Kendrick Lamar gets a second week at number one. Sam Fender has his third chart-topping album.

Kendrick Lamar holds on for a second week at the top of the singles chart. Sam Fender has the fastest selling album by a British solo artist for a few years.

There was a close race at the top of the singles chart this week with last week’s number one from Kendrick Lamar facing stiff competition from Chappell Roan. The Roan song in question, Pink Pony Club, was released five years ago. However, it made no impact on the chart until last year when it reached number thirteen. This followed the success of Hot To Go and Good Luck Babe which both reached the top five.

Pink Pony Club returned to the chart at the beginning of the year, but only really took off this month (February) when her record company started to promote it as a “new” single. It climbed to number three last week and was in second place behind Kendrick Lamar in the midweek updates but only by a very small margin.

Sadly, Kendrick Lamar was still at the top of the pile at the end of the week, giving Not Like Us a second week at number one. Pink Pony Club climbs to number two.

Selena Gomez gets her 21st top forty hit with Call Me When You Break Up  at number 28. Despite an impressive number of top forty hits, she has yet to make it really big. Indeed, in a fifteen-year career, only five of those songs have made the top ten. Call Me When You Break Up, in its very short running time, also manages to fit in Benny Blanco and Gracie Abrams.

Like Selena Gomez, Tate McRae started the week with five top ten hits to her name. However, McRae has reached that total in well under five years and from ten top forty hits, including her latest I Know Love, a new entry at number 25, a song that features Kid Laroi. Curiously, two of McRae’s top ten hits have peaked at number three; the other three peaked at number eight. One of those number eight songs was Sports Car which drove into the chart in that position last week. This week, it climbs to - guess where? - number three. However, that chart oddity is spoiled for now at least by the presence of new entry Revolving Door at number ten. The phrase “”Revolving Door at number ten” is a good summary of British politics in recent years.

Blackpink member Jennie enters at number 37 with the weirdly-titled ExtraL. She is joined by American rapper Doechii who made her top forty debut this year with the diabolical Denial Is A River. ExtraL is pretty rubbish too. It is Jennie’s third top forty single as lead artist but she has yet to get into the elite top 36. Her biggest hit to date is as a featured artist on The Weeknd’s One Of The Girls.

Regular readers may remember that I have made a number of favourable comments about Irish band Fontaines DC. So far, those comments have all been in the albums chart section. Today, that changes as they reach the top forty singles chart for the first time with It’s Amazing To Be Young at number 39. The song does not appear on their highly successful Romance album which suggests that a deluxe version of the album is on its way. The album gets its nineteenth week in the top forty this week, re-entering at number 36.

When Oasis announced in 199 that they were going to release a 6 ½-minute single, more than a few eyebrows were raised. While the band were very much on the way up, such a long single, complete with a string section, seemed to have the potential to be something of an indulgence. Thankfully, the song in question was the excellent Whatever, still one of their very best singles. It went to number three and spent four weeks in the top ten. Now, just past the song’s thirtieth anniversary, a highly expensive new vinyl version has been released. Sales of the song were enough to see it at the top of the chart in Sunday’s update. However, most streaming data from Saturday is missing from that chart, so a song with high actual sales will always over-perform. By the end of the week, Whatever was at number 36.

In January Imogen Heap got her first top forty hit with a song almost twenty years old, Headlock. Now, in its seventh week in the top forty, it becomes her first top thirty hit by climbing to number 30. Aitch and Boo spent a week at number 40 a few weeks ago with Raving In The Studio. Thankfully, it dropped out the following week. This week it is back at number 22.

One year ago Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things was at number two. This week it climbs to number five.

There are some weeks where it is easy to predict which new release will top the chart, almost regardless of the competition. That was the case this week with the release of Sam Fender’s third album People Watching. His 2019 debut Hypersonic Missiles topped the chart and spent its first nineteen weeks in the top forty. The follow-up Seventeen Going Under (2021) also topped the chart and gave him his first top hit single with the title track which eventually got to number three.

People Watching, then, was released with high expectations. It easily lived up to those expectations, in sales terms at least. It accumulated over 100,000 chart units, more than the combined first-week sales of Hypersonic Missiles and Seventeen Going Under. Its sales were the highest for an album by a British artist since Harry Styles released Harry's House in 2022. Its 43,000 vinyl sales are the highest for a British act this century.

Sam Fender also gets his fifth top forty single with Little Bit Closer at number 24. The title track rebounds thirteen places to number thirteen.

Tate McRae gets her highest position to date in the album chart as her third album So Close To What enters at number two. Her first two albums also reached the top ten.

Pitbull’s greatest Hits album has spent a total of three years in the albums chart without ever polluting the top forty. The announcement of some London shows in the summer (why?) sees the album climb to number 28.

In the week that Fontaines DC finally managed a first top forty single, fellow Dubliners The Murder Capital enter the albums chart at number 31 with Blindness.