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Suedehead2

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  1. After Taylor Swift finished well clear of all rivals (including herself) last week, normal service is resumed this week with another tight race for number one. In Wednesday's update Swift’s Patient Zero held a lead over Sienna Spiro’s Great Expectation of just 600 chart sales. Patient Zero topped last week’s chart, ending Great Expectation’s three-week run at the top.


    Taylor Swift was the eventual winner so Patient Zero gets a second week at number one. Great Expectation remains at number two. Jamie Miller’s Babydoll climbs three places to number three. Ashe climbs six places to number four with Stop The Wedding. Ella Langley remains at number five with Choosin’ Texas.


    The other two Swift songs in last week’s chart have fallen sharply. Babylon has crashed 24 places to number 28. Cleveland, last week’s number three; is no longer one of the three most popular Swift songs of the week so it drops out of the chart altogether. It is replaced by The Fate Of Ophelia which returns at number seventeen.


    Noah Kahan has a new entry at number sixteen with Draw You Out. It joins Willing And Able (number twenty) and Orbiter (23) in the top forty. After three singles peaking between numbers 41 and 50 at the start of the 2020s, rapper Morrisson makes his top forty debut in the anchor position with Cos Of You.


    Last week, a new edition of Taylor Swift’s The Life Of A Showgirl saw three of the new tracks riding high in the chart while the album itself returned to number one. There was a time when the same would have happened with a new edition of a Drake album. Thankfully, his popularity has waned so the new edition of Habibti has made less of an impact.


    Three of the four new Drake songs have entered the top forty but they are some way from the top of the chart. Two months after parts of Europe witnessed a total solar eclipse, Solar Eclipse enters at number 22. It features Don Toliver who is one of many credited co-writers. Others include Ella Langley and Shawn Carter (rather better known as Jay-Z). I would prefer to listen to Klaus Nomi’s Total Eclipse. Toliver also features on Cold Shoulder which enters at number 36. Quebec, which has no featured artist, is at number 27 The album itself returns to the chart at number twenty. Drake has now had 104 top forty hits in the UK.



    The race at the top of the albums chart was between a new edition of an album from 1965 and a new album by an indie band with both bands coming from north--west England.


    The more famous of the two acts involved were The Beatles  Rubber Soul was their sixth studio album, released in December 1965 just four months after they released Help! It was only the second Beatles album, after A Hard Day’s Night, whose songs were all composed by members of the band. Those songs included Nowhere Man, Norwegian Wood and In My Life. Despite being released so late in the year it was the third best-selling album of 1965, sandwiched between Beatles For Sale and Help! The best-seller of the year was the Sound Of Music soundtrack.


    The nw edition of Rubber Soul, somewhat late for its sixtieth anniversary, includes various demos, early versions of the album’s songs, backing tracks and remixes. The whole thing runs to a hefty 68 songs and 2 ¾ hours of music.


    The rivals for the top spot were Blossoms who hail from Stockport, roughly 40 miles from Liverpool. Four of their first five albums topped the chart so they had an impressive record to defend. They were just behind The Beatles on Wednesday but had the advantage that their members were all available to do some promotional work. Unfortunately I haven’t got round to listening to Songs From The Wedding Cake but I assume it matches the high standards of its predecessors. 


    In the end, Blossoms’ ability to promote their album gave them the edge and Songs From The Wedding Cake becomes their sixth album. The day after John Lennon should have celebrated his 86th birthday (8 October), The Beatles are at number two.


    Olivia Rodrigo is at number three with You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. The Essential Michael Jackson is at four. Taylor Swift’s The Art Of A Showgirl falls to number eight after its bonus week at the top.


    Johnny Marr gets his sixth top ten album with The Age Of Everything at number five. In the week the The Fate Of Ophelis has returned to the singles chart, it includes a song called Ophelia. She is getting a lot of attention these days.


    London band Fat Dog are at number thirteen with Cancel Me (I’m Tired).


  2. Last Friday (25 September) Taylor Swift released a deluxe edition of her album The Life Of A Showgirl, including four new tracks. Inevitably, fans have rushed to download and stream those tracks meaning that three of them (the maximum number of songs by one artist allowed in the chart) enter the top forty. This means that the top five has a far fresher look than it has had for many weeks.


    The most popular of the new tracks, by a very long way, is Patient Zero. By Wednesday’s update it had accumulated more chart sales than the number one single has “sold” for some time. Inevitably, then it has become Taylor Swift’s eighth UK number one single. Behind it is Cleveland at number three, yet another current single to have a US state or city in its title. The trio of new entries is completed by another place name, Babylon which may, or may not, be named after a villager in New York. That song is at number four.


    Previous hits with Babylon in the title include songs by Boney M, The Ruts and David Gray. Sadly, the brilliant Dancing In Babylon by MGMT and  Christine & The Queens failed to chart.


    Sienna Spiro blocks Taylor Swift from a top three clean sweep. Her Great Expectation is at number two after three weeks at the summit. Ella Langley’s Chasin’ Texas is at number five.


    Madonna has released a new version of her Danceteria single with a new contribution from Charli XCX. The song originally reached number 38 in July. Now it is back at number 22.



    When Taylor Swift's people looked at the list of new releases scheduled for last Friday, they must have thought that the simple act of adding four new songs to The Life Of A Showgirl would guarantee its return to the top with no obvious competition. However, the midweek updates showed Keo, a band who don’t yet have a Wikipedia page or any details on their Spotify page leading the way.


    A bit more digging reveals that Keo have been selling out gigs in some sizeable venues, signifying a strong and growing following. Those of us of advanced years have lived through many bands described as “The next big thing”. Time will tell whether Keo enjoy a long and successful career or just fizzle out like Northern Uproar.


    Taylor Swift’s big advantage was that streams of her album would continue to be strong throughout the week whereas Keo were more dependent on actual sales which will have been at their highest at the start of the week. In the end, those streams were enough to propel The Life Of A Showgirl back to the top for a fifth week at number one.


    Keo, then, have to be content with a number two spot for Put A Smile On For Me.. If it is any consolation to them, it is the biggest selling vinyl album of the week. They also get the biggest sales for a male band with their debut album since Blossoms a decade