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 say that some people were rather more enthusiastic about this development than others. With a total of 43 tracks between the three albums, Drake songs could have swamped the singles chart if the three-song limit for a single artist had not been introduced. When his popularity was at its peak, he could have occupied almost the entire top forty.

In recent years, Drake’s singles have been rather less successful than earlier in his career. Even when his songs have achieved high peak positions, they haven’t always stayed in the chart for very long. The three songs from Drake’s new albums to be allowed into the chart all come from Iceman. Janice STFU is at number two, one palace ahead of national treasures. Make The Cry is at number six.

Drake has now accumulated 102 top forty singles since his debut in 2009. Fifty of them have reached the top ten. If he has three songs in next week’s top forty he will have notched up 700 weeks in the broadcast chart. There have been approximately 850 charts since Drake’s first hit.

Michael Jackson's Billie Jean is at number four. Tame Impala is at number five with Dracula. Jackson is also at number eight with Human Nature and number nine with Beat It.

Apart from the Drake songs, there are just two other new entries. The first is by Gracie Abrams. She made her chart debut in 2023 but didn’t enter the top forty until the following year. Her biggest hit to date came later in 2024 when That’s So True went to number one. The song spent a total of eight weeks at the top, having made way for Wham for three weeks part-way through its run. Hit The Wall, a new entry at number eighteen, is her sixth top forty hit.

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Last weekend the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Vienna. The UK entry came last (again) and is nowhere to be seen in this week’s top 100. The only Eurovision song in the top forty is the winner, Bangaranga by Dara at number 21. The Bulgarian entry sounds a little like two songs mashed together. It starts of as a fairly pleasant song until it is spoilt by the Bangaranga bits.

One of the highlights of last week’s chart was the departure of the K-Pop Demon Hunters’ Golden. It spent the latter half of last year in the top forty (including ten weeks at number one), dropped out in the week of the most Christmas-heavy chart, before returning for another long run.  However, it just won’t go away. It is back this week at number 39.

And so we return to Drake and those three albums. Multiple releases of new albums by a single artist are rare. The most famous examples in the past are those by Bruce Springsteen and Guns ‘n’ Roses who both released two new albums on the same day. On both occasions, they occupied the top two positions in the albums chart the following week. Would Drake be able to top that by taking the top three positions?

Thankfully, the answer to the above question is No. That said, one of them, Iceman, is at number one. It was clear by Wednesday’s update that “sales” of Iceman would be more than double the combined sales of the other two albums, Maid Of Honour and Habibti. Those two albums finished at numbers six and seven respectively. Drake has now had seventeen top ten albums, including seven number ones.

The Essential Michael Jackson slips to number two. Olivia Dean climbs back up to number the wih The Art Of Loving. Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide is at number five.

Returning to Eurovision, Freya Skye (now sixteen years old) represented the UK in the junior version of the contest in 2022.She won the public vote but a fifth place finish from the jury meant that she came fifth overall. She has now released her debut album Stardust. It is a new entry at number 35 and is at number one in the Vinyl Albums chart.

London band The Karma Effect get their second top forty album with Intentions at number 39.