Leaderboard

Alex Warren’s Ordinary continues its run at the top of the singles chart into an eleventh week. Just three other songs have had a run of exactly eleven weeks at the top. Slim Whitman’s Rose marie did it in the early years of the chart in 1955. While four songs have subsequently had longer runs, the next song to spend exactly eleven weeks at number one was Dance Monkey by Tones & I in 2019. Ed Sheeran’s Bad Habits (2021) has since matched that run. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club moves back up to number three, swapping places with Ravyn Lenae’s Love Me Not which slips back to number three. Roan’s Good Luck Babe re-enters at number 39 just in time for the resumption of GCSE exams next week. It first entered the chart shortly before last year’s exams. That is the only change in the top five. Sombr’s Undressed is still at number four. Show Me Love by WizTheMC and Bees & Honey remains at number five. As well as extending his run at the top of the singles chart, Alex Warren also has this week’s highest new entry with Bloodline at number nine. The song features rapper Jason DeFord who performs under the moniker Jelly Roll. Yummy. Roll has spent time in jail although he did at least use the time to improve his educational qualifications. Like Warren’s other two non-number one hits, Bloodline is better than ordinary, a song whose huge success continues to baffle many people. Jelly Roll also featured on Machine Gun Kelly's first charting single after changing his name to MGK. Lonely Road reached number 67 last year. Now he gets his first top forty hit since that name change with Cliche at number 31. While many musical cliches have entered the charts over the decades, this is the first time the word has featured in the title of a top forty hit. That said, another Kelly, Kelly Jones, was the featured artist on Manchild’s The Cliches Are True which reached number 60 in 2000. Cousins Max and Luke Dean enter at number nineteen with their debut hit Can’t Decide. They are joined on this housey track by someone called Locky who is another chart debutant. Myles Smith has a new entry at number 32 with Gold. The song is cheerful enough without offering anything terribly different from his previous hits. As well as Good Luck Babe, Gracie Abrams’ That’s So True is also a re-entry, at number 38. Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ Die With A Smile is back at number 37. Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things falls to number ten. In its 33 weeks in the top ten it has now spent at least one week in each position. It has also spent a week at number eleven. Thanks to Jimwatts at Buzzjack for the information that it is the third song to occupy every top ten position after Harry Styles’ As It Was and (over several chart runs) Wham’s Last Christmas. As there is a BBC compilation of their material tonight (Friday), it is worth a reminder that Eurythmics have had one, and only one, song peaking at nine of the top ten positions. Two bands with an album entering the chart this week feature brothers. Many brothers in bands fall into one of two categories. There are those such as the Gallaghers or the Everly Brothers who are constantly at loggerheads. Others maintain a harmonious relationship, even when the band lasts for decades. Sparks definitely fall into the latter category. Ron and Russ Mael formed Halfnelson in 1968. In 1971 they became Sparks and have kept the name ever since. While the line-up of backing musicians has changed many times, the core of the band is still Russ on vocals and Ron as the main songwriter and keyboardist. Two things about Sparks’ new album immediately strike people familiar with their output as typical of the band. First, there’s the title of the album - MAD! The only surprise is that they hadn’t thought of using the title for one of their previous 27 albums. Track one on the album is called Do Things My Own Way, something they have definitely been doing for over half a century. The whole album is remarkably fresh for a band who started their recording career long before anyone in the current singles chart was even born. After enjoying initial success with singles such as the brilliant This This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us, Sparks rather dropped off the radar from the late 1970s. They had a minor hit with When Do I Get To Sing My Way in 1994 and again the following year. Their Lil’ Beethoven album in 2002 received deserved critical acclaim, but further commercial success still eluded them. When Sparks released Hello Young Lovers in 2006, another fantastic album, they played a few shows in the UK where they played the album in full, followed by a second set of songs from their back catalogue. Two years later, they played a series of gigs where they played each of their then 21 albums in full, including songs that they had never played live before. Hello Young Lovers was their first album to chart in the UK for over twenty years, although it sadly missed out on a top forty place. In a belated upturn in fortune, Sparks’ last three studio albums all reached number seven. The fact that this was a fairly quiet week for new releases would have led to optimism in the Sparks camp that MAD! could go even further. That optimism was enhanced when Sparks were at number one in the first midweek update, ahead of other new releases and, more significantly, Sabrina Carpenter’s perennial number two Short ‘n’ Sweet. Wednesday’s update showed them still ahead with their lead over Carpenter almost unchanged. However, with further real sales on Wednesday and Thursday likely to be low for both albums, the question was whether Sparks would pick enough additional streams to hold off against Carpenter. Including streaming in the albums chart was never an easy task. In downplaying streams of the two most popular tracks, the Official Charts Company attempted to avoid albums getting a boost from streams of just a couple very popular tracks. However, they haven’t attempted to distinguish between streams of all - or most - of an album and streams of songs that have been hit singles. That gave Sabrina Carpenter an advantage, even if more people streamed MAD! in full than streamed the whole of Short ‘n’ Sweet. Sadly, Sparks didn’t quite get their first number one album. However, MAD!’s number two makes it their highest charting album, beating the number four peak of Kimono My House way back in 1974. It is at least at number one in the Physical chart as well as the CD and vinyl charts. That means that Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n’ Sweet hits the top for a fifth time. Each previous spell at number one has lasted just a single week. Ed Sheeran’s Tour Collection is at number three while Tate McRae is at number five with So Close To What. The other band of brothers to enter the chart this week are Orbital, the name used by brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll since 1987. The band has split and reformed several times, including one split before they had achieved any success. Following the example set by Peter Gabriel, but calling a halt a little earlier, they called both of their first two albums eponymously. They became known as the Green and Brown albums. For no obvious reason, they have released a deluxe edition of their second (Brown) album 32 years after its initial release. Still, it provided a good excuse to listen to it again. The album originally reached number 28. This version is at number thirteen. Just as an aside, it should be mentioned that Sparks played on a song called Acid Pants (a very Sparks-like title) on Orbital’s final album. My O Level Geography lessons from many years ago taught me that the palace where rivers meet is called a confluence, as long as the rivers are of similar size. A look at Google Maps tells me that that (sort of) happens at Brightlingsea in Essex. That, then, may have led to a band from that town calling themselves When Rivers Meet. Or perhaps not. Regardless, they are at number four with their fifth album Addicted To You. One of the consequences of going to a large number of gigs, particularly before the internet, is that you get to see a lot of awful support acts. Even if you know you don’t like the act, they might be playing between two acts you do want to see. That is how I have seen Skunk Anansie more times than I would have liked. They, along with Texas, went on to enjoy significant success without my ever feeling tempted to buy any of their material. They are at number seven with The Painful Truth, their first album for nine years and a new high for the band in the albums chart. Among the bands I willingly saw many times in the 1990s were Stereolab, fronted by French singer Laetitia Sadier. Sadly, songs such as French Disco and Superelectric failed to become the big hits that they should have been. They have just released their first new album after a fifteen-year gap. Instant Holograms On Metal Foil, their eleventh studio album, is their fourth to reach the top forty as a new entry at number 29. Sports Team, formed at Cambridge University, have their third top forty album (from three releases) with Boys These Days. While the first track sounds a little like The Blow Monkeys, it improves significantly from there. The album is at number eleven, a disappointment after the two previous albums reached the top three. Louise Redknapp is at number eight with Confessions, her first top ten album since a Best Of compilation in 2001. Her last studio album to reach the top ten was Woman In Me in 1997.

Alex Warren holds at 1 on the Single Track chart, and The Lottery Winners lucky number comes up in albums. That number is 1. Alex Warren makes it week number 2 at number one for Ordinary, a great ballad with gospel choir touches, making it the first time since Kate Bush was Running back Up That Hill that my personal chart and the Official Chart have the same number one. Alex’s previous good hits also get a boost with Carry You Home at a new peak of 10 (and his second top 10 hit) and Burning Down is up to 23. It’s neck and neck on streaming “sales” for Chappell Roan and Doechii at 2 and 3 - except that Chappell’s The Giver has dropped from 2 to 5 and her Pink Pony rears back up to leap over Gotye. Sorry, I mean Doechii’s Anxiety. Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things, meanwhile, really don’t know when to confess they have lost their sparkle after a year clogging up the charts at 4, though his much fresher Harry-Styles-ish Sorry I’m Here For Someone Else is back up, to a new peak of 24, which is good news. The upper end of the chart is otherwise giving me a sense of Groundhog Day, bar Gaga’s relatively newie Abracadabra, until one gets down to a climber for WizTheMc & bees & honey who want to Show Me Love at 14. Using commas instead of ampersands will be enough, thanks, mates. Drake is up to a new peak of 12 with NOKIA. I have literally, as I type this, just had 3 calls from a random woman claiming I rang her and wanting to know why. I have made zero calls on my mobile today, and that incident is only marginally less annoying than a new Drake track wittling on about himself and the trials of being rich and famous. Lots of famous rich people give it all up for a less stressful life. Just saying. Ravyn Lenae sounds like a club under the arches in London, but the American singer is very much not a dancehall. Love Me Not is up to a new peak of 19, and it sounds like a decent r'n'b tinged pop record, with a vocal that really is quite pleasant. Lil Tecca meanwhile has Dark Thoughts at 20, climbing up from 30. Given the furore about the seven dwarfs in Snow White, I’m surprised anyone still feels the need to re-re-re-re-use the term “Lil” unless that is Lil as short for Lillian. I just googled. It’s not. Tyler-Justin Sharpe is a perfectly good name for a rapper/singer and this track despite the obligatory autotune is fairly decent. New entry: Leon Thomas debuts at 26 with MUTT. I love dogs, and records featuring them - Who let the dogs out! Ruff Mix! He’s A Tramp! Mutt Lange! Leon is an American soul-singer-songwriter, and is something of a throwback to earlier decades in the musical roots department, which comes as a nice surprise to this old Soul fan. I’ll forgive the B word, as it might be about another dog not his ex. Ely is a great old Biblical name which one of my great-great-uncles had, so nice to see it back in vogue up two place to 36 with Ely Oaks taking dance track Runnin’ Around into the charts. Ely is from Austria, and I’m not entirely sure my great-great-uncle would have enjoyed this OK track being as he was more likely to have been singing along to The Pirates Of Penzance in the 19th century. That leaves Adele's Hometown Glory oldie up two to 29 and 2 re-entries, Olivia Dean's Bridget Jones track is back at 40 and Sonny Fodera and Clementine Douglas' Tell Me at 39. I get very nostalgic for 1960's USA when I hear names like Sonny & Clementine are now back in fashion. ********************************* In the album charts, it’s straight in on top for The Lottery Winners with these-days decent sales of over 11,000 for KOKO, almost all of them paid-for. Streamers might not be fans, but the band is good and the current and previous singles You Again (with the fabulous Reverend And The Makers) and current Radio 2 A/B list Turn Around, both great. Their previous studio album, Anxiety Replacement Therapy, topped the album chart two years ago and it’s their 4th top 40 album in 5 years. Guests on the album include Shed Seven, who recently dropped the fabulous single Waiting For The Catch, Frank Turner, and the very unexpected Chad Kroeger of Nickelback fame/infamy (delete as appropriate). The latter song is Ragdoll, not to be confused with the Four Seasons classic and is clearly the best track Chad has been on in 20 years. The number 3 slot is comfortably grabbed by Deacon Blue, 36 years into their album chart career. The Scottish band had a long run of hit singles from 1987 through to the mid-90’s and recent airplay from Radio 2 as well has helped a bit of a revival for their best material in 30 years. They last topped the album chart in 1988 with When The World Knows Your Name, but The Great Western Road gets them a highest chart position in 34 years and keeps up their ongoing revival in fortune in the 2020’s in terms of radio-friendly 80’s-referring good singles, not least Late ’88 and current fave Turn Up Your Radio. It’s also their 11th top 40 album, they’ve never flopped, and their 5th top 10. Sabrina Carpenter is holding at 2 with her ever-present Short n’ Sweet, the recent addition of new tracks not hurting one iota, while Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco have an unlikely collaboration on the heels of recent minor hit single Call Me When You Break Up (with added Gracie Adams) and the current excellent Sunset Blvd which deserves to be a huge hit, but probably won’t be. I Said I Love You First enters at 4 to become Selena’s 4th studio album in 12 years, and only the second to go top 10. Quite apart from her music career, I love her in the fabulous Only Murders In The Building with Steve Martin and Martin Short and a host of famous names. Benny Blanco has had quite the career as music producer/songwriter since 2008 and artist since 2018 but no previous charting albums under his own name. Hit collaborations include quality pop like Hot ‘n’ Cold, Teenage Dream, California Gurls and I Kissed A Girl (Katy Perry), Dynamite (Taio Cruz), Moves Like Jagger (Maroon 5), Diamonds (Rihanna) some Ed Sheeran monsters, and just about everybody significant in the music industry since 2008. So he’s quite good then! Lady Gaga’s Mayhem, not to be confused with Imelda May’s Mayhem, may, ahem, be the first or second-best album with that title. I haven’t decided yet, but I did buy the lovely Imelda’s album after seeing her in concert and having a chat while she signed her debut album for me. Gaga, to date, hasn’t been too fussed about having a chat with me. It’s her loss, clearly! Anyway Gaga is at 5, and the next new entry is at 16 for The Horrors. My old mucker John used to greet stress at work with an impression of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now: “The. Horror!” and that’s what I always think of when I hear their name. Night Life is the Sarfend-on-Sea band’s 6th studio album since 2007 and the 4th to go top 20. Lower down the top 40, Alex Warren just scrapes in with his album You’ll Be Alright Kid (Chapter 1) debuting at 30, no doubt from all the streaming success of the 3 singles rather than belated physical sales, and the rest of the chart is comprised of albums plummeting, streaming hit compilations albums grabbing a one millionth week on the chart collectively (note: Maths may not be a strong point) and Teddy Swims’ I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy Parts 1 and 2 and presumably to be joined by 3 and 4 at some stage.

