It’s another Golden week for K-Pop at the top of the singles chart. Tom Grennan gets his third number one album.

Golden, the single whose credited artists take nearly as long to say as the length of the song itself, spends a third week at number one. HUNTR/X, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI & KPop Demon Hunters Cast, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and All had a healthy lead in Wednesday’s update so we may have to endure this for a while yet. The best single with the word Golden in the title is Suede’s Life Is Golden whose video was filmed in the Ukrainian town of Pripyat which has been abandoned since the Chernobyl disaster.

Disco Lines and Tinashe continue their steady progress up the chart. No Broke Boys climbs one place to number two. Chappell Roan’s Subway is at number four. Time for another deep breath. Soda Pop by Saja Boys, Andrew Choi, Neckwav, Danny Chung, Kevin Woo, samUIL Lee & KPop Demon Hunters Cast, Dave Dee, Dozy Beaky, Mick and Tich is at number three. The same artists are at number six with Saja Boys.

MK and Chrystal slip one place to number five with Dior.

At the start of this year Olivia Dean had one hit single to her name - a random version of The Christmas Song that charted in 2021 and hasn’t been seen again since. She had a couple weeks in the top forty with a new song at the start of this year, but in the last few months her chart career has really taken off. She reached the top[ ten for the first time, alongside Sam Fender, in June before getting her first solo top ten single shortly afterwards. 

Olivia Dean now has four singles in the chart. As only the lead artist is counted, her duet with Sam Fender doesn’t count towards her limit of three songs in the chart. She has two new entries this week. Man I Need is at number eight, immediately becoming her highest charting solo single, while Lady Lady is at number 38. The gap in chart positions is a fair reflection of the quality of the two songs.

Gunna has a new entry at number 34 with WGFT, an entity that features additional contributions from Burnah Boy. Frankly, I wish they hadn’t bothered. At a guess, WGFT either stands for Wednesday Goes ‘Fore Thursday or We Give Free Tea.

Twice, appropriately enough, have two songs in the chart, adding to the KPop Demon Hunters tally.. Takedown is joined by Strategy at number 35. Incidentally, the ‘w’ in the word two used to be pronounced. Its retention in the spelling preserves the link with words such as twelve, twenty, between and, of course, twice. As a further aside, I have no idea why there is no ‘u’ in forty. I'd love it to be because it means the letters are all in alphabetical order, but it probably isn’t.

Anyway, back to the actual top forties. The introduction of the Accelerated Chart Ratio (ACR), whereby the value of streams is cut by half for a song that has been in the chart for at least ten weeks and has seen reduced streams for the last three weeks, has made it more difficult for a song to spend prolonged periods in the top ten. Benson Boone’s feat of getting two lengthy runs in the upper tier is, therefore, particularly notable. It first reached the top ten in February of last year (cue Killers song going through head) and stayed there for seventeen successive weeks before going on to ACR. 

Beautiful Things returned to the top ten in February this year (having increased its streams by enough to get it back on the standard ratio) and remained there for another 16-week run. It has remained close to (or back in) the top ten ever since. That is, until this week. Another three weeks of declining streams means that it is back on ACR and it slumps to number 32. It has now spent a total of 34 weeks in the top ten and 54 weeks (just over a year) in the top twenty. That total of 54 weeks is more than any non-Christmas single in UK chart history. The longest consecutive run in the top twenty is still held by Mr ‘Acker’ Bilk’s Stranger On The Shore which had a 37-week run beginning in December 1961.

Now it is time for the latest episode in the occasional series UK Town With Little Or No Musical History. Wikipedia’s list of musicians to have come from Bedford includes people such as members of Squeeza and Keane, but Tom Grennan is really the only one to be anywhere near a household name. Even he is hardly rated alongside the likes of Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran in the fame stakes. Still; Grennan has achieved something that neither Sheeran nor Swift has managed this week - he has the number one album in the UK. Time for yet another deep breath. Everywhere I Went Led Me To Where I Didn’t Want To Be is Grennan’s third number one album following Evering Road (2021) and What Ifs & Maybes (2023). His 2018 debut Lighting Matches reached number five.

Each of American singer-songwriter Conan Gray’s albums has peaked higher than its predecessor in the UK. That continues this week as Wishbone lands at number two. Anyone with a vinyl copy who doesn’t live the sleeve art cou;ld always burn it, thereby creating some Wishbone ash.

Oasis still have two albums in the top five. Their Time Flies compilation is at number three, one place ahead of (What’s The Story) Morning Glory. Outside the top five, Definitely Maybe is at number nine.

Nottingham band As December Falls have fallen into the habit of releasing albums in the summer. The last of those albums, Join The Club, gave them their first taste of chart success when it reached number eleven two years ago. This week the follow-up, Everything’s On Fire But I’m Fine is at number eight.

Alison Goldfrapp’s second solo album, Flux, is at number thirteen. US country singer Jordan Davis has a top forty album at the third attempt with Learn The Hard Way at number 25. OneRepublic may have had six top ten singles, but their popularity has declined somewhat since then. A compilation under the boring title The Collection is at number 29.

A brief episode in the occasional series Albums By Acts From Brighton now. Black Honey are at number 31 with Soak.

Now it’s time for a bumper episode in the regular series This Week’s Anniversary releases. The first of two this week is a sign that things are getting silly. For reasons best known to her record company, we get a first anniversary edition of Billie Eilish’s Hit me Hard And Soft. The original release topped the chart last year and has remained in the top thirty since then. The anniversary edition sees it back in the top ten at number ten. Former One Directioner Niall Horan gets a fifth anniversary edition of his chart-topping Heartbreak Weather. The album re-enters at number 23 having last been in the top forty just a couple weeks after it was released.

While Bedford's list of successful musicians is rather short, Sheffield’s list is substantially greater. Many of the acts on the list, such as Pulp, Arctic Monkeys and Reverend And The Makers played some of their early gigs at The Leadmill in their home city. Sadly, a dispute with the landlord led to the venue closing at the end of June. As a southerner, I never got to visit one of the country’s best-known smaller venues, but its loss will be heavily felt by Sheffield’s musicians and music fans. Arctic Monkeys' excellent 2013 release AM is one of the albums that now has a permanent place in the top forty. Its current run started in July 2022 and it has now accumulated 306 weeks in the top forty.

Finally, many thanks to John (Popchartfreak) for his commentaries while I have been on holiday, enjoying the French sun, food and wine and getting through plenty of books. Thanks to the ereader, my days of suffering from abibliophobia are now consigned to history.