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Chart Commentary

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean still reign supreme in the singles chart. Maisie Peters wins a tight battle at the top of the albums chart.

There is still no catching Sam Fender and Olivia Dean at the top of the singles chart as Rein Me in gets a thirteenth week at the top. It matches the thirteen weeks at the top achieved by Alex Warren’s Ordinary last year. Rein Me In’s thirteen weeks at the top has been split across three separate runs, each interrupted by a one-week number one. Its current run now stands at five weeks, matching the previous run. Sandwiched between these two runs was a seven-day spell at the top for Olivia Rodr
Chart Commentary

Sam Fender and Olivia Sean extend their run at the top of the singles chart to twelve weeks. One of three new Drake releases tops the albums chart.

San Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In remains at the top of the singles chart. It has now spent twelve of the last fourteen weeks at the summit. With one of Rein Me In’s three runs at the top having been ended by Olivia Rodrigo, there has been an Olivia at the top of the chart for the last eleven weeks. Olivia Newton-John still holds the record for the longest continuous run at number one by a single Olivia. Last Friday (15 May), Drake released not one, but three new albums. It is fair to sa
Chart Commentary

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean are at number one for an eleventh week. Michael Jackson still has the number one album.

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean continue their reign at the top of the shingles chart, in a week that has seen both heavy rain and hail, withRein Me In. It has now been at number one for a total of eleven weeks. The last song by a British act to spend as long at number one was Ed Sheeran’s Bad Habits in 2021. That song had a single eleven-week run whereas Rein Me In is now in its third run at the top. Rein Me In moves past Rihanna and Jay-Z’s Umbrella to become the longest running number one single b
Chart Commentary

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean reach ten weeks at number one. There is a three-way battle at the top of the albums chart.

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In gets another week at number one this week, finishing well clear of all rivals. Its current run has now lasted two weeks, bringing its total up to ten weeks. It is the third song to spend at least ten weeks at number one since the beginning of last year. The other two songs both remain in the top forty. This is, surely, the first time we have had three songs in the top forty which have spent at least ten weeks at number one in their current chart run. Rei
Chart Commentary

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean return to the top of the singles chart. Noah Kahan gets his second number one album.

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In returns to number one again, making it a total of nine weeks at the top for the song. It also means that one Olivia replaces another Olivia at the top for the second successive week. As nobody has pointed out any previous occasions since last week, I am assuming that this is only the second time in chart history that somebody has replaced another singer with the same forename at number one. Olivia Dean has another new entry with Baby Steps at number 31. It
Chart Commentary

Olivia Rodrigo has her fourth number one single. Two new albums battle to prevent Olivia Dean staying at the top of the albums chart.

One Olivia replaces another at the top of the singles chart as Olivia Rodrigo goes straight to the top to bag her fourth number one with the cheerfully-titled Drop Dead. While it has a fairly slow start, the song does pick up to become another pleasant Olivia Rodrigo song. Her fourth number one is the first in an even year. It is the first number one single to contain the worf dead in its title, although Dead Or Alive topped the chart with You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) in 1985. I can't think
Chart Commentary

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean still haven’t been reined in at the top of the singles chart. Olivia Dean is also at number one in the albums chart.

There’s still no stopping Sam Fender and Olivia Dean who get an eighth week att the top of the singles chart with Rein Me In. It is the longest run at number one since Huntrx and a cast of thousands spent a total of ten weeks at the summit starting in August last year. Golden is still in the top forty today. Tame Impala’s Dracula entered the top forty between two of Golden’s three runs at the top  of the singles chart. It climbed to number 21 before dropping out of the chart altogether in Nove
Chart Commentary

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean continue their flight at number one in the singles chart. Dermot Kennedy completes a hat-trick of number one albums.

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean stay at the top of the singles chart with Rein Me In. Pedants will hope that the success of this song will mean that more people can tell the difference between rein and reign. Rein Me In (not Reign Me In) has now spent seven weeks at number one. There have been many long-running number one singles this century. Whenever it happens, chart enthusiasts lament that these number ones don’t enter the public consciousness as much as songs such as Bohemian Rhapsody, (Everyt
Chart

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean remain at the top of the singles chart. Raye easily beats all rivals to get her first number one album.