Chappell Roan remains at the top of the singles chart. Lady Gaga gets her fifth number one album. Having climbed to the top of the singles chart last week, Chappell Roan remains at number one with her Pink Pony Club. It therefore avoids becoming the first one-week number one since Gigi Perez’s Sailor Song four months ago. Alex Warren climbs one place to number two with Ordinary. The release of Lady Gaga’s new album helps Abracadabra climb three places to number three, matching its previous peak. She also climbs back up to number eighteen with Die With A Smile (assisted by Bruno Mars) and has a new entry at number 23 with Garden Of Eden. That becomes her 32nd top forty single. Four versions of a song called Garden Of Eden were in the charts in January 1957. That would have made for a rather repetitive Chart Show if one had existed at the time. Last week Sleepy Hallow had a new entry with Anxiety, featuring vocals from Doechii who released a solo version of the song in 2019. That version falls one place to number sixteen this week. However, it has triggered renewed interest in the original version which is a new entry at number four. Thankfully, it is so much better than Denial Is A River that it’s hard to believe they are by the same singer. Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things falls one place to number five. Blackpink member Jennie’s singles chart record so far has been rather underwhelming (thankfully). This week she gets her fourth solo top forty single as the lead artist. By entering at number 36, Like Jennie has already outperformed the three previous hits. Much as I dislike the song, it seems rather odd that the Radio 1 chose not to play it on the Chart Show. Surely all new entries should be played unless there is no version suitable for a play on teatime radio. Australian-born Sonny Fodera gets his fourth top forty hit with Tell Me at number 39. The song is graced with vocals from Clementine Douglas who also feature on Fodera’s number seven hit Asking in 2023. Teddy Sims has a re-entry at number 35 after a four-week absence. Lady Gaga’s career has been a near constant success.Her debut single Just Dance was the first of six number one singles and all but one of her studio albums has topped the chart. She has also had two top ten albums with veteran singer Tony Bennett. With her continued success in the singles chart, one not enjoyed by many artists who first entered the chart as long as sixteen years ago, her new album Mayhem was always likely to top the chart. OK, it has to be said. A few weeks ago, the top of the singles chart was Messy; now there is Mayhem at the top of the albums chart. As predicted last week (not that it was hard), Sabrina Carpenter’s latest run at number one with Short ‘n’ Sweet lived up to the album’s title once again. It is back at number two for a seventeenth week in the runner-up position. Its five weeks away from the number two opposition is its longest so far. Carpenter released her debut album, Emails I Can’t Send, in 2022. It spent a week at number 76. It returned to the chart last year after she finally started to achieve significant success, eventually getting to number 41 in June. This week it finally makes it into the top forty at number 40. The arrival of a new single from Jennie in the top forty coincides with the release of her debut solo album. Ruby is a new entry in the albums chart at number three. Tate McRae is at number four with So Close To What. Sam Fender’s People Watching is at number five. Lady Gaga is a very long way from being the oldest act to have a new entry this week. That honour falls to folk-rock band Jethro Tull who formed in 1967 and had their first top forty album the following year. Ian Anderson is the only remaining founder member of the band. Curious Ruminant, at number 25, is their 26th top forty album. Just one of those album’s 1969’s Stand Up, went all the way to the top. Many bands, including Jethro Tull, have split up and then re-formed. Rather fewer bands do it as often as The Wildhearts. They were formed in Newcastle in 1989. When they split up in 2022, it was the fourth time they had done so. Now they are back yet again and have released a new album. Satanic Rites Of The Wildhearts enters at number 26 to give them a sixth top forty album. Hot Wax was the name of a record company formed by the legendary songwriting partnership of Holland-Dozier-Holland when they broke away from Motown. HotWax, on the other hand, are a rock band from Hastings. Their debut album, Hot Shock, is at number 38. They appear to be the first charting act from the East Sussex coastal town. The partying there should go on all night.

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.

Simon is still enjoying hols and in the charts Chappell Roan’s The Subway is her 2nd chart-topper while in albums Renee Rapp gets a first number one. The Subway dropped and immediately headed the chart updates during the week, Chappell Roan having quite the pent-up demand since her 2024 breakthrough as material as old as 5 years filtered through to mass popularity following Good Luck Babe finally getting her that break. Notably Pink Pony Club hit the UK top spot 5 years late, making The Subway her first chart-topper with new material. The video shows her on the Subway doing a Cousin Itt impression which should be a good enough reason for anybody to stream it. This was bad news for the still-popular Golden - HUNTR/X, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI & KPop Demon Hunters Cast are shoved down to 2 while the other two Demon Hunters songs both climb too, meanwhile, as the boy demons singing Soda Pop climb to 6 as Your Idol climbs to 8 for a hat trick of top 10‘s. There likely would be even more in the top 40 were it not for the 3-song-limit, send any thanks to Ed Sheeran for that. For the record, the acts on both are: Saja Boys, Andrew Choi, Neckwav, Danny Chung, Kevin Woo, samUIL Lee & KPop Demon Hunters Cast. If only Betty Boo could do a collab with Kevin Woo just so I can enjoy the artist credit. Featuring LaRoux, please. Justin Beiber is down to 3 with his Daisies as Yukon climbs to a new peak of 24, and Dior slides to 4 for MK and Chrystal. Disco Lines & Tinashe are up to 5 with No Broke Boys and the other slots in the top 10 are dropping tracks Manchild at 7, Blessings at 9 and Sapphire at 10. Outside the top 10, sombr makes it 4 top 20’s as the good 12 to 12 is up 12 places to 19, and Oasis enter at 31 with Slide Away replacing last week’s 3rd-placed Oasis track re-entry Wonderwall, the first chart appearance for the track therefore gives Oasis a 28th top 40 hit 31 years since it appeared on Definitely Maybe, though it was also on B sides of big hits in the olden days when B sides could contribute to physical sales. The album is at 6 this week, 3rd of 3 for Oasis in the top 10. Lola Young’s D£aler is up one to 33 and Coldplay reach a new peak with another vintage album track, Sparks at 36. On albums, Renee Rapp enters at 1 with BITE ME, with around 10,000 physical sales. Renee (no accents on the final “e” on my laptop, sorry Renee!) is a 25-year-old US singer-songwriter and actor, who has starred in Broadway shows and now reaches the top with her second album, Snow Angel having peaked at 7 2023. Oasis ain’t shifting from 2 and 3 with their Time Flies compilation and Morning Glory, and that leaves Alex Warren hanging in at 4 with You’ll Be Alright Kid. Or if it were an Oasis album You’ll Be Ahright ah kid. Back into the top 5 we have Fleetwood Mac 50 Years: Don’t Stop, which is how long I expect the (admittedly great) Hits album to be charting. Richard Hawley returns at 16 with his classic album Coles Corner getting a new peak chart placing after inexplicably peaking at 37 first time out. Presumably it’s a 20th anniversary version and one to check out if the Mercury-nominated album is unfamiliar. Coles Corner is historically a meeting place for lovers in Sheffield. It’s not as romantic as it sounds as it’s named after a department store that has gone the way of most department stores. Thank you Amazon. Maybe someone can release an album called Amazon Parcel Pick-Up Point Near The Bingo Hall for our local equivalent. You can pick up the other half and your latest parcel for a Twofer. Not quite as romantic sounding though. Roger Waters, he once of Pink Floyd, is back in new at 20 with a live album “Roger Waters: This Is Not a Drill - Live from Prague”. Having one’s name in the title makes it sound like one is talking to oneself, which may or not be the case these days, but it is his 3rd live album to make the top 40, adding to his 58-year career including Pink Floyd albums. It’s also his 8th top 40 including studio albums going back to 1984, the last of which was a remake of Dark Side Of The Moon in 2023. New in at 31 Cian Ducrot has Little Dreaming. I’ve seen the name around a lot but Haven’t really been aware of the career - he’s an Irish Singer-songwriter who arrived via Tik Tok in 2022, and a number one album in the UK with Victory, but album 2 is a bit more modest in name and chart position. Finally, Ozzy Osbourne’s The Essential is back in at 40 to join the Black Sabbath Ultimate Collection at 36 inside the top 40. My next epistle will be from Playa Del Ingles, late booking. Que tal, chicos! Manyana!

