Suedehead2

Soft Cell - Tainted Love Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Souvenir The Teardrop Explodes - Passionate Friend John Foxx - Europe (After The Rain) Adam And The Ants - Prince Charming Worst Lobo - The Caribbean Disco Show (representing all of the worst medleys - all of them apart from Hooked On Classics) Rex Smith/Rachel Sweet - Everlasting Love Diana Ross And Lionel Richie - Endless Love

Bruce Springsteen - The River Kraftwerk - The Model The Specials - Ghost Town Kirsty MacColl - There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis Kate Bush - Sat In Your Lap Worst Red Sovine - Teddy Bear The Evasions - Wikka Wrap Phil Collins - If Leaving Me Is Easy

Really impressed with the new album on first listen earlier today.

Saturday 1st November Brighton & Hove Albion 2-1 Leeds United Burnley 0-2 Arsenal Crystal Palace 2-2 Brentford Fulham 2-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nottingham Forest 1-3 Manchester United Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Chelsea (17:30) Liverpool 3-1 Aston Villa (20:00) Sunday 2nd November West Ham United 2-1 Newcastle United (14:00) Manchester City 2-1 AFC Bournemouth (16:30) Monday 3rd November Sunderland 2-2 Everton (20:00)

This week's musings can be found from the Blogs section or the Forum Index page.

After three weeks topping the singles and albums charts, Taylor Swift has been toppled from the summit of both of them. Her successor in the singles chart is not exactly new. It is the song toppled by Olivia Dean the week before Swift took over. The third run at the top for Golden by HUNTR/X, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI & KPop Demon Hunters Cast brings its total up to nine weeks at the top. Taylor Swift's The Fate Of Ophelia slips to number two, one place ahead of Raye’s Where Is My Husband. Raye had her car stolen last year. This week it was found, complete with the songbooks left in it. The loss of those songbooks had led to the postponement of her second album. She is now in a much better position to work on that project. Swift is also at number four with Opalite. There are three new entries from each of two new albums this week, so it makes sense to talk about both charts together for a while. The multihyphenate is back! The Official Charts Company used the term to describe Dave in their write-up of Wednesday’s midweek update. As per normal, they are being a little generous. He is a rapper who has done a bit of acting. Alternatively, he is a part-time actor who is also a very successful rapper. After modest success with an EP, Dave’s first two full-length albums topped the chart - Psychodrama in 2019 and We’re All Alone In This Together in 2021. Now, after a four-year absence, he has completed a hat-trick with The Boy Who Played The Harp. For the record, there is a harpist on three of the tracks, but she is a woman. The highest of the three tracks from the album in the singles chart is Raindance, which features Tems, at number five. History, featuring James Blake, is at nine giving Blake a first top ten single credit fifteen years after his only other top forty single. Chapter 16, with added Kano, is at number eleven. Albums whose songs are largely influenced by the break-up of a relationship are not exactly unusual. However, the lyrics are generally relatively subtle. Lily Allen has chosen to eschew that approach with her new album West End Girl, her first for over seven years. The lyrics are full of outright contempt for her former husband. Oh, hang on. I don’t want to be sued. She doesn’t name anyone, but the assumption is that it is about her former spouse who I won’t name - not that I’d heard of him until this album was released. Lily Allen does depart from the central theme on one track. At least I assume that Pussy Palace is about a luxury home for stray cats (not to be confused with Brian Seltzer’s band). That song is at number twelve in the singles chart. The title track is at number seventeen and Madeline is at number nineteen. She has now had sixteen top twenty singles. The album itself is at number four. It doesn’t yet have a physical release - the album was written and recorded very quickly, not leaving enough time for CDs and vinyls to be pressed. A physical release is likely to give it a new lease of life, perhaps taking it to number one if it happens in a quiet week. It should certainly beat the one week in the top forty managed by its immediate predecessor. After my comments on the charting tracks from Taylor Swift’s album a few weeks ago, it is worth acknowledging that only one of the tracks from each of Dave and Lily Allen’s releases are among the three opening tracks. Returning to the singles chart, there is one more new entry to report. Skye Newman gets her third top forty hit of the year at number eighteen with FU & UF, which I think stands for Fed Up and Under Fire. She made her chart debut earlier this year with Hairdresser and followed it up with the number five hit Family Matters which has returned at number 25.. Today is Hallowe’en which means that people have been streaming songs associated with the supernatural. Today’s streams will, of course, count towards next week’s chart which may mean some of them are in that chart. In this week’s top forty we have Michael Jackson’s classic song Thriller at number 33. Alex Warren’s Ordinary remains in the top twenty for a 38th successive week. It breaks the record set way back in 1962 by Mr ‘Acker’ Bilk’s Stranger On The Shore. That song does still hold the record for an instrumental. Taylor Swift’s The Life Of A Showgirl slips to number three in the albums chart. Olivia Dean is at number five with The Art Of Loving. Bon Jovi last week joined the list of acts shameless enough to release a deluxe edition of an album only a year or so after the original release. Forever reached number three when it was released in June last year. It now gets a second week in the top forty, at number two. Last week’s commentary contained an oblique reference to a 1970s Elton John album, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player.. This week’s has a rather more direct reference to another 1970s Elton John album. It is a sign of his longevity that it is now half-a-century since he released his ninth studio album Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy. By stalling at number two it brought an end to a run of three successive number one albums, beginning with the aforementioned Don’t Shoot Me. In 2005, to mark the 30th anniversary of the album, Elton John played most of the album live in a series of concerts in the US. Some of those performances are included on this new edition, along with a number of demos. The 50th anniversary edition is at number 24. Elton John had a number one album earlier this year in collaboration with Brandi Carlile. She gets her first top forty solo album at number 30 with Returning To Myself. Bruce Springsteen recorded his sixth studio album Nebraska in a bedroom at home. The intention was to add backing from the E Street band as usual, but that didn’t happen. He released the original recordings in September 1981 and the album spent two weeks in the top ten. The follow-up, Born In The USA, was his first really big hit album in the UK. Earlier this month, a film based on the recording of the album, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, was released. Naturally his record company has seized the opportunity to release a new edition of the album, complete with “the Electric Nebraska recordings” and a live performance of the album in full. This release is at number fourteen. This still isn’t the end of the anniversary editions. Pulp released their fifth studio album Different Class in October 1995. Only one of their four previous albums had charted at all. Different Class went to number one and spent 23 of its first 25 chart weeks in the top ten. It won the Mercury Prize and is considered to be one of the defining albums of the Britpop era. Its third track, Common People, was the song that took them from being moderately successful to one of the biggest bands of the day. That and Jarvis Cocker’s overblown charisma. The reissue is at number 38. Birmingham based The Clause make their chart debut at number nineteen with Victim Of A Casual Thing. It really is the epitome of a curate’s egg album for me. Some of the tracks are really good while others are decidedly mediocre. It is at number one in the Independent Albums Chart. Sigrid is at number twelve with There’s Always More That I Could Say. Skye Newman’s EP SE9 Part 1 is at number nineteen. Twenty-one-year-old Guildfordian Henry Moodie makes his chart debut at number 31 with Mood Swings.

