Beyonce still has the number one single. Ariana Grande has a fifth number one album.

Beyonce stays at the top of the singles chart. Ariana Grande is at number one on the albums chart.

Beyonce gets a month at the top of the singles chart as Texas Hold ‘Em holds on for a fourth week. It becomes her longest-running solo number one, beating the three-week runs of Crazy In Love (2003) and Beautiful Liar (2007).

The last few weeks have seen a regular battle between Benson Boone and Teddy Sims for the number two spot. This week, a third and fourth song entered the fray. While Beautiful Things and Lose Control remained in the top three in Wednesday’s update, Araina Grande’s We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love) was poised to be the highest new entry of the week with a top three placing a distinct possibility. DJO’s End Of Beginning made it a tight four-way contest.

How, then, did they finish? FIrst, let’s get the number five out of the way. That place is taken by Teddy Swims with Lose Control which has been in the top three for the three of the last four weeks. At number four, the same place as last week, is DJO with End Of Beginning. Ariana Grande gets her thirteenth top three single with We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love) and Benson Boone remains at number two with Beautiful Things.

The Ariana Grande song is one of three from her new album in the chart this week. Yes And, which reached number two earlier this year, climbs back up to number six while Bye is another new entry, at number thirteen. This all follows the release of her new album last week.

Throughout his unfeasibly long chart career, Drake has made a habit of releasing truly dreadful songs. This time, he has gone one step further by releasing a truly terrible song with an even worse title. What on Earth is act ii: date @ 8 supposed to mean? His co-conspirator is no better, going by the name of 4batz. They would have come up with something more coherent by pulling Scrabble letters out of a bag. If they did something similar with the notes, they would have come up with something more musical;.What is this doing at number eighteen?

While Texas Hold ‘Em remains at number one, a song that shares its name with a Texan city enters at number 25. The song is Austin by Dasha which, like the Beyonce song, has a decidedly country feel to it, somewhat unexpectedly for someone from California.

Sometimes the chart throws up something truly bizarre. Filling that gap this week are Ricky Mitch & The Coal Miners with a “song” called Evergreen. While the name of the band might sound like this is something to do with the fortieth anniversary of the miners’ strike, the band come from Seattle and the single was released in May 2017. It spent a week in the chart in May last year, before returning in September. It has remained in the tpo 100 almost ever since, apart from a gap when the chart was filled with Christmas stuff. The song. All 82 seconds of it, is at number 37.

As mentioned above, Ariana Grande released a new album last week. Eternal Sunshine (apparently without any spotless minds) duly becomes her fifth successive number one album in the UK. Only the first two of her albums failed to reach the top.

Ariana Grande was born in 1993 and released her first album in 2013. By the time she was born, Birmingham rock band Judas Priest had released twelve albums, the first of them in 1974. Unsurprisingly, none of the original members remain in the band. However, three of the members at the time of their debut album are still part of the line-up. They are at number two, their highest ever chart position, with their nineteenth studio album Invincible Shield.

Jack Antonoff has been working as a songwriter over the last couple decades without ever achieving a great level of fame. This is despite working with the likes of Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Florence and the Machine and someone called Taylor Swift. He will, presumably, be receiving a significant income for his part in co-writing Swift’s Cruel Summer. I don’t know whether it was his idea to pronounce the title without the C. Or the S. Or the L. He has also produced albums for those same artists including several of Taylor Swift’s reworked versions of her earlier albums.

While that work with other artists will have him pay the bills, he has also released several albums of his own with the band Bleachers. Until now, sadly, those albums have gone largely unnoticed by the British public. In happier news, that has changed with the release of their fourth album, with the unoriginal title of Bleachers. Lana Del Rey and Florence Welsh have both returned the favour by co-writing and appearing on one song each although much of the album sounds more like Bruce Springsteen. Bleachers make their top forty debut at number five.

Leicester-born singer-songwriter, protester, stand-up comic and general busy bee Grace Petrie enters at number 28 with Build Something Better.

Two old albums re-enter the to forty following the release of anniversary editions. Kylie Minogue’s Body Language is at number 34; Girls Aloud’s What Will The Neighbours Say is one place lower. Both albums were released in 2004 when they both reached number six.

Finally, but by no means least important, many thanks to popchartfreak for filling in for me last week at short notice.