Justin Bieber gets an 8th Number One single and Alex Warren gets a first number one album Simon est en vacances, Bon Voyage Simon! Meanwhile in the UK, Dior almost hung on for a 3rd week at Number One (other fashion brands are available) for MK featuring Chrystal, though at the weekend a mere 800 copies were between Justin Biebers’ Daisies rising to 2 and Alex Warren’s Eternity entering at 3. In the event Justin scored his 8th number one with Daisies ten years on from his first and his first this decade. I’m hearing it for the first time right now, and it’s rather pleasant - and I’m thankful it’s not the other Daisy song I know, as sung by the malfunctioning computer HAL in 2001: A Space Oddysey as it was being lobotomised after committing murder. Justin’s other 2 album tracks dropped this week along with the album, while Alex Warren possibly might have been setting a new singles chart-record had Ordinary not been knocked down to 7 due to ACR. His new album track, Eternity enters at 3, Bloodline, also on the new album, re-enters at 19 with Jelly Roll. The latter has more oomph to it than Eternity, which was last troubling the top end of the charts as a lacklustre song title from Robbie Williams in 2004. Mk and Chrystal are at 2. Sabrina Carpenter drops to 5 with Manchild and the KPop movie Demon Hunters cast alongside HUNTR/X, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI on Golden climb to 4. My Great Niece loves that movie and the songs. Makes a change from the fab APT I guess, (which coincidentally is back in at 40) but anyone older than 6 may have other views, or they may not! Your Idol, from the same film, climbs to 14 and the 3rd title from the film is replaced by another track this week: Soda Pop new in at 17. The Latter two tracks have the official marathon billing: Saja Boys, Andrew Choi, Neckwav, Danny Chung, Kevin Woo, samUIL Lee & KPop Demon Hunters Cast, Uncle Tom Cobbley & All. Outside the top 5 Ed Sheeran’s Sapphire also drops a tad to 9 as Lewis Capaldi survives one more week at 10, leaving Fred Again.., Skepta & PlaqueBoyMax taking that Victory Lap a little too soon at 8, dropping along with the PlaqueBoyMax may wish to change his toothpaste and just go by Max as he goes on. At 6, Calvin Harris & Clementine Douglas drop from 3. Other tracks peaking include Disco Lines & Tinashe up to 12, which take me back to the 70’s when discos had lines and I had a Tache. ‘Taches are back in fashion, if Benson Boone is any guide, and his Beautiful Things up to 11 feels like it’s been around since the late 70’s while his fabulous Mystical Magical is sadly dropping out much too soon. The chart rules are often mysterious. Oasis are affected by the 3-track-rule as Wonderwall returns at 27 after many previous chart runs dating back to 1995 and increasing the number of unique years it has appeared inside the top 75 to 6. Acqiuesce exits after 2 weeks on the chart. Funny old chart rule as tracks come and go then come back again. Some Might Say it’s nonsense, but some might Roll With It. I just stress The Importance Of Being Idle. There is one other re-entry this week, as Sammy Virji & Skepta take Cops & Robbers back to its previous peak of 39. Finally, Ozzy Osbourne passed away this week, the original voice of Black Sabbath coming back to global celebrity in the early 2000’s with his family reality show. Loveable to many, and a rapscallion to some, Ozzy always did things his own way right to the end and his final Home-ground concert 2 weeks ago despite not being at all well. There could be no better tribute than seeing Paranoid rapidly enter the top 40 for a third time, first in 1970 when it peaked at 4 for the Sabbath, then again in 1980 hitting number 14, and now a hat-trick at 32 55 years on from debuting as a monster Metal anthem. The Ultimate Black Sabbath meanwhile re-enters at 22 on the album chart, just 2 places lower than its previous peak of 20. R.I.P. Ozzy. Alex Warren has released an extended version of his long-running 2024 EP You’ll Be Alright Kid Part 1. So it is now essentially a double album with new tracks to add to the hits from the EP, giving it the push it needed to get a serious attempt at the top spot. Job done? By Wednesday it was holding off the triple Oasis threat remaining in the top 5 as last weeks new entries tumble, and the new album from Tyler The Creator. It was a close thing, but in the end it was Alex Warren that edged out on top. Tyler got his 8th top 40 album with Don’t Tap The Glass not quite able to get a second number one album following on from Chromakopia in 2024, new in at 2 in his decade-long chart career. That leaves Time Flies at 3, and the first two studio albums for Oasis at 4 and 5. It’s amazing what a reunion can do for back catalogue sales! Elsewhere in the top 40, Joe Bonamassa is on his 10th solo top 40 studio album in 16 years, and 20th overall including live albums and collaborations as Breakthrough enters at 38, which is pretty consistent for an act that is largely based on word of mouth and live tours, not troubling singles charts or radio or television that much. Lower down new entries for Welsh Band Panic Shack on their debut album of the same name at 32 and Lewisham rapper Jim Legxacy on afrobeats Mixtape black british music (2025) new at 29. See you next week!

MK and Chrystal’s single Dior spends a second week at number one. Lewis Capaldi's Survive therefore remains the only 2025 number one to spend just seven days at the top. Only two other songs have been single-week number ones in the last twelve months. Sabrina Carpenter’s Manchild remains at number two. She has accumulated a total of fourteen weeks at number two to add to her 23 weeks at number one in the singles chart giving her a total of almost nine months in the top two since June last year. Calvin Harris and Clementine Douglas climb three places to number three with Blessings. It is Harris’s 25th top five hit and Douglas’s first. Her first chart hit was as a featured artist on an MK song. Justin Bieber sprang a surprise last week by releasing a new album. Surprise album releases are always a risk. Part of the risk is that they will come without any single releases to build up momentum before the album is released. Predictably, three songs from the album (the most allowed in the chart by one artist under current rules) are in the top forty. Unusually though, one of them is much higher than the other two. That song is Daisies which is a new entry at number four. Yukon is at number 32, one place ahead of All I Can Take. Bieber has now had 60 top forty singles, 28 of them reaching the top ten. The charting songs just happen to be the first three tracks on the album. The fact that third track Yukon is not very good (the other two are decent enough) perhaps put casual listeners off hearing any more of it. Ed Sheeran’s Sapphire climbs four places to a new peak at number five. There is just one other new entry to report. Sadly, it’s more K-Pop, this time in the form of a new single from Blackpink. Jump is their first single for two years and it is a new entry at number eighteen. Their only single to chart higher was a collaboration with Lady Gaga which reached number seventeen. Still on the subject of K-Pop, Golden from the soundtrack of a film about it climbs into the top ten at number nine. After three weeks of declining streams, two songs with long runs in the top ten have gone on to the Accelerated Chart Ratio (ACR). With the value of their streams now halved, the songs have been banished from the upper tier. Ravyn Lenae’s Love Me Not has crashed nineteen places to number 22 after thirteen weeks in the top ten. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club slums 25 places to number 30 after a massive 22 weeks in the top ten. Alex Warren’s thirteen-week number one Ordinary has been on ACR for four weeks but is still picking up enough streams to remain in the top ten. In the music industry the Isle Of Wight is generally better known for its festival than for its musicians. The only bands of note from the island are Level 42 and, more recently, Wet Leg. The latter band topped the chart in 2022 with their eponymous debut album. Now they have done so again with their second set Moisturizer. While I haven’t yet heard the whole album, I have found the tracks I’ve heard so far rather disappointing. There are still three Oasis albums in the top five and they all fall one place this week. The Time Flies compilation is now at number two, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory is at three and debut album Definitely Maybe is at five.The band has now spent 162 weeks in the top ten of the albums chart and 1,001 weeks in the top forty. If anyone has a list of artists with 1,000 or more weeks in the top forty albums, perhaps they would like to share it with us. Completing the top five is the aforementioned album by Justin Bieber, Swag, at number four. It is his seventh top ten album. Those albums have spent a total of 55 weeks in the top ten. After a short absence, the person who writes the Official Chart Company’s albums chart summary has chosen to remind us of his or her fondness of the word multihyphenate. This time s/he has used it to describe Burna Boy. As in the past, its use is a bit of a stretch as all his listed talents are in the music industry. A true multihyphenate might for example, be a successful songwriter / performer as well as being an acclaimed actor and writing as best-selling novel. Anyway, Burna Boy is at number six with No Sign Of Weakness. While she has been absent from the singles chart for some time, Amy McDonald is still capable of making it into the albums chart. The Scottish singer has reached the top ten with every studio album and she continues that run with Is This What You’ve Been Waiting For at number eight. We have heard a lot recently about how Teddy Swims. However, Scottish DJ and producer Joshua Mainnie would like to inform us that Barry Can’t Swim. Loner, his second studio album under that moniker, is at number ten. It will already have become clear to regular readers that Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n’ Sweet has dropped out of the top five after a record-breaking 46 weeks. In fact, the number of high new entries and the endurance of three Oasis albums means that it has dropped out of the top ten. It stands at number eleven this week. There are two other new entries in the top forty. Let God Sort Em Out, a collaboration between Clipse, Pusha T and Malice, is at number sixteen. Californian singer-songwriter Giveon is at number 38 with Beloved. Now that the school holiday has begun, I will be heading for France next week to enjoy some sunshine (I hope). Therefore, for the next four weeks, Popchartfreak will be delivering his alternative chart commentary.

Regular readers will know, or will have guessed, that I write at least some of a week’s commentary before the chart is unveiled on Friday. In particular, I might write about the number ones in one or both charts. If the race is close, I have two main choices. I can write two alternative versions. When the chart was announced on a Sunday (and that last happened ten years ago), I would often write two alternative versions. That has become more difficult with the chart being unveiled on a weekday. My tactic now tends to be a little different. I can write paragraphs about each of the contenders, including the significance of each of them getting to number one. Then, when the final outcome is announced on Radio 1, I can just write a short paragraph saying what has happened. That strategy works reasonably well when there are two contenders for number one. It becomes rather more awkward when there are four. That made things difficult this week when the top four were separated by only around 2,000 sales. Clearly, I am not going to write 24 different versions to allow for each possible permutation. So, let’s stick with the other alternative. One of the contenders, although it was in third place on Monday, was last week’s number one, Lewis Capaldi’s Survive. He spent seven weeks at number one with Someone You Loved, but each of his four subsequent chart-toppers spent just a week each at number one. By Wednesday’s update, it looked very likely that Survive would be a fifth seven-day wonder as it had fallen to number four. The song in pole position on both Monday and Wednesday was last week’s number two, Dior by MK featuring Chrystal. If it finished the week still at the top of the pile, it would be a first number one for both artists. This would be a particularly impressive achievement for MK whose first chart entry came in 1995, although he didn’t reach the top forty until the same song, Always, reached number twelve. Also in contention was Sabrina Carpenter’s Manchild. Two of her three number one singles last year had two spells at number one in their chart run, and all three spent at least four weeks at the top. Two of those songs were at numbers one and two last week. Manchild’s performance to date, then, is modest by comparison. The fourth possibility has spent nineteen weeks in the top forty so far, more than the other three combined. Ravyn Lenae’s Love me Not has spent four weeks at number two, but by last week it was at number four. Could it finally climb to the top in its twentieth week in the top forty? So, what happened? MK duly gets that first number one in a thirty-year chart career as Dior climbs three places to the top. Sabrina Carpenter climbs to number two with Manchild. Ravyn Lenae spends its twentieth week in the top forty at number three. Lewis Capaldi gets another seven-day number one as Survive drops to number four. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club remains tethered at number five. It’s just as well there was an exciting contest at the top of the chart as there is a distinct lack of brand new songs in the top forty. To make it even more boring, the sole brand new song is the 97th top forty hit from Drake, What Did I Miss? I can’t speak for anyone else, but I missed a large part of the “song” as I couldn’t bear it any longer. It is at number 27. Last week’s list of new album releases was very short. A cunning record company could have looked at the list and changed the release date for one of their relatively unknown artists in the hope that they would bag the number one. However, none of them did so. That has left us with a top four comprising three albums from the same band and an album that has taken up permanent residence in the top five. The final outcome highlighted one of the issues many people have with the way streams contribute to the albums chart. A single stream of a song can contribute to three different chart entries. It contributes to the song’s standing in the singles chart, the studio album on which it appeared (if any), and a Greatest Hits-type album (if any). In the wake of their first gigs since their acrimonious split, it is not surprising that the most-streamed Oasis songs are from their first two albums, and that many of those songs also appear on their Time Flies compilation released in 2010. The track listing of Time Flies is heavily biased towards those two albums, meaning that streams of that whole album will contribute significantly towards both those parent albums and Time Flies. That helps to explain why Time Flies is the most popular Oasis album in the chart this week and it has gone all the way to the top. It went to number one when it was released. Fifteen years later, it finally gets a second week at the top. Their debut album Definitely Maybe clocked up its 600th week in the full chart (top 100) last week. Like Time Flies, it only spent one week at the top when it was released. That album had to wait thirty years for a second week at the top last year. It is at number four this week. Oasis’s biggest album in chart terms is their second set (What’s The Story) Morning Glory. Once again, it initially topped the chart for one week. However, it went on to spend a total of ten weeks at number one between its debut in October 1995 and March the following year. It has spent104 more weeks (two years) in the chart than Definitely maybe. Returning, briefly, to the singles chart, note that I specifically referred to brand new songs. There is another new entry, but it isn’t a new song. Acquiesce by Oasis, the song in question, was originally the b-side of Some Might Say, the band’s first number one single. As with many Oasis b-side, it could easily have been a single in its own right but only appeared on an album when they released Masterplan, a collection of b-sides. In their comeback shows it has been the second song in their set, following the predictable opening song Hello. As one of thew few songs where the Gallagher brothers share the lead vocals, it was a logical choice to be part of the set opening. It now makes its chart debut at number seventeen. It is the band’s 27th top forty hit. The song was certified platinum (300,000 “sales“) just three months ago. Now it leaves the list of songs that have been certified platinum without ever making the top forty. Thanks to DanielCarey at Buzzjack for that information. Two other Oasis tracks return to the top forty, and they are both higher than the Drake new entry. Justice! Live Forever became Oasis’s first top ten hit when it reached number ten in 1994. Following the announcement of new dates last year, it returned to the top forty at a nwe peak of number eight. It is back again at number nineteen. Another Oasis number one, Don’t Look Back In Anger returned to the chart in 2017 when it became an unofficial Manchester anthem following the terrorist attack at an Ariana Grande concert in the city. It was also one of the songs that returned last year and now returns at number eighteen. Sabrina Carpenter prevents Oasis filling up the whole to three. Her Short ‘n’ Sweet album is at number three. Ed Sheeran’s Mathematics Tour Collection is at number five. As a proud pedant, I regard a self-titled album to be one where the artist has chosen the title rather than leaving it for someone else to do. An album that sheares its name with that of the artist is eponymous. However, Kate Tempest's new album is literally self-titled. That is what it is called. It is this week’s sole new entry at number 25. This week’s anniversary edition is of Hard-Fi’s 2005 debut Stars Of CCTV. The album originally went to number one, as did its successor Once Upon A Time In The West. Sadly, they released just one more album (which reached number nine) before splitting up. The new edition is at number eighteen.

