 1963 to February 1965 apart from twelve weeks when the Rolling Stones topped the chart. That run was broken by another Stones album.

When they released two compilations on the same day in 1973, many people would have expected them to spend time occupying the top two. However, that didn’t happen. David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane finished ahead of both of them for three weeks before they started slipping down the chart.

The two albums were a comprehensive summary of their career. The first, known as the Blue Album, covered the years 1962 - ‘66; the second, Red, album covered the period from 1967 - ‘70. Both albums have returned to the chart on several occasions since, notably in the 1990s when they were finally released on CD for the first time.

Now, 50 years and a few months after their initial release, new editions of both albums have been released. These are no ordinary new editions. First, a total of 21 songs have been added, thereby making it an even more comprehensive collection which illustrates how their sound developed over the years. Second, most of the songs have been remixed. One of the most significant changes (in historical terms) is that Love Me Do now features Ringo Starr on drums; the drummer on most copies of the single (the band’s first) was Andy White.

Many of the songs have been given a fairly drastic remix. Early stereo recordings were fairly crude. It was common to have vocals in one ear and instrumentation in the other ear. Twenty-first century technology means that the songs can now be broken down into their constituent parts and remixed to sound more natural.

Notably, the extra tracks include Now And Then but not the two “new” songs released in the mid-1990s, Real Love and Free As A Bird. The Blue album continues to be more popular than the Red one. History has repeated itself as the Blue Album enters at number two, one place ahead of the Red Album. While they are the two best-selling albums of the week, Taylor Swift’s streaming figures mean that the reissued 1989 gets a third week at the top. It is the first album to spend at least three successive weeks at the top since Adele’s 30 two years ago.

The Blue Album narrowly fails their seventeenth number one so their total time at the top remains at 176 weeks. Added to their 70 weeks atop the singles chart, they have amassed 246 weeks at number one. The Official Charts Company (OCC) has revised its figure for the singles chart since I wrote that section of last week’s commentary, hence the apparent inconsistency with what I said then.

There is also a combined version which has charted separately at number 33. Without that combined version, the individual releases may well each have been one place higher.

As stated above, Chase & Status have enjoyed a revival in their fortunes this year. They now get their fifth top ten album with the clumsily-titled 2 Ruff Vol 1 at number four.

The name Baby Queen may conjure up images of miniature versions of Freddie Mercury and co., but it is actually the name chosen by South Africa-born Arabella Latham for her music career. She makes her chart debut at number five with Quarter Life Crisis. As she is now 26, she seems to entertain hopes of living to the age of 104.

As well as the Beatles compilations, two other reissues enter the top ten this week. Passenger’s tenth anniversary edition of All The Little Lights is at number seven; New Order are at number ten with a re-release of their 1987 compilation Substance.

Chris Brown’s 11:11, appropriately enough, enters at number eleven. However appropriate it may be given the title, its quality means it should be a lot lower.

Other new entries come from Pink Pantheress (Heaven Knows, number 28), James Marritott (Are We There Yet?, 17), Chris Stapleton (Higher, 22) and Kid Laroi (The First time, 29).

Too cheap for a pound shop, 50 Cent’s 2018 Best Of compilation re-enters at number 37, two places ahead of its previous peak. Also re-entering the chart yet again is Michael Buble’s Christmas album at number 33.