18 record-breaking weeks for Rein Me In, 2nd album topper for Gracie Abrams

18 record-breaking weeks for Rein Me In, 2nd album topper for Gracie Abrams

Simon is on holiday in France for a rest and break, hopefully no-one mentions football matches while there!

It's an historic chart week I don't need to research wikipedia for facts and stats because for my entire life the only record to spend 18 weeks on top of the UK singles chart has been Frankie Laine's 1953 smash I Believe, pretty much since the chart began in the early 1950's. There was the excitement around Bryan Adams getting within 2 weeks of catching up in 1991, but no track ever looked likely to beat that even in the streaming era since the introduction of ACR to stop records hogging the top spot forever. But they hadn't counted on the chart legs of Sam Fender and Olivia Dean's nice ballad confounding the chart rules through sheer consistency, much as Everything I Do did in 1991, albeit with pure sales in those days. So they now share the record and there are no signs that they can't continue to break it for the forseeable near future. Maybe a chart-rule change will bring it to an end....!

This is bad news of course for the nearest challengers, first and foremost Shakira and Burna Boy, as Dai Dai rises to 2 following the half-time final concert where she gave it some oomph! Her first UK chart biggie Whenever Wherever also hit 2 back in 2002-ish and pretty big in clubs at the time it was too. The other football tracks all plummet despite England's amazing game against France for the Bronze Fifa medal, and I'm guessing no Argentina songs will be selling in Spain any time soon judging by their behaviour on losing. Everyone else should be streaming Y Viva Espana just to rub it in. Next nearest challenger is ANOTR featuring Ultra 54 and the catchy dance track Talk To You which is up to 3. It would be great if it could make the top spot at some point. Olivia Rodrigo's stupid song bounces back to 4. You're welcome, I just bought it last week.

Another record is turning out to be the US version of Rein Me In - Ella Langley's Choosin' Texas is enjoying it's 14th week on top of the US charts, and like Rein Me In has been kicked off multiple times to bounce back. Rein Me In is yet to break the US top 40 despite months of trying, but Choosin' Texas has been rising gradually, yo-yo-ing and rising again and again all year and now back to her previous peak of 5 while her other great country-ballad Be Her does the same just short of the 40.

There's a lot of rebounding this week as the World Cup ends, and nothing new has come along to fill the football song gaps, but Free Your Mind hits a new peak of 6 for Prospa & Cloonee and there are new peaks for HUGEL, Imael Angel & Ultra Nate's fab Movin' To The Sun at 11, that's Ultra Nate's biggest track since Found A Cure went top 10 in 1998, 30 years on and still charting can't be bad. Stella Lefty also hits a new peak of 15 for Boston, the folk-y song is really amiable and catchy, so it's good to see, and Sienna Spiro has a Great Expectation at number 19. No, not that sort of Expectation. Bloodstream flows up to 23 for Alyssa Grace, presumably not an heir to the Grace Brothers store. Topical 70's sitcom reference there.

Katy Perry takes her number 18 peak 2011 song up to a new post-peak peak of 25. The One That Got Away sort of did at the time, co-incidentally, but has had the last laugh with the new popularity and it did of course top the most important chart in 2011: Mine. There's an actual new entry, for BTS at 36 with Normal, that's wildly fallen short of becoming their 8th top 20 hit, apparently. Ah, well, next time maybe. Finally, there's Noah Kahan in at 40, on a bit of a roll this year, Orbiter off his latest album has taken 9 weeks but it's crept in as an album track which is something Olivia Rodrigo did last week with the fab Honeybee which drops a tad.

Down the lower end there's a load of re-entries to the top 40, most notably Mr Brightside back yet again, it's never far away for The Killers, and just to rub it in that I couldnt get tickets to see Brandon Flowers in concert. How annoying! The last time It was in the top 40 was in 2024, so that was the last time I wistfully recalled giant rats hopping about near St Mary's Stadium in Southampton as I wandered off early from The Killers set with strains of Mr Brightside following me down the road.

Over on albums, Gracie Abrams grabs her 2nd chart-topper in a row with Daughter From Hell, and her 3rd top 3 in a row since debuting in 2023. Had there been charts back in the 1920's and 1920's she could have been said to have followed in the footstes of another Gracie - Our Gracie (Fields). In response to the streaming success 2 of the singles are almost in the 40, Hit The Wall is at 32, and Look At My Life just short at 41, as yet another female singer-songwriter keeps The Essential Michael Jackson at 2, with Olivia Rodrigo hanging in at 3, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love as The Rolling Stones keep those Foreign Tongues wagging at 5, down from the top spot. Olivia Dean's The Art Of Loving is at 4 again.

New entries this week lower down from English band Yard Act at 15, You're Gonna Need A Little Music falling short of making a hat-trick of top 10's, each peaking lower than the previous, their first The Overload peaking at 2 in 2022. BRIT-nominated and MOBO award winner Nia Archives, English DJ and songwriter/producer hit 16 with her debut album Silence Is Loud in 2024. Follow-up Emotional Junglist enters at 30 with a focus on everything "new gen Junglist". Not that I'd know what that is, but new labels and rebrands are always useful for younger fans wanting to not be like the last lot of genre fans.

That leaves Motionless In White, New Jersey Heavy Metal band, to enter at 31 with Decades, easily their highest-placed set and first top 40 slot in the UK in 16 years of album releases. 7th Time Lucky!

Apologies for the delay in posting, stuck in London traffic!