Whatever you may think of Lewis Capaldi’s music, it is surely hard as a fellow human being not to sympathise with him for his experience at Glastonbury two years ago. His Tourette’s syndrome forced him to abandon his set. This year, he chose to play his first live show since then at the same venue and he wowed the audience in a way many of his critics may be reluctant to acknowledge. Oh, and his first cousin once removed, former Doctor Peter Capaldi, joined Franz Ferdinand for Take Me Out in a genuine surprise appearance. Just for the record, Capaldi had enjoyed a highly successful acting career before becoming the twelfth Doctor. Where was I? I seem to have got distracted, just for a change. Ah yes, Lewis Capaldi. His Glastonbury appearance just happened to coincide with the release of a new single, Survive. Isn’t it amazing how these things work out? Coverage of his first live appearance for two years and a bunch of CD copies have combined to give Capaldi a sixth number one single. His debut album, Divinely Inspired To A Hellish Extent is back in the top forty at number fifteen. It was released in 2019, spending ten weeks at number one, and was last in the top forty in April last year. This is its 248th week inthe top forty. Dior by MK featuring Chrystal is still at number two. Sabrina Carpenter’s manchild falls to number three after a second non-consecutive week at number one. Ravyn Lenae is down one place to number four with Love Me Not. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club is still at number five. It has been in the top five since the middle of February, a run of 21 weeks. Alex Warren’s first new song to be released after Ordinary’s marathon run at number one was ended by the application of chart rules might have been expected to be a high new entry. However, On My Mind enters at a rather modest number 37. It features Rosé which could have been bad news. Thankful, this song is a vast improvement on Apt. It is many years since I went to the cinema. The last film I saw there was The Imitation Game. One of the types of film least likely to tempt me back would be a K-Pop film. It is safe to say that I am not part of the target audience for K-Pop Demon Hunters. The song How It’s Done by Huntr/X, Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami does nothing to change that. The number of people who disagree with me and have streamed it makes it a new entry at number 40. How It’s Done is not the only thing from K-Pop Demon Hunters to enter the chart this week. There is more. Eek. Your Idol by (take a deep breath) Saja Boys, Andrew Choi, Neckwav, Danny Chung, Kevin Woo, samUIL Lee (yes, really) and K-Pop Demon Hunters Cast is at number 34. I assume Uncle Tom Cobley and all were unavailable. Huntr/X, Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami do their lack of magic again on Golden which is at number 31. With all of the BTS members having completed their compulsory military service, they have promised a new album for next year. Oh joy. Among the many non-movers in the top forty this week is Lola Young’s One Thing. It has spent four of the last five weeks at number nineteen. It has become part of the Glastonbury tradition that there will be a few slots across the weekend designated either as TBA (To Be Announced) or by the use of an obviously fake band name. Some of the acts are a genuine surprise, while other names have been widely guessed before the festival gets underway. For example, it was no surprise that the band billed as Patchwork turned out to be Pulp. Note that the “denials” were very much along the lines of the “We have no plans to…” non-denial used by politicians. Obviously, Pulp were brilliant. Lewis Cpaldi’s set was also not on the original schedule. The earliest non-surprise was an appearance by Lorde, a riff from whose song Green Light was used to introduce the BBC’s Glastonbury coverage some years ago. She used her appearance to play her new album, Virgin, in full, an unusual way to use a festival appearance. It is more common to use it as a chance to do something akin to a greatest hits set, but why waste a golden opportunity to plug a new album? As with Lewis Capaldi, the free promotion of a Glastonbury slot has benefitted Lorde immensely. Although her previous three releases have all reached the top five, Virgin becomes her first album to top the chart. What Was That, a single from the album re-enters the top forty at number 35. It reached number eleven in May. Many people used the enforced extra spare time given by measures to protect thee population against Covid to learn new skills. Bruce Springstten used the time to trawl through his vast archive of unreleased songs. He released one such collection back in 1998 which covered material recorded before 1983. His new collection, Tracks II: The Lost Albums covers the period from 1983 to 2018. As the title suggests, the seven-CD set is not just a random collection of songs. Springsteen has arranged the songs effectively to create seven separate albums. Despite the inevitably high cost (although a single-CD highlights collection is also available), the album has made it to number two. Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n’ Sweet is at number three in its 45th consecutive week in the top five. It was already the longest consecutive run in the top five for a studio album. Now it is also the longest run for a solo album, beating Elvis Presley’s GI Blues soundtrack album. Ed Sheeran’s Tour collection is at number four. London-born, US-based, self-proclaimed Scot Rod Stewart filled Glastonbury’s popular Legends slot on Sunday afternoon. Guess what? He just happened to release a new hits compilation last week. What are the chances? Despite the fact that hits compilations are a bit redundant in the streaming age, Ultimate Hits is at number five. Oasis’s long-awaited live comeback starts this weekend in Cardiff. Their hits compilation Time Flies is at number six. Definitely Maybe is at number 26 and (What’s The Story) Morning Glory is at number fourteen. Veteran singer Barbra Streisand just about sneaks a 30th top forty album. The Secret Of Life: Partners Volume Two is at number 40. It is a collection of duets featuring singers such as Paul McCartney, Mariah Carey and Sting.

After being dislodged from number one last week by the return of Alex Warren’s Ordinary, Sabrina Carpenter’s Manchild returns the compliment by going back to the top this week. Three of Carpenter’s number one singles have now returned to the summit after being toppled. It used to be a rarity for songs to return to number one, but it has become more commonplace in recent years. However, an ABAB pattern (with songs alternating single weeks at number one) is still unusual. It last happened in 1969 when The Scaffold’s Lily the Pink and marmalade’s version of Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da spent four weeks swapping places with each other. One of the Scaffold members went under the name of Mike McGear. His real name was Mike McCartney whose brother was a Beatle and who wrote On-La-Di-Ob-L-Da. If we ever get an ABACAB pattern, perhaps there will be a Genesis rerelease to celebrate it. Thanks to Liam Sota at Buzzjack for pointing out that Sabrina Carpenter and Alex Warren have occupied the number one spot for an astonishing 36 of the last 62 weeks. Their total for all previous weeks was precisely zero. They did, of course, have an excuse for most of those weeks as they hadn’t been born. Even though Ordinary returned to number one last week, it did so with fewer streams than the previous week. A further decline means that it is now on the Accelerated Chart Ratio (ACR) and the value of its streams are now halved. As a result, it has fallen to number nine. It is almost certain that it would still be at number one if its streams were still counted in line with the Standard Chart Ratio (SCR). Readers will have their own views on whether a song should be denied weeks at number one by this chart rule. MK and Chrystal’s Dior moves up three places to number two while Ravyn Lenae stays at number three with Love Me Not. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club falls to number five, its lowest position since February. Fred Again is back in the chart again with this week’s highest new entry at number four. He is joined on Victory Lap by skepta (who features on another new entry much lower down the chart) and PlagueBoyMax (not his real name) who enters the chart for the first time. Rossi. joins the ranks of artists who insist on having a full-stop as part of their name as he enters at number 33 with High On Me. It features Jazzy who gets a fifth top forty hit as a result. Pinkpantheress scores her sixth top forty single with Illegal at number 36. Her biggest hit remains Boy’s A Liar which reached number two in 2023. Sombr gets his third top forty single with We Never Dated, a song that certain Beach Boys feel to it. A fitting tribute to Brian Wilson, and a lovely new entry for the summer. His other two hits are still in the higher reaches of the chart. After several years performing without chart success, Sammy Virji enters the top forty for the first time with Cops And Robbers at number 39 with the help of featured artist Skepta, someone with a rather longer chart history. Let’s just say it’s not my thing. The best chart single with the word robber in its title remains The Clash’s Bankrobber. Gracie Abrams’ former chart-topper That’s So True returns at number 38. It hasn’t fallen any lower that number 41 since it entered the chart last October, surviving even the wave of Christmas songs. In most weeks, the first albums chart update shows a number of new entries spread throughout the top forty. Many of those albums won’t make the chart by the end of the week. This week, things were a little different.The number of new entries in the top forty was seven, a fairly standard number. However, all of them were in the top ten, including the whole of the top five. By Friday, the top four were all new entries. The one survivor from last week’s top five ensured that a chart record continued. Yungblud’s new album Idols started the week at the top and stayed there all week to give the Doncastrian born Dominic Harrison his third consecutive number one. It follows Weird! (2020) and Yungblud (2023). The UK chart’s favourite spoonerism Benjamin Coyle-Larner, recording as Loyle Carner (see what he did there?) enters at number two with his fourth album Hopefully. That optimistic title beats his two previous albums which both got to number three. American sister-fronted band Haim are at number three with I Quit. They are one of the bands rumoured to be filling one of the vacant slots at this weekend’s Glastonbury Festival. Another act rumoured to be playing are Pulp whose excellent album Moree topped the chart two weeks ago. It continues is relative gentle slide this week (compared with most similar acts) by falling to number 29. Benson Boone released his debut album Fireworks and Rollerblades in April last year, just after Beautiful Things climbed to the top of the singles chart. The album reached a rather disappointing number sixteen. His second album American Heart has done rather better by debuting at number four. Beautiful Things remains in the top forty, at number fourteen this week. The aforementioned sole survivor from last week’s top five is Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n’ Sweet. It therefore extends its record-breaking run (for a studio album) to 44 weeks in the top five. The Official Charts Company’s (OCC) chart summariser seems to have tired of using the word multihyphenate, so has resorted to hyperbole instead this week by describing Aitch as Manchester's finest. This comes in a piece which also describes the presence of three Oasis albums in the top forty. Aitch doesn’t appear to be Manchester’s finest mathematician (that, arguably is Alan Turing who worked at the university and has a statue there to commemorate him) either as he has called his sixth album 4. It is at number seven. Thankfully, the unnamed OCC writer didn’t describe the little-known metal band Malevolence as Sheffield’s finest. One of the genuine contenders for that title have already had a mention here. He has listed their names though and one of them (Alex Taylor) has a name very similar to that of the singer with another of the contenders. Malevolence make their chart debut with their fourth album Where Only The Truth Is Spoken at number 32. The final new entry comes from Lucy Spraggan who is at number 36 with Other Sides Of The Moon. Whether she is referring to sides other than the dark one, I know not. Among the re-entries are Lana Del Rey’s 2012 debut album Born To Die at number and Oasis’s Definitely Maybe at number 37. These are both due to current or imminent UK tours. There may be others next week resulting from coverage of Glastonbury on the BBC this weekend. Make the most of it. There is no festival this year and there are suggestions that a streaming service might outbid the BBC for the next contract, running from 2028.