Looks like I was right. The letting agency has apologised for screwing up. Shame the Daily Mail didn’t ask the same questions.

Reeves used a letting agency. Surely it is reasonable to expect an agency to check that everything is done within the law, particularly with a high-profile client.

Farage's fascists introduced a ten-minute rule Bill today calling for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In a sane world, it would have been defeated overwhelmingly. This is what actually happened. The Labour frontbench didn't vote. Sixty-three Labour backbenchers voted against. It isn't unusual for minister to abstain from a vote on a motion brought by a minor party, but you might have thought that a government led by a former human rights lawyer would have made the effort. The Tories who bothered to vote backed Farage. The Lib Dems backed sanity and voted against. On countless occasions, I have asked people advocating leaving the ECHR to say which rights they are particularly keen to leave for themselves. I have never received a reply. It just seems that there a lot of people keen to join an exclusive club whose only current members are Russia and Belarus.

I thought I read that Scotland was going to dump the "not proven" verdict.

Adam And The Ants - Stand And Deliver Echo & The Bunnymen - Crocodiles Hazel O'Connor - Will You? Siouxsie And The Banshees - Spellbound Kim Carnes - Bette Davis Eyes Worst The Gap Band - Humpin' Paul Shane And The Yellowcoats - Hi-De-Hi (Holiday Rock) Champaign - How 'Bout Us

Reform lost a lot of support in the latter part of the campaign, after a poll showed them narrowly ahead of Plaid. That suggests that the main shift in those days was from Reform to Plaid. That, in turn, suggests that a lot of voters were planning to vote Reform to get Labour out before finding out that they could achieve the same objective without voting for a far-right party.

This week's ramblings can be found in the Blogs section or the Forums index page.

