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 second from her latest album.

Dave and Tems slip to number two with Raindance. Readers in Aberdeen (home of the wonderful Annie Lennox) will have been surprised (or confused) when they finally saw some sunshine yesterday afternoon (Thursday) for the first time since 21 January.

Raye drops to number three with Where Is My Husband. This week she was named as one of the headline acts for this year’s Brighton Pride in August. She will appear on the Saturday while Diana Ross will headline Sunday’s show. If Raye has found her husband by then, she can bring him along.

Shane Boose, under the name Sombr, has had three top ten hits from his debut album I Baqerly Know Her, released last August. Now he has already moved on to songs from his next album with the release of Homewrecker. It is a new entry at number fourteen, complete with  its Beach Boys-y beginning and end.

Just two weeks after former members of One Direction topped the singles and albums charts, another former member has landed in the charts. This time it is the turn of Niall Horan who has temed up with Myles Smith to record a song called Drive Safe, sound advice in the rubbish weather we have been having. Each singer has two top ten singles to his name with Smith charting higher than Horan. Their perfectly decent joint venture is at number 27.

Two acts whose age would generally make them unlikely visitors to the singles chart enter at number 37 with a song called Release The Pressure. Forty-two-year-old Harris has been having hits consistently for nearly twenty years, including eleven number ones. Leicester band Kasabian last had a top forty single in 2014. Kasabian seem to have decided that the best way to get back in the singles chart is to play second fiddle to Harris as this sounds far more like a Calvin Harris song than a Kasabian one.

American singer-songwriter Dominic Fike is at number 30 with Babydoll, a song originally released in 2018 before it became a minor (non-top forty) hit in 2023.

There are several re-entries in the chart this week, one of which is covered in the albums chart round-up. Tame Impala’s Dracula, a surprisingly long-lasting hit last year, is back at number 25. Justin Bieber’s Yukon reached number twelve last summer. It is now at number 29.

If he had stuck to the original release date, Robbie Williams would have been celebrating his 52nd birthday today with a record-breaking number one album. As it is, Britpop has already been to number one (two weeks ago) and left the top forty. That means another week at the top for the Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving which has become the “default” number one whenever there are no major releases.

On one Sunday evening every January, tens of millions of Americans spend several hours watching two teams of men in armour playing a glorified version of catch. Most of the time is occupied by adverts with brief interruptions for “action”, but Americans lap it up. While the men in armour have a slightly longer break than the ones for adverts, there is a live musical act. This year, the performer was Puerto Rican Bad Bunny who recently became the first act to win the Grammy award for best album with a release entirely in Spanish.

Donald Trump once described the president of Puerto Rico as terrible for his inadequate response to a natural disaster there. Pity the poor person who had to explain that the president of Puerto Rico at the time was one Donald J Trump. Whether that contributed to Bad Bunny’s antipathy towards Trump, I don’t know. However, it was no surprise that Trump was not a fan of the Superbowl performance.

Because of the lateness of the show, the UK audience for the quasi-sporting event is relatively low. However, the controversial choice of half-time performer generated more than the usual amount of publicity, increasing the gap between the number of people who know about that and those who know the result.

The publicity surrounding Bad Bunny’s performance has had an impact on the UK charts. The now award-winning album Debi Tirar Mas Fotos reached number thirteen in January last year. Now it is back at number two, easily his best position in the UK charts. DtMF, a number 26 hit early last year, returns to the singles chart at number four. Nuevayol is a hit for the first time at number fifteen. As is Baile Inolvidable at number twenty.

J Cole is at number three with The Fall-Off. Cole has said that this will be his final album. However, as he is only 41, he has plenty of time to change his mind. If not, he finishes his career with a fifth top ten album from seven releases. In Monday’s update J Cole was sitting neatly at number 26 with a song called Two Six. Some of us might have hoped he had recorded a song called Six Seven instead. Those people will have been relieved to see the song miss the top forty by the end of the week.

Even if he wasn’t Japanese, the man known as Joji might have decided that his birth name of George Miller didn’t exactly catch the eye. It certainly isn’t a name that would lead to the assumption that he is from eastern Asia. Under his chosen moniker he gets a fourth top forty album this week with the delightfully-titled Piss In The Wind at number six. It matches the peak achieved by the sweeter sounding Nectar in 2020.

Still on names that might mislead people about the origin of the act, the band Ist Ist come from Manchester rather than a German-speaking country. Their first four albums all fell well short of the top forty. The best they managed was number 87 with The Art Of Lying in 2021. Thankfully, their record label has been patient enough to allow them to release a fifth studio album. That patience has paid off as Dagger is a new entry at number 21.

French composer Lorien Testard won awards last year for the music he wrote for the video game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. The soundtrack album reached number six in the soundtrack albums chart, but was placed nowhere in the main albums chart. Following a release on vinyl, it lands at number sixteen this week.

The list of famous musicians from Portsmouth is relatively short although the city has at least had a hit single named after it. Roland Orzabal of Tears For Fears comes from there as does former Dr Who composer Murray Gold. It was also the home of the intentionally terrible Portsmouth Sinfonia. The band Crystal Tides were formed in the city eight years ago. This week they make their chart debut with Toothpaste at number 37.

Jamaican-British singer Marnz Malone is at number 36 with Yaqeen.