After it was replaced at number one last week, people might have thought that Alex Warren’s Ordinary had had its time at the top. The first signs that they were wrong came on Sunday when it was back at number one in the first update of the week. It is still there at the end of the week, giving it a thirteenth week at number one in total. It thereby creates another chart record. Its return to the top after an initial twelve week run shatters the record set by Frankie Laine’s I Believe way back in 1953. That song’s first run at number one lasted for nine weeks before it lost its hold on the top spot. However, after just one week, it returned and stayed there for a further six weeks. It then bounced back up again for a three week run. Its total of eighteen weeks at number one remains a record over seventy years later. The return of Alex Warren to the top spot means that Sabrina Carpenter’s fourth number one Manjchild comes to an end after just one week. Of course, she may yet return to extend her run. Ravyn Lenae’s Love Me Not remains at number three with Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club another non-mover, at number four. The big mover of the week is MK and Chrystal’s Dior which jumps twelve places to number five. Most of this week’s new entries come from, or feature, acts with a relatively long chart history. The first (measured simply by the order in which I am covering them)comes from Twenty One Pilots who made their top forty debut with Stressed Out in 2016. They haven’t exactly been regular visitors to the top forty since then. The Contract, a new entry at number 33, is only their fourth single to reach the top forty although others have spent time in the lower reaches of the chart. Mark Ronson’s first chart outing came in 2003 when Ooh Wee reached number fifteen. His first major success came with his 2007 album Version, a collection of cover versions with guest singers. That included his version of The Zutons’ Valerie with Amy Winehouse on vocals. Ronson had previously produced many of the songs on Winehouse’s classic back To Black album. Suzanne, a new entry at number 34, features vocals from Raye and is Ronson’s thirteenth top forty hit, his first since 2019. Regular readers will know that I am a bit of a Sparks fan. Unfortunately, old age and the need to be up for work in the morning meant that I didn’t see either of their London gigs this week. However, thye band does join the list of chart acts whose name has also been the title of a top forty single. Rather unexpectedly, it has happened because Coldplay’s song Sparks, from their debut alum Parachutes released in 2000, is a new entry at number 40. Coldplay made their singles chart debut in the same year. The song which least deserves to be described as being from an act with a long chart history is the one where that act, Tinashe, is the featured artist. In fact, all three of her top forty hits since 2015 has seen her in a featuring role. On No Broke Boys, which enters at number 37, she plays second fiddle to Disco Lines, a new name to the top forty. The exception to the established acts rule comes from BTS member J-hope. His first top forty single as a solo artist came as recently as 2023. He now gets his second with Killin’ It girl at number 30. It features GloRilla which I’m guessing isn’t their real name. The Black Eyed Peas’ Rock That Body has been allowed back in to the top forty at number 35. It reached number eleven in 2010. The writer of the Official Chart Company’s write-up of the albums chart is still proudly using their new word, multihyphenate. This week they have used it to describe James Marriott, the Brighton-based musician who has a surprise number one album this week. His previous album reached number seventeen but a social media fanbase has propelled Don’t Tell The Dog all the way to the top. A combination of a new (very expensive) vinyl edition and the imminence of their live comeback has lifted Oasis’s Time Flies compilation to number two. Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n’ Sweet is at number three. It has been in the top five for 43 consecutive weeks, a new record for a studio album. It has a little way to go to beat the South Pacific soundtrack album which entered the top five in April 1958 and stayed there until October 1961. It spent 114 weeks at number one, including the whole of 1959. For many years Van Morrison was one of the most highly-acclaimed singer-songwriters. Chart watchers have also been able to comment on the fact that Astral Weeks, an album which regularly features on critics’ lists of the best albums of all time, was not a hit. Later albums have been more successful. His reputation took a bit of a knock when he rai9led against measures taken to protect people from Covid, including recording a song about it. However, his latest album, Remembering Now, has been well received and it is a new entry at number eleven. To the delight of many, The Cure reached number one with their Songs Of A Lost World album topped the chart last year. They have now released an album of remixes o songs from that record and it is at number nine this week. New York rapper Lil Tecca is at number seventeen with Dopamine. AJ Tracey 37 with the cheerfully-titled Don’t Die Before You’re Dead. Last week saw the sad news of the death of Brian Wilson, the last surviving of the three brothers who formed The Beach Boys. It is impossible to exaggerate just how revolutionary songs such as God Only Knows and Good Vibrations sounded when they were released in 1966, almost sixty years ago. The news came too late to influence last week’s chart but their 1983 compilation The Very Best Of The Beach Boys is at number 32 this week.

After many weeks when Alex Warren’s Ordinary finished well clear of all rivals at the top of the singles chart, he finally faced a real challenge this week. It came from Sabrina Carpenter with her new single Manchild. In Monday's update, Manchild had a fairly clear lead over Ordinary. However, by Wednesday the lead had narrowed leaving the final outcome in doubt. The lack of an additional update yesterday (Thursday) was perhaps a hint that Sabrina Carpenter’s lead had either stabilised or even increased. Whether the lack of news on Thursday was a hint or not, Alex Warren has finally been toppled. Ordinary is down to number two after a far from ordinary twelve weeks at the top. Only four songs have had a longer continuous run at the top. Two of them are by Canadian solo artists, Drake and Bryan Adams. One is by a Scottish band, Wet Wet Wet, and the other is by an English singer, Ed Sheeran. That finally leaves the way for a new chart-topper. Sabrina Carpenter had three number one singles last year. Manchild is her first of 2025. All four songs have used only one word in the title although one of them did use that word three times. Neneh Cherry’s song of the same name reached number five in 1989. Ravyn Lenae’s Love Me Not is back down to number three. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club is at number four. Thanks to Jimwatts at Buzzjack for pointing out that Pink Pony Club is the ninth song to spend eighteen consecutive weeks in the top five and the first by a female solo artist. Sombr’s Undressed falls one place to number five. He is also at number seven with Back To Friends. Ed Sheeran’s new album is still a few months away. Sapphire, a new single from the album, enters at number nine. The song has a slightl;y odd start before becoming one of Sheerans lively songs. It is his 43rd top ten, and 65th top forty, hit. His 42nd top ten hit Azizam is one place lower, at number ten. The cover art for Sapphire is very similar to that of Moby’s album Play. Play just happens to be the title of the forthcoming Sheeran album. As a follow-up to The Days, Chrystal has made a shameless pitch to receive some free stuff by teaming up with MK to release a song called Dior. That has to be more attractive than a weekend in Milton Keynes. The song is a new entry at number seventeen. Teddy Swims’ Lose Control has spent the last five weeks outside the top forty. In that time, it hasn’t dropped any lower than number 45. This week it is back up to number 40. Chappell Roan’s Good Luck Babe returns at number 38 and Gracie Abrams’ That’s So true re-enters one place higher. It is very easy for me to find out when I first saw Pulp perform live. It was the day that Arsenal played Sheffield Wednesday in the FA Cup final, 15 May 1993. How is that significant? It was at the Highbury Garage, Arsenal were still playing at Highbury and Pulp were a band from Sheffield. At the time, Pulp were a band who had been together for 15 years but were still playing at small venues. The Garage had a capacity of just 600. However, they were finally starting to get noticed and the following year they had their first top forty single with So You Remember The First Time? Back at the Garage gig, it was immediately apparent that Jarvis Cocker was a brilliantly flamboyant front-man. By August the following year, they were playing on the main stage at the Reading Festival and I was in the audience once again. Unusually for a festival set, they played a new song. So new that Jarvis Cocker had only finished writing it the day before. That song was Common People, the one that gave them major chart success the following year. Indeed, it was at number three this week thirty years ago. Jarvis Cocker also demonstrated his stage presence in one of my favourite Top of the Pops performances. Cocker had written Walk Like A Panther for Sheffield band All Seeing I. The song featured vocals by another Yorkshireman Tony Christie. However, when the band were asked to perform on Top of the Pops Christie was unavailable, so Cocker stepped in to take his place (although Christie’s vocals were also in the background). Pulp have disbanded and re-formed twice, re-forming most recently in 2023. The first re-formation was purely for live dates with no new album. This time, though, Jarvis Cocker decided that he had enough material (some written several years ago) to treat fans to something new. The result is More, an album which is very Pulp-like, meaning that it is mostly great. It becomes their third number one album after the classic Different Class (1995) and This Is hardcore (1998). The Official Charts Company (OCC) have reported excitedly that Addison Rae has scored her first top five album this week with Addisn at number two. As it is her debut album, the bit about it being her first in the top five is not really big news. Still, they have to generate headlines somehow. What is rather more noteworthy is that Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n’ Sweet is at number four. While two places below its more customary spot, its 42 successive weeks in the top five is a record for a solo female artist. Her previous five albums didn’t get anywhere near the top five although the EP Fruitcake did spend a week at number five last December, a year after it was released. Carpenter announced this week that she will be releasing a new album in August. Somebody at the OCC seems to have come across the word multihyphenate this week as it has been used to describe both Addison Rae and Little Simz. It doesn’t mean someone who uses lots of hyphens. Instead it means someone with several professions or skills. Little Simz is an actor as well as a rapper which apparently qualifies her as a multihyphenate .Her sixth album Lotus is at number three. Ed Sheeran’s Tour Collection falls three places to number four. Marina Diamankis, now performing simply as Marina having dropped the Diamonds bit, is at number seven with Princess Of Power. With two Larsens and a Poulsen in their line-up it is no surprise that Volbeat are a Danish band. Their ninth studio set God Of Angels Trust is at number 24, giving them a fourth top forty album. American punk band Turnstile are at number eleven with Never Enough. This week’s anniversary edition is My Chemical Romance’s Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. My Chemical Romance’s second album reached number 34 when it was released twenty years ago. This new edition is at number nine.