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In gets another week at number one. Its current three week run matches the three weeks it spent at the top before being interrupted for a week by Harry Styles’ American Girls. Styles’ previous number one, the excellent Aperture, was also sandwiched between separate runs of the same song, in this case Dave and Tems’ Raindance. Bella Kay climbs back up to number two with Iloveitiloveitiloveit. Tame Impala gets his first top ten singles as Dracula climbs to nu
Chart

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean continue their reign at the top of the singles chart. BTS go to number one with their comeback album.

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean hold on at the top of the singles chart. Rein Me In now has a total of five weeks at number one. It is the longest-running number one since Taylor Swift’s The Fate Of Ophelia spent seven weeks at the summit in October and November last year. Like Rein Me In, that song had two separate runs at the top. Last week BTS released a new album.There is more on that to come, but the album’s release has also had an impact on the singles chart with three tracks entering this we
Chart

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean return to the top of the singles chart. Harry Styles gets a second week at number one in the album chart.

After being replaced by Harry Styles last week, Sam Fender and Olivia Dean climb back to number one in the singles chart with Rein Me In. The song has now had four weeks at the summit. It used to be fairly rare for a song to return to number one in the same chart run, but nowadays it is hardly worth highlighting. Rein Me In is already the second song to return to the summit this year. Bella Kay’s Iloveitiloveitiloveit climbs back up to number two. Harry Styles’ American Girls falls to number t
Chart

Harry Styles gets another number one album but faces a tight battle in the singles chart.

Once the release date of Harry Styles’ new album Kiss All The Time. Disco Occasionally was announced, there was no doubt that this particular Friday the thirteenth would not be unlucky for him. There was no prospect of there being anything resembling a race, just a complete walkover. Let’s leave aside the fact that the people responsible for the title seem to have been determined to make some of us type a supposed sentence that makes no sense. Just a couple days after Harry Styles released his
Chart

Rein Me In holds for a 3rd week and Gorillaz grab a 3rd album number one

Rein Me In holds at the top and Gorillaz grab a 3rd album number one. Simon is unable to do the commentary today and this is a shoddy replacement bus service, so there may be errors. Or not! Brits winner for Song Of The Year Rein Me In gets a post-win boost to hold at one for a 3rd week for Sam Fender and Olivia Dean as it faced strong competition from Alex Warren’s new track Fever Dream. I downloaded both so neither benefitted from my purchase! Alex Warren has to make do with number 3 for now
Chart

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean get a second week at the top of the singles chart. Mumford And Sons get their fourth number one album.

After completing a marathon journey to the top of the chart last week, Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In gets a second week at number one. The song first appeared on Fender’s People Watching album released early last year. Dean was invited to choose a song from the album to sing as a duet. She chose Rein Me In and Fender has been rewarded with his first number one single. Olivia Dean can also be found at number two with So Easy (To Fall In Love). Pink Pantheress jumps six places to numbe
Chart

Olivia Dean battles against herself for the number one single, and against Charli XCX in the albums chart.

Olivia Dean battles against herself for the number one single, and against Charli XCX in the albums chart. There was a close race at the top of the singles chart this week. There was no real doubt that Olivia Dean would be getting her second number one single. The question was whether Sam Fender would get his first. Back in the days when the singles chart measured physical sales only (because that was all that was available), it was relatively unusual for a single to fall down the chart and
Chart

Taylor Swift gets her sixth number one single with Opalite. Olivia Dean remains at the top of the albums chart.

In October last year Taylor Swift became the first artist to reach number one with a song that had the name Ophelia in its title. Now she has become the first artist to top the chart with a song called Opalite.The song originally reached number two, behind The fate Of Ophelia, and spent eight weeks in the top ten. Last week it was at number fifteen. Its promotion as an official single, along with a vinyl release, sees it climb all the way to the top. It is Swift’s sixth number one single and the
Chart

Dave and Tems dance their way in the rain back to the top of the singles chart. Olivia Dean returns to number one in the albums chart.

After a week when it never seemed to stop raining, Dave and Tems climb back to the top of the singles chart with Raindance. The song’s last spell at number one lasted just a single week. Time will tell whether it falls so soon this time. Raye climbs back up to number two with Where Is My Husband. Djo’s End Of beginning remains at number three. Harry Style’s Aperture drops to number four after a week at the summit. Taylor Swift is at number five with The Fate Of Ophelia. Like last week, all of
Chart

An unusual chart double as Harry Styles tops the singles chart while his former bandmate Louis Tomlinson has the number one album.

