Jack Harlow gets a second week at the top of the singles chart. It's lucky 13 for Madness in the albums chart.

Jack Harlow gets a second week at number one. Madness get their first number one with a studio album.

Jack Harlow spends a second week at number one with Lovin On Me. With CChristmas songs likely to dominate the top of the chart before long, the fifteenth new number one of the year may well prove to be the last.

Casso, Raye and D-Block Europe climbs back to number two with Prada. Tate McCrae returns to number three after a four-week absence with Greedy. Noah Kahan’s Stick Season continues to climb, reaching a new peak of number five.

We haven’t quite reached the period yet where “normal” new entries have dried up for the year. Indeed, we are still getting new songs in relatively high positions. The highest of them, Tate McCrae’s Exes, is at number twelve. Not surprisingly, it is the first song with the word Exes in the title to reach the top forty.

Seventeen years after hisd first UK hit, Chris Brown is still managing to score top forty hits, despite his colourful past. He gets his 43rd top forty hit with Angel Numbers at number 32. Perhaps he hopes that people will start thinking of him as some sort of angel.

The latest random old song to reach the top forty is Kanye West’s Runaway from his 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Thanks to TikTok / some random Netflix show / I’m A Celebrity, Get Me On Love Island (delete as appropriate), it enters the top forty for the first time at number 34.

At number 36 we have Lilk Boo Thang by Paul Russell, a song which samples Best Of My Love. It is a little confusing as Russelll is using his real name while releasing a song whose title is very similar to the monikers of many fellow rappers. Whatever a boo thang may be, the song isn’t very good.

We still haven’t got to December, but the annual influx of Christmas songs is gathering pace. The highest of this week’s batch of re-entries is Brenda Lee’s 61-year-old Rockin Around The Christmas Tree at number 31. Wham and Mariah Carey are both in the top twenty, potentially heading for the top ten in next week’s chart.

Michael Buble is at number 37 with It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, one place ahead of Ariana Grande’s Santa Tell Me.


For all their chart success over the years, Madness have spent relatively little time at the very top of the charts. Seventeen of their 31 top forty singles reached the top ten but only 1982’s House Of Fun went all the way to number one. Their first two albums both reached number two, but the only number ones were a pair of hits compilations. Now, 44 years after releasing their first studio album, it’s lucky thirteen for the Nutty Boys. Theatre Of The Absurd Presents C’est La Vie, their thirteenth studio album, is at number one.

After three weeks at number one, Taylor Swift’s revamped 1989 falls to number two.

Drake’s dominance of the singles chart in recent years might make people think he had released at least fifty albums. It certainly feels like it. In fact, For All The Dogs, is “only” his ninth studio album. It was released last month, but he has now inflicted a new edition on us with six new tracks. As a result, the album climbs back up to number three In a sign that more people may finally be getting tired of Drake, only one new song enters the top forty for the first time. You Broke My Heart is at a relatively modest number 26. One place below it, First Person Shooter is a re-entry. Drake has now had 88 top forty hits of varying quality between terrible and far, far worse.

The Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds album is still in the top five, at number four.

Madness (in their sixties) and the Rolling Stones (mostly in their eighties) are joined in the top five by 77-year-old Dolly Parton. Rockstar is, incredibly, her 49th studio album in a career that began in 1967. In a break from her usual style, it is a collection of collaborations with various rock musicians including the two surviving Beatles, Joan Jett and Peter Frampton. Among the 31 tracks are covers of Stairway To Heaven, Heart Of Glass, Purple Rain and (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. That, of course, means that two of this week’s top five albums contain at least one Jagger / Richards composition. Rockstar is at number five.

The presence of an Elton John compilation and the two Beatles compilations makes for a very veterans-heavy top ten with six albums by artists who had their first hit in the 1960s, or even the 1960s.

Players of Fourth Quarter Albums Chart Bingo will be checking their cards to see whether Andre Rieu is included. If he is, they can cross him off as he (with his Johann Strauss Orchestra) is at number twelve with Jewels Of Romance. Among the songs to receive the Rieu treatment are Nights In White Satin (presumably the full-length version), The Sound Of Silence and that awful Bryan Adams song that was number one for 29 years.

The National reached number four earlier this year with First Two Pages Of Frankenstein. They are back already with Laugh Track at number 24. What’s wrong with Next Two Pages Of Frankenstein as a title?