Alex Warren’s Ordinary spends a twelfth week at number one in the singles chart. Just four other songs have had a twelfth successive week at number one; all four of them managed at least one more week at the top. Ordinary now has the second longest time at the top for a first number one as the lead artist, behind Drake’s One dance which spent an interminable fifteen weeks there in 2016. He had spent time at number one before, but not as the lead artist. He was the featured artist on Rihanna’s What’s My Name. Ravyn Lenae’s Love Me Not goes back up to number two. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club slips to number three. It is in its seventeenth successive week in the top five. Sombr’s Undressed is still at number four. He now has two singles in the top ten as Back To Friends climbs to a new peak of number nine. Skye Newman’s Family Matters climbs to number five. The highest new entry of the week is Tate McRae’s Just Keep Watching at number ??? The song features in a film about people who drive cars very fast without actually going anywhere. It is co-written by OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder who seemed to have a new entry almost every week a few years ago. Two of the remaining three new entries are also by female solo artists. Olivia Dean had her first hit with a Christmas song in 2021. However, she didn’t get another hit until earlier this year when It Isn’t Perfect But It Might Be reached number 36. She now gets her second hit of the year with the rather soporific Nice To Each Other at number 28. One place above Olivia Dean, at number 27, Addison Rae has a new entry with Fame Is A Gun. As with Dean, this is Rae’s third top forty hit and her second this year. Her first hit was rather more recent though. Diet Pepsi was in the top ten last year. Fame Is A Gun has rather more life to it than the song one place below. Levi Heron gets his first top forty hit with The Glen at number 37. It is a dance remix of a song originally recorded by Scottish folk-rock act Beluga Lagoon in 2019. Levi Heron is both the first Levi and the first Heron to be named on a UK chart hit. The original version reached number 25 in the Sales Chart earlier this year. The top of the albums chart sends two very clear messages this week. One is about the state of the albums market in the middle of the 2020s; the other is more about a specific artist. Ed Sheeran’s Tour Collection returns to number one. The album hasn’t been particularly successful by Sheeran’s standards. This is only its second week at the top after it climbed to the summit at the start of the year. Its presence at the top of the chat this week is a clear indication of just how low albums sales are. After spending a sixth non-successive week back at number one last week, Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n’ Sweet is now back in the more familiar surroundings of the number two spot. The album went straight to number one when it was released last autumn before falling one place to spend the first of a record-breaking 26th (and counting) week in second place. The second clear message is that the career of Miley Cyrus, never a massive album-selling artist, may be on the wane. In a low-sales week, her new album Something beautiful can only get to number three. Furthermore, there has been no hit single from the album. Two more compilations complete the top five. Fleetwood Mac’s 50 Years Don’t Stop collection is at number four. The Weeknd’s Highlights is at five. Garbage, one of those 90s indie bands who are still around, are at number 24 with Let All That We Imagine be The Light. Their seventh studio album is their lowest-charting set. Their previous low was with Strange Little Birds which peaked at number seventeen in 2016. The National released a new album at the end of last year but it didn’t get anywhere near the top forty. Their singer Matt Berninger has fared rather better with his second solo album. Get Sunk, which I prefer to his band’s material, is at number 27.

Alex Warren’s Ordinary gets a tenth week at the top of the singles chart. While it is only the fourteenth single to spend at least ten successive weeks at number one, it is the fourth in the 2020s. The last song to do it was Dave and Central Cee’s Sprinter which had a run of ten weeks in 2023. Last weekend some newspapers (and tabloids) reported that Warren had broken the record for a US solo artist’s consecutive weeks at number one. Others added the word male. Both were wrong. Slim Whitman’s Rose Marie spent eleven successive weeks at number one in 1955. Two US women solo artists, Whitney Houston and Miley Cyrus have had ten-week runs at number one. The overall record for successive weeks at the top is still held by Canadian Bryan Adams with (Everything I Do) I Do It For You in 1991. The only song to spend longer at the summit is Frankie Lain’s I Believe which spent a total of eighteen weeks there (in runs of nine, six and three weeks) in 1953. Alex Warren heads an unchanged top three. Ravyn Lenae’s Love Me Not is still at number two, one place ahead of Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club. Sombr’s Undressed climbs one place to number four, swapping places with WizTheMC and Bees & Honey’s Show Me Love. Skye Newman had her first chart hit earlier this month with Hairdresser. That song climbs to a new peak of number sixteen this week. It is joined, and surpassed, by Family matters, a new entry at number eight. She still has no Wikipedia page. The available information about her is generally on promotional websites so can be somewhat hyperbolic. Last night (Thursday) the 2025 Ivor Novello Awards ceremony was held in London. The awards were established in 1956 and celebrate achievements in song composition and soundtracks. The winner of the Rising Star award was Lola Young who topped the chart with Messy earlier this year. This week she has a new entry at number 25 with One Thing. The only other charting single with One Thing in the title was by One Direction, unless you count The Fall’s Teleph One Thing. Which you probably don’t. Last weekend the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Basel. It was won by Austria who, in my opinion, just happened to have the best entry. In recent years, there have often been a few Eurovision songs in the following week’s chart. This year, there are three. The highest is the British entry which finished in eighteenth place. What The Hell Just Happened by Remember Monday put up a respectable showing in the jury vote, but no country put it in their top ten in the public vote, so it received the dreaded nul points in that part. I have always played down suggestions that the voting is political. However, some of this year’s scores from the public vote were a little odd. Anyway, the British public seem to have a better view of the song than the rest of Europe and it is a new entry at number 31. As mentioned above, Eurovision was won by Austria meaning that next year’s contest will be held in the country better known for classical composers such as Mozart and two Strausses rather than for pop music. The winning entry didn’t make it. However, the German entry Baller by Austrian siblings Abor and Tynna, is at number 34. The more eccentric Eurovision entries tend to be rather hit and miss with me. I either think they are gloriously daft, or rubbish. The third Eurovision song in the chart this week, Espresso Macchiato by Tommy Cash, is at number 40. The Estonian entry was a song about Italy. Obviously. It finished third in Basel. Some artists enjoy major success in the UK with their early material while others build up a following gradually. Others muddle along for a few years before finally having a major hit. On such artist is singer-songwriter Morgan Wallen. His first three albums reached the top ten in her native USA, with two of them topping the chart. The best he could manage in the UK was a number 40 placing with One Thing At A Time in 2023. His major breakthrough in the UK came last year when he was the featured artist on Post Malone’s number two hit I Had Some Help. His fourth album, I’m The Problem, has outdone all of that by going to number one. What I Want, a song that features Tate McRae enters the singles chart at number 32. Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n’ Sweet continues its record-breaking run at number two. Ed Sheeran’s Tour Collection is at number three. Many people, including this writer, thought that The Sherlocks would be in contention for the number one album this week. Three of the indie band’s four albums reached the top ten with 2023’s People Like Me & You getting to number four. Sadly, it was not to be and Everything Must Make Sense is at number four, matching its immediate predecessor. One of the notable things about Sleep Token’s Even In Arcadia album last week was that it picked up a lot more streams than most rock albums. That gave a hint that it would not be yet another album to drop straight out of the chart. It has held up very well, falling four places to number five. There are many words that could be used to describe the career of Peter Doherty, including colourful and controversial. As a member of The Libertines and, later, Babyshambles, releases were too infrequent to build up any real momentum. His solo releases have been more regular, but with limited success. This week he gets his biggest solo success with Felt Better Alive at number seven. When CD players first hit the shop shelves, one of the first purchases for many was a copy of Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms. The album was the Geordie band’s second number one, spending two weeks there in May and June 1985. It returned to the top in the summer, but really got going in May 1986 when it returned to the top and stayed there for ten weeks. We are, of course, now forty years on from 1985 and many young people are barely aware of what a CD is. A fortieth anniversary edition of Brothers In Arms is at number eight. It is now eight years since the sad death of Swedish DJ Tim Bergling, better known as Avicii. The track listing of a new compilation, Forever, gives a hint of what he might have gone on to achieve. Songs such as Wake Me Up, Levels and Hey Brother still sound good today. The album is a new entry at number twenty. Southampton metal band Bury Tomorrow are at number 33 with their eighth album Will You Haunt Me With That Same Patience. They have now had an album peak at every position between numbers 33 and 36 inclusive.

Alex Warren’s run at the top of the singles chart continues as Ordinary gets a ninth week at number one. The last single to spend exactly nine weeks at the top came fairly recently - Sabrina Carpenter’s Taste last autumn. Ravyn Lenae’s Love Me Not is still at number two. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club still tethered at number three. WithTheMC with added Bees & Honey remain at number four with Show me Love. Sombr’s Undressed continues its steady climb up the chart. It is up one palace to number five. Calvin Harris made his chart debut with Acceptable In The 80s in 2007. Since then, he has had at least one top forty hit every year. He extends that run to an impressive nineteenth year with Blessings at number eight. The song is sung byClementine Douglas who now has four top forty hits as a featured artist or part of a duo but has yet to chart on her own. It is Harris’s 31st top ten hit and his 44th song to reach the top forty. Austrian producer Ely Oaks enters at number 35 with Borderline. He is joined by Lavinia who was born in Italy but raised in the UK. She then moved to Berlin where Ely Oaks also lives. Borderline is one place higher than Oaks’ previous hit Running Around. After climbing to number 21 twice, Benson Boone’s Sorry I’m Here For Someone Else finally makes it into the top twenty at number twenty. It is in its eleventh week in the top forty. Myles Smith’s Nice To meet You climbs back up to numb ten. It was last in the top ten in January but has remained in the top twenty all year. This does not mean that there is another lack of new entries and re-entries in the singles chart this week. It’s just that some of them fit in better with the albums round-up. Speaking of which,... It has been an extraordinarily successful year for rock band Sleep Token. At the beginning of the year, their chart record comprised two top forty albums, including a number three hit, and no hit singles. In March, they had their first hit single with two more following in April and May. The singles weren’t even flash-in-the-pans, two of them gained further weeks in the top forty. That meant that hopes for the new album were high, with the likelihood that they would get their first number one album. That has indeed come to pass as Even In Arcadia, a pretty strong album, finishes clear of all rivals this week. The old-fashioned among us will welcome the length of the tracks, and the album itself. Stereophonics’ recent chart-topper had just eight tracks with a running time under half-an-hour. Sleep Token’s album, by contrast, has ten tracks with a running time a few minutes short of an hour. Tracks from Even In Arcadia are in the singles chart once again. Look To Windward, one of the tracks not made available in advance, is at number 38. Caramel, which reached number ten last month, is a re-entry at number 33 and the album’s title track is at number 31. They have now had five top forty hits, highly unusual for a rock band. Some recent number one albums have picked up only around 1,000 “sales” from streams, some significantly lower than that. Unusually for a rock album, Even In Arcadia has around 7,000 “sales” from streams. Whether the album continues to be streamed in significant numbers next week remains to be seen. Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n’ Sweet gets a 24th week at number two. It now holds the record for the most weeks at number two, beating the record for a studio album held by Simon and garfunkel’s fabulous Bridge Over Troubled Water album. That album’s 23 weeks were spread over a period of over two years. Carpenter’s run has taken about nine months. Ed Sheeran’s Tour Collection is at number four. While The Kooks can hardly claim to be among the very best bands to come out of Brighton, their song Naive is regularly one of the most streamed songs from 2006. Nevertheless, they still manage to sell albums in reasonable numbers - most of the time. Their last album, 2022’s 10 Tracks To Echo In The Darks only got to number 32, making it their lowest charting album by some margin. By contrast, album number seven Never / Know enters at number five, their highest position since Konk reached number two in 2008. There is a certain degree of pinkness to two of the new entries and that is without anything new from the singer born Alecia Moore. PinkPantheress enters the top ten of the albums chart for the first time with her mixtape Fancy That. Arcade Fire are at number eighteen with Pink Elephant. Any hope that they might one day match the excellence of Funeral is surely long gone. The final new entry comes from Berkshire-based The Amazons. Their new album 21st Century Fiction, probably my favourite of last week’s releases, is at number 26. Last week saw the release of a film to accompany The Weeknd’s Hurry Up Tomorrow album. As a result, it leaps back into the top forty at number 25. Timeless from the album, which featured Playboy Carti reached number seven last year. It returns to the top forty this week at number thirty. The album contains a remix of the song by one of the current flavours of the month, Doechii.