After topping both the singles and albums charts for the last two weeks, Taylor Swift started the week looking to perform the double for a third successive week. The midweek updates indicated that she would succeed in getting a third week at number one in the singles chart with The Fate Of Ophelia, but the albums chart was a different matter. Of her four previous number one singles, only Anti-Hero has spent longer at the top. Swift’s Opalite falls to number five this week. HUNTR/X, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI & KPop Demon Hunters Cast’s Golden is still at number three. Olivia Dean’s Man I Need remains at number two. Ray’s Where Is My Husband is at number four. The top ten comprises three Taylor Swift songs, four featuring Olivia Dean and two from the KPop Demon Hunters film. Oh, and one song by Raye. The reason Olivia Dean is able to feature on four songs in the chart, given that there is a three-song limit per artist, is that only the first named artist counts (although an exception has been made for the KPop Demon Hunters Cast). She takes second billing on her duet with Sam Fender, Rein Me In. Earlier this week Fender’s People watching album was awarded the Mercury Music Prize . That has led to Rein Me In climbing back in to the top ten at number ten. Sam Fender’s Mercury Prize win has led to another duet entering the chart. His guest on Talk To You, a new entry at number twenty, is Elton John who gets his 71st top forty single, albeit this time as a piano player rather than as a vocalist. Don’t shoot him for it. His first hit, Your Song, was released in January 1970, 24 years before Fender was born. The album’s title track, People Watching is a re-entry at number 28. It reached number four last November. As mentioned above, the KPop Demon Hunters cast are being counted as the lead artist on songs from the film, even though they are named last on the lengthy credits. As happened last week, one such song leaves the chart this week to be replaced by another. The replacement this week is What It Sounds Like which is credited to HUNTR/X, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI & KPop Demon Hunters Cast , the same as Golden. What It Sounds Like is at number thirteen. What does it sound like? Surprisingly, it’s actually OK. George Miller’s name doesn’t exactly sound like that of someone born in the Japanese city of Osaka. His chosen moniker Joji sounds a lot more like that of a Far Eastern artist. He gets his third top forty single this week with Pixelated Kisses at number 37. It is, unsurprisingly, the first song with any form of the word pixel in its title. Just two weeks after getting his first top forty single, Kevin Parker, better known as Tame Impala, gets his second. My Own Way is a new entry at number 39, the position occupied by Dracula last week. That song jumps eighteen places to number 21. Myles Smith re-enters t number 38 with Stay (If You Wanna Dance). Ed Sheeran’s Sapphire is a re-entry at number 40, two weeks after it slipped out. I opened this week’s commentary by saying that Taylor Swift faced some stiff opposition at the top of the albums chart. The midweek updates suggested that she would be deprived of a third week at number one (for now at least) by Last Dinner Party’s From The Pyre. Their debut album Prelude To Ecstasy topped the chart and was nominated for the 2024 Mercury Prize. Had Swift’s release date been announced further in advance (it was only made public in August), perhaps the record company would have chosen to release From The Pyre at a different time.Sadly, Last Dinner Party have to be content with a number two debut as The Life Of A Showgirl gets a third week at number one. In the week’s first update on Monday, Taylor Swift was at number three behind both Last Dinner Party and Tame Impala’s fifth studio album Deadbeat. However, the latter was only 164 sales ahead of The Life Of A Showgirl, so it was never going to be as high as number two by the end of the week. The last two Tame Impala albums have entered at number three.Deadbeat is at number four. Olivia Dean is at number three with The Art Of Loving. Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend is at number five. Judging by this year’s contest, Sam Ryder looks like retaining his status as the last UK act to finish in the top three at a Eurovision Song Contest for many years to come. His success in the 2022 contest helped his debut album, It’s Nothing But Space Man, get to number one. His second set Heartland is at number eleven. Twenty years after I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor was at number one (eek!), Arctic Monkeys’ singer Alex Turner’s mate Miles Kane has a new album. Sadly there is no sign of a revival for their joint project Last Shadow Puppets. In the meantime, Sunlight In The Shadows, Kane’s sixth solo album, is at number thirteen. A rather older solo artist known for his work as part of a band is at number twelve in the shape of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour with his ninth solo top forty album The Luck And Strange Concerts. Of Monsters And Men, the Icelandic band who aren’t Sigur Ros, are at number sixteen with All Is Love And Pain In The Mouse Parade. Swedish singer-songwriter Rianne Downey makes her chart debut with The Consequence Of Love at number eighteen. Ashnikko lands at number 32 with Smoochies. We have already seen that Sam Fender’s Mercury Prize win has given a boost to some of the tracks from the album. Not surprisingly, the album itself has also benefitted. People Watching soars 58 places to return to the top forty at number seventeen, a number with a special meaning for him.

Friday 24th October Leeds United 3-1 West Ham United (20:00) Saturday 25th October Chelsea 2-0 Sunderland Newcastle United 2-0 Fulham Manchester United 2-2 Brighton & Hove Albion (17:30) Brentford 0-2 Liverpool (20:00) Sunday 26th October AFC Bournemouth 2-0 Nottingham Forest (14:00) Arsenal 4-1 Crystal Palace (14:00) Aston Villa 2-2 Manchester City (14:00) Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 Burnley (14:00) Everton 1-0 Tottenham Hotspur (16:30)