As mentioned in last week’s commentary, Harry Styles is the nearest current equivalent to Robbie Williams, someone who started life in a boyband and who has then achieved huge success as a solo artist. Like Williams with Take That, Styles was just sixteen when he became part of One Direction. Any member of a band who starts a solo career faces a difficult choice. They can continue with songs in a similar style to those released by their band, or they can do something different. As a boyband’s
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Dave gets his fourth number one single, helping Tems to get her first. Robbie Williams gets a record-breaking sixteenth number one album.

Dave’s Raindance entered the top ten last November and was one of the few non-festive songs to remain in the top forty for the whole of December. After climbing to number three last week, it now climbs to the summit to give him a fourth number one single. It also helps Tems, the featured artist, to get her first chart-topping single. Solder readers will remember that the UK experienced a lot of rainfall throughout Rihanna’s ten-week stay at number one with Umbrella. Judging by this week’s weathe
Chart

Djo gets a second week at number one in the singles chart. Olivia Dean remains at the top of the albums chart.

After climbing to the summit last week, Djo gets a second week at number one with End Of Beginning. It is the first song to get a second consecutive week at number one since Taylor Swift’s The Fate Of Ophelia which topped the chart for four successive weeks last November and December. That song is at number three this week, continuing its annoying habit of finishing the week one place below where it was in the midweek updates. Dave and Tems move up to number two with Raindance, a song that wou
Chart

Djo gets his first number one single in a chart littered with songs from Stranger Things. Olivia Dean remains at the top of the albums chart.

After missing out on a return to the top spot last week by a mere 500 “sales”, Taylor Swift’s The Fate Of Ophelia made another attempt to get an eighth week at number one. In the four weeks since the song fell from the top, there has been a new number one each week although that included two non-consecutive weeks for Wham’s Last Christmas.  However, Taylor Swift faced opposition from Djo’s End Of Everything. There are a lot of Stranger Things=related songs in the chart this week (more on that
Chart

Raye re-enters at the top of the singles chart as a flood of re-entries replace the Christmas songs. Olivia Dean follows a highly successful 2025 by claiming the first number one album of 2026.

The Christmas period has been a problem for the Official Charts Company (OCC) since streaming was included in the calculations for the chart. This became more pronounced when they introduced the Accelerated Chart Ratio (ACR) whereby the value of a song’s streams was downgraded if streams were declining for three weeks and the song had been in the chart for ten weeks. Because streamers started listening mostly to Christmas songs, almost all other songs saw their streaming figures decline. Songs
Chart

Kylie Minogue and Wham battle it out for the Christmas number one single. Pink Floyd top the albums chart with an anniversary release of Wish You Were Here.

The race for the Christmsa number one this year was complicated by the way streaming platforms report their figures. The updates on Monday and Wednesday both showed Kylie Minogue’s Xmas with a clear lead over Wham’s Last Christmas. However, it wasn’t as simple as that. The sales for Kylie Minogue’s single were from a combination of multiple physical formats and streams. However, those streams came from one platform only, and it just happened to be the only one which seems to have worked out ho
Chart

Wham complete their annual ascension to the top of the singles chart. Kylie Minogue gets her eleventh number one album.

One of the consequences of the singles chart being dominated by streams, specifically songs from playlists, is that the same songs dominate the chart every December. One of those songs is, of course, Wham’s Last Christmas which climbs to number one for the fifth time this week. Its first two runs at the top lasted for just one week but it has spent rather longer there for the last two years. Thus, this is its tenth week at the top in total. For many years, Last Christmas was the UK’s best-sellin
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Taylor Swift is still singing about Ophelia at the top of the singles chart. Olivia Dean returns to the top of the albums chart.

Taylor Swift spends a fourth consecutive week at number one with The Fate Of Ophelia. It has now spent a total of seven weeks at the summit, making it Swift’s longest-running chart-topping single. Raye remains at number two with Where Is My Husband. A clear sign that Taylor Swift may well be in her last week at the top (at least until next year) is that Wham’s Last Christmas is at number three with Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You at five. Brenda Lee is at number six with Rockin’