There is still no stopping Alex Warren as Ordinary gets an eighth week at number one in the singles chart. The last song to spend exactly eight weeks at the top was Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding’s Miracle in two separate runs in 2023. Afraid To Feel by LF System was the last song to have a single run of exactly eight weeks, in 2022. Warren’s album You’ll Be Alright Kid (Chapter 1) enters the top ten for the first time, at number nine. Ravyn Linae’s Love Me Not climbs three places to number two. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club finally vacates the number two spot after being three for the last six weeks. It is now at number three. Show Me Love by WizTheMC along with Bees & Honey slips one place to number four. Normality has returned this week with just two new entries in the singles chart. The first is from Ed Sheeran who brings his tally of hits up to 64. Old Phone is about exactly that; yes, he really has written a song about finding an old phone. There was a time when even a song about such an odd subject would have gone straight to the top simply for being by Ed Sheeran. Old Phone enters at number seventeen. The release of a physical version of Sheeran’s Azizam is not enough to stop it falling one place to number five. Jorja Smith made her UK chart debut as a featured artist on Drake’s Get It Together. She has had a further seven top forty hits since then although just one has made it to the top ten. This week she gets top forty hit number nine with The Way I Love You at number 39. Sombr’s two hits continue to climb. Back To Friends is up to number fifteen. Undressed enters the top ten, climbing seven places to number six. Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things gets a thirtieth week in the top ten. Thanks to Mrpopquiz on Buzzjack for the information that only six songs have spent longer there. Of the ten songs to have spent at least 26 weeks (six months) in the top ten, five have been released since 2018. Three of the others are Christmas songs which notch up extra weeks every year. Although they didn’t become a massive name until the release of Dark Side Of The Moon in 1973, Pink Floyd had been releasing albums since 1967. Therefore, by the time they toured in 1971, they had plenty of material. They also chose to record a live film in the ancient Italian city of Pompeii. The film was recorded over four nights with some additional material shot in Paris. The film was released in 1972, but without an accompanying album. A DVD was released in 2002; a CD followed in 2016 as part of the Early Years boxed set which reached number nineteen in the albus chart. Now we have a remastered double-CD version to enjoy. The first update, on Tuesday because of the May Day Bank Holiday, showed this new release at the top of the charge. However, the lead was relatively modest, making it uncertain whether it would stay there. Twenty-four hours later, the lead had been cut, but only narrowly. That left me more confident that it would hold on and, by the time the final chart was compiled, it was indeed still on top. Pink Floyd At Pompeii - MCMLXXII is theri seventh number one album. The list, which famously does not include Dark Side Of the Moon, began in 1970 with Atom Heart Mother. That leaves Sabrina Carpenter's Short 'n' Sweet back in its regular slot at number two. The remainder of the top five are all compilation albums. Ed Sheeran’s Tour Collection is at number three. As it is also known as the Mathematics Tour, I would like to congratulate Maths graduate Robert Prevosdt on becoming Pope Leo XIV. Fleetwood Mac’s 50 Years:Don’t Stop is at number four. The Weeknd’s Highlights is at number five. The first thing to do when an Andy Bell solo album is announced is to check which Andy Bell it is. Is it the vocalist with Ride or the one from Erasure? With the two Andy Bells having very different voices, a listen is generally enough to find out. That brings us to ten Crowns, a new solo album from the Erasure Andy Bell, his first solo release since 2010. Ride’s Andy Bell is not likely to release such a strongly pop-sounding album. Bell’s two previous solo albums failed to reach the top 100. Ten Crowns is at number fourteen. Live albums rarely make a major impact on the charts. It is particularly unusual to have two live albums entering in the same week. That, however, is what has happened this week. As well as Pink Floyd, James have a new live album out, albeit one recorded a lot more recently. The fact that Tim Booth was only eleven in 1971 may have played a part in that. Like the Floyd album, this was recorded at an ancient site, the Acropolis in Athens. As an extra treat, they played with an orchestra. James, Live at the Acropolis is at number 27. Singer-songwriter Andrew Cushn scores his first top forty album with his second release Love Is For Everyone at number 35.

Alex Warren spends a sixth week at the top of the singles chart with ordinary. The last song to get at least six weeks at number one was Sabrina Carpenter's Taste which had a run of nine weeks from the end of August last year. The last song with exactly six weeks at the summit was Taylor Swift’s Anti-Hero which went to number one in October 2022. Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding’s Miracle had a six-week run starting in April 2023 but that came after a previous two-week run. Once again, the top three remains unchanged. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club is still reading at number two. Ed Sheeran’s Azizam is still at number three. Then comes the exciting bit of the top five with some actual movement. WizTheMC with Bees & Honey climb to number four with Show Me Love while Doechii falls one place to number five with Anxiety. There is a dearth of new entries in both the singles and albums charts this week. The singles chart lives up to its name by having just a single one. In the week of Easter Monday it comes from Addison Rae Easterling. She had a top ten hit last year with Diet Pepsi (a title the BBC felt unable to mention in full) and now gets a second top forty hit with Headphones On at number 24. Thankfully for Auntie Beeb, the song doesn’t mention a particular brand of headphones. In my opinion, this new one is the better of her two hits. Once again, there are more re-entries than new entries, something that should really only happen around Christmas and New Year. Two new entries are by Teddy Swims - Lose Control is back at number 40 and The Door is at number 37. Lose Control has now spent 63 weeks in the top forty. Just nine songs have spent longer there. Thanks to Jim Watts at Buzzjack for that information. Lady Gaga’s Abracadabra has magiced its way back in at number 36. Anniversary editions of albums have become a regular presence in the charts for some time. However, the time between the original release and the new edition has generally been long enough to be able to say that it is aimed at new buyers. The same cannot be said of this week’s example. Taylor Swift released The Tortured Poets Department just a year ago. It went to number one and spent two weeks there. A combination of new versions on vinyl, cassette, shellac and a version where all the instruments have been replaced by kazoos (I may have made some of these up) and quiet release weeks saw it append a total of ten weeks at the top by the end of the year. Now her people have decided that this is a suitable time for an anniversary edition with some new signed copies. The album is back at number one. It almost seems superfluous to say that Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n’ Sweet is ast number two. Ed Sheeran’s Tour Collection is at number three. Another compilation album is at number four. Fleetwood Mac’s 50 Years Don’t Stop collection was released in November 2018 and reached number five the following May. This week, its 336th in the chart, it hits a new high of number four. This is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the chart rules which favour a Greatest Hits set with a number of very popular songs rather than a few songs which are streamed far more than the rest. Yet another compilation, The Weeknd’s Highlights,is at number five. The arrival of 5ive in the albums chart may have been a cause of excitement for some and dismay for others. However, it is not a new album by the boyband although that may yet happen. It is the arrival of an album of that name by David Akeleke, known simply as Davido, at number six After a headlining set at the Coachella Festival, Lady Gaga is back at number 36 with her debut album The Fame. Fontaines DC are back at number 24 with Romance following the release of a deluxe edition featuring new tracks. The final new entry isn’t exactly new. Doechii released her debut album Alligator Bites Never Heal was released at the end of August last year. Thanks to the success of Anxiety and a vinyl release, it now makes its top forty debut at number 40.

Alex Warren still has the number one single. Elton John gets another number one album. Alex Warren’s Ordinary remains at the top of the chart for a fourth week at number one. It is the second song to spend a month at the summit this year after Lola Young’s Messy. Yes, we have had a messy month and now we have an ordinary one. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club spends a third consecutive week at number two, it’s fourth week in the runner-up slot in total. When Ed Sheeran released - in 2023m he said that it marked the end of his albums named after arithmetic symbols. Now he is about to start a new collection of albums.These are to be named after buttons on a CD player (or various other devices), starting with Play. The first single from the album Azizam (Persian for my dear) was released last week and it is this week’s highest new entry, at number three. He is joined on the song by a number of Iranian and Indian musicians, playing traditional instruments. It is Sheeran’s 63rd top forty hit, the 42nd to make the top ten and the 30th to reach the top five. The lad from Halifax (and who spent most of his childhood in Suffolk) has done quite well. Doechii’s Anxiety slips one place to number four. Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things clocks up a twentieth week in the top five. It is at number five this week. Having surprised many people by getting a top twenty hit earlier this year, Sleep Token have done even better with Caramel at number ten. This all bodes well for their new album which is released next month. With all the turmoil caused by the acts of an ego on the other side of the Atlantic, now might seem a good time to release a song called End Of The World although a new version of a similarly-titled REM song might have been even more apt (and less apocalyptic). Miley Cyrus, for it is she, might even have re-released Wrecking Ball instead. However, she has gone with End Of The World and it is at number 23. As it is a good deal better than Wrecking Ball, I’m not complaining. It is her 26th top forty hit. Just a few weeks ago we were treated to an album featuring an excellent live performance by Florence and the Machine at last year’s BBC Proms. Now she is back in the singles chart thanks to a remix of Spectrum by a Manchester producer who goes by the glorious name of Morgan Seatree. As far as I can tell, that is his real name. Spectrum, taken from the Ceremonials album, reached number one in 2012 while the London Olympics were in full flow. This version, under the title Say My Name, is at number 31. Pink Pantheress enters at number 35 with Tonight. It is her fifth top forty hit although, so far, only one of them has been a major hit. Boy’s A Liar reached number two in 2023 but none of her other songs have made the top twenty. Nathan Dawe and Abi Flynn’s Here In Your Arms is at number 36 after floating around outside the top forty for the last couple months. Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso has dropped out of the chart as it is no longer her third ranked song. It has been replaced by Taste at number 37. It was last in the top forty in February. She also has a re-entry at number 34 with Juno. That song left the chart in December. Sombr’s Undressed reaches a deserved new peak of number 28. His other charting song Back To Friends also climbs to new heights. It is at number 25. Last week Show Me Love by WizTheMC and bees & honey took a little rest, staying at number fourteen after a 24-place jump the previous week. This week it climbs into the top ten at number eight. Elton John famously had to wait until 1990 to get his first solo number one single, nearly two decades after his first hit. By contrast, he had his first chart-topping album in 1973 with Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player, his sixth album in under four years. His most recent compilation Diamonds, released in 2017, became his ninth number one album at the beginning of this year. Last week he released an album in collaboration with US singer Brandi Carlisle, Who Believes In Angels? The album instantly becomes Elton John’s tenth number one and allows Carlisle to enter the top forty in the UK for the first time. The songs on the album were co-written by John and Carlisle along with John’s regular collaborator Bernie Taupin. Added to his ten number one singles, his twenty chart-toppers see him pull ahead of Madonna. Only eleven acts have spent longer at the top of the two main charts. His new total of 60 weeks at the top of the charts again sees him pull clear of Madonna. He draws level with Take That in joint seventh place in the all-time list. Many thanks again to Colin for the figures he sent me at the beginning of the year. After a week in unfamiliar territory Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n’ Sweet is back at number two for a twentieth week. Shortly before the release of their second album in 2002, Black Country New Road’s vocalist Isaac Wood announced that he was leaving the band for mental health reasons. For their new album they have used three vocalists, all of them women. One of them, Tyler Hyde, is the daughter of Underworld’s Karl Hyde. Forever Howlong is a new entry at number three. Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine is at number four. Two of the songs from the album that were in the chart last week (Dandelion and Intro) have left the top forty. Twilight Zone has dropped ten places to number fifteen. Ed Sheeran’s Tour Collection climbs back up to number five after the release of his new single. As I have commented before, there are times when it is not hard to see why a singer has chosen not to use their real name. Would Derek Dick have succeeded under that name? The are other times when a singer’s real name is rather more exotic than their chosen alternative. If your name was really Hayden Silas Anhedönia, why would you choose to record under the name Ethel Cain? Still, it’s her choice She released her debut album Preacher’s Daughter in March 2022 to be greeted by near universal indifference. Following the release of a physical version last week, it enters the chart for the first time at number ten. Billy Joel’s Piano Man compilation returns to the top forty at number 37. It has been in the top 100 almost continuously since the beginning of 2022, but this is its first appearance in the top forty since July 2010. Before Lush the brand, we had Lush the band. They were formed in 1987 and became part of the shoegaze movement that was a prominent part of the indie scene in the 1990s. Miki Berenyi, who provided the aptly lush vocals for the band, is now involved in two other musical projects. One of them, the Miki Berenyi trio, released a superb debut album Tripla last week. Lush disbanded following the death of their drummer Chris Acland. They later re-formed with Justin Welch on drums. He had previously worked with Elastica, the band formed by Justine Friuschmann after she left Suede. Welch also preceded Simon Gilbert briefly as Suede’s drummer. Before that they had used a (Psycho for) drum machine. The above two paragraphs were written at the beginning of the week when Tripla was at number twelve in the first midweek update. I had thought that that would be enough to see it just about hold on to a top forty place in the final chart. Alas, that was not to be. However, there is a reason for keeping it in and it has nothing to do with the opportunity to mention Suede. Regular readers will know that I usually only pay tribute to a musician who has died in the preceding week if they can be linked to a song in the current chart. The last paragraph illustrates just how far I will go to find an excuse to mention the death of a member of one of my all-time favourite bands. It wasn;t just an excuse to mention Suede. Drummers are a much-maligned breed. What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians? A drummer. Ho ho ho. Yet, drummers can be as essential a part of a band as a conductor is for an orchestra. One such was Clem Burke of Blondie who died this week aged 70. Debbie Harry (who, for obvious reasons, gained most of the attention) and Chris Stein were founder members of the band and Burke joined them shortly after, remaining a member ever since. Such was his brilliance that Dreaming, one of their number one hits in the UK, has been described as a drum solo with other members able to join in. Like Lush, Blondie had a spell on hiatus before, in their case, returning with the brilliant number one single Maria. In that time Clem Burke played with The Ramones (as Elvis Ramone) as well as Eurythmics, Bob Dylan and others. The music world is poorer without him.

Alex Warren gets a third week at number one with his Ordinary single. If he loses the top spot next week, Ordinary will be the first single this year to spend an odd number of weeks at the summit. Warren’s Carry You Home climbs one place to a new peak of number nine. Alex Warren heads an unchanged top four. Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club remains at number two. Doechii’s Anxiety, which sounds even better each time I hear it, is still at number three. Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things holds on at number four. The song has spent 25 weeks in the top ten since it first entered the upper tier in February of last year. Ariana Grande released a new version of her Eternal Sunshine album last week. Predictably enough, three of the new songs enter the top forty this week. Twilight Zone is at number five. It is the fourth song of that name to reach the top forty. The song generally known as Just A Song At Twilight is actually called Love’s Old Sweet Song. Moreover, as it was written in 1884, it has never been a hit. Dandelion is at number nineteen. The only other song with Dandelion in the title to be a top forty hit was by the Rolling Stones in 1967 as part of a double a-side with We Love You. Intro is at number 26. Sadly, The Intro And The Outro by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band has never been a hit. Grande has now had 42 top forty hits. His Apple Music profile (otherwise known as promotional puff from his record company) states that Sombr’s song Caroline was a viral hit. However, it wasn’t an actual hit. Undressed, on the other hand, has now become a hit. It is a new entry at number 37. In even better news for him. Another song, Back To Friends, enters two places higher. He will reach the grand old age of 20 in July. For some of us, the appeal of Central Cee’s “music” is one of life’s great mysteries on a par with “Why do people run marathons?” and “How can someone not like chocolate?”. Nevertheless, he has managed to recruit a string of fellow performers to record with him. This week their number has been boosted to include Manchester rapper Nemzzz. His moniker’s last three letters are highly appropriate. Their collaboration Dilemma is at number 39. The title does not describe my thoughts about the prospect of hearing it again. One of the biggest victims of the dominance of American playlists of Christmas songs are surely The Darkness. Their gloriously over the top Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) hasn’t even reached the top 100 since 2020. They do, however, still clearly have their fans. While two of their last four albums missed out on a top ten place, their eighth studio album Dreams On Toast enters at numb two. Its sales would have been enough to give them a second number one album (after their 2003 debut Permission To Land) in some weeks this year. Mumford and Sons, whose name still sounds like one you would expect to see on the side of a removal van, are one of those bands whose biggest album didn’t get to number one. Sigh No More was released in October 2009. It entered the chart at number eleven and spent just one more week in the top forty. However, after singled from the album enjoyed chart success, the album returned to the top forty the following January. It hit a new peak every few months before reaching number two in February 2011. Its eventual success also meant that the following two albums both topped the chart. Mumford and Sons’ fourth album Delta didn’t quite match that, reaching number two behind Michael Buble. This week, after a six-and-a-half year absence, they return with Rushmere and get a third number one album. As mentioned above, Ariana Grande has released a deluxe edition of her Eternal Sunshine album. On a day when the sun has indeed shone all day (in Brighton at least), it enters at number three. The original release spent two weeks at number one last spring. Sabrina Carpenter’s Short ‘n’ Sweet takes a break from its customary number two position to spend a week at number four. American singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus released albums in 2016, 2018 and 2021. Two of them failed to chart in the UK at all while the third stumbled to number 85. Just a month before her thirtieth birthday, album number four Forever Is A Feeling has given her a first big hit in the UK. It is a new entry at number five. Two rap releases complete this week’s new entries. Nemzzz is at number six with his mixtape Rent’s Due. Lil Durk gets his seventh top forty album in nine releases as Deep Thoughts lands at number twenty. Alex Warren’s You’ll Be Alright Kid (Chapter 1) continues to climb. After finally entering the top forty last week, it is up to number ten this week. Ever since physical sales of albums were almost entirely concentrated in the first week or two of release, it has become common for the number one album to drop straight out of the top forty the following week. That has happened again this week with The Lottery Winners nowhere to be seen. However, thanks to the way an album’s streams are calculated, other albums have become almost a permanent fixture in the top forty. Many of them are compilations of some sort, in particular those whose streams are spread across several different tracks rather than one or two. This means that there are now a substantial number of albums in the chart which have topped the chart at some point, including some whose time at the top was many years ago. This week’s top forty contains 24 which have spent time at the summit in their (sometimes very long) chart history. Finally, many thanks to popchartfreak for providing last week’s commentary while I was heading along the south coast to Bexhill.

Alex Warren gets his first number one single. Steve Wilson narrowly misses out on a first number one album. Alex Warren climbs to the top of the singles chart to get his first UK number one. Sadly, it is with the aptly-titled Ordinary rather than the significantly better Carry You Home which is back up to number twenty this week. The Californian singer-songwriter released his first music in 2021, but didn’t enter the UK ((or US) top forty until last year. At the beginning of the week, it was a distinct possibility that Chappell Roan could replace herself at number one with her new single The Giver. As it is, the song - which has a certain country feel to it - lands at number two. If she had topped the chart she wouldn’t have been the first act to replace themselves at the top. However, it would have been the first time that an act’s first spell at number one had been replaced by their second chart-topper. Thanks to various Buzzjack members for help with this fact. Chappell Roan is also at number four with Pink Pony Club which has spent the last two weeks at number one. Doechii climbs to number three with her version of Anxiety. The Sleepy Hallow version (on which Doechii also appears) falls to number 34. A Comic Relief event led to the BBC canning this week’s chart show. That meant there was no chance to hear them play a 6 1/2 -minute rock song, or complain about them skipping it. British band Sleep Token have, to date, released three albums without spending any time in either the singles or albums chart. That changes in style this week with the arrival at number seventeen of their epic Emergence, a track from their forthcominourth album. Let’s hope it is still in the chart next week to give Radio 1 the chance to play it (even though they will probably choose not to). Former Little Mix member Jade (Thirlwaal) is at number 25 with her new single FUFN. The subtitle spells out what the initials stand for, but let’s pretend it is Fossilised Unicorns? Fake News! While I won’t exactly be in a hurry to hear it again, it is at least good enough to be described as OK. When Lil Tecca made his singles chart debut in 2019 with the top ten hit Ransom it was at a time when there was a plethora of Lils in the chart. Now they are not quite so ubiquitous, although they are still around. This particular Lil has had a few minor hits since Ransom, but he hasn’t returned to the top forty until now. Dark Thoughts, whose greatest merit is that it is only just over two minutes long, is at number 30. South African / German rapper (a phrase which I don’t believe has appeared here before) WizTheMC gets his first top forty hit at number 38 with Show Me Love. Bees and Honey also appear on it, apparently. Austrian producer Ely Oaks is another top forty debutant, landing at number 40 with Running Around. The latest random TikTok-inspired re-entry is Adele’s Hometown Glory. It reached number nineteen in 2007 and is now back at number 31. As Playboi Carti doesn’t seem to be a very pleasant person, I shall simply mention that his new album Music is at number one. Three tracks from the album enter the singles chart. Steven Wilson’s band The Porcupine Tree released their first album in 1992. They finally reached the top forty albums chart with their ninth release Fear Of A Blank Planet in 2007.Their last album, 2022’s Closure / Continuation reached number two. His solo career has seen a similar trajectory. The first five albums each reached a steadily higher peak until To The Bone reached number three in 2017. The trend was broken when the next two albums went to number four. This week, the generally upward trajectory is back as The Overview goes all the way to number two. It is at number one in the vinyl chart. Outside the top five there are two great albums by British acts. The higher of the two is Out Of A Dream by manchester band Slow Readers Club. Their progress seemed to have gone into reverse when their top ten album The Joy Of The Return was followed by albums peaking at numbers 29 and 33. Thankfully, Out Of A Dream has done rather better. It enters at number eleven. The other great album comes from a rather better-known act, Florence + The Machine. Florence Welch performed at last year’s BBC Proms with an orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley. A recording of the gig has now been released under the title Symphony Of Lungs (BBC Proms at the Albert Hall) and it sounds fantastic. It is a new entry at number 38. Buckley has previously worked with artists such as Arctic Monkeys, Emeli Sande and Tori Amos. Ricky Warwick, who has worked with Status Quo and Black Star Riders gets his highest-placed solo album with Blood Ties at number 25. A remix version of Charli XCX’s latest album, under the sesquipedalian title Brat and it’s completely different but still Brat is at number 40. I shall be at a Public Service Broadcasting gig next Friday. In my absence, Popchartfreak has kindly agreed to provide an alternative commentary. Just as a link into one of this week’s albums chart new entries, Public Service Broadcasting have performed at the BBC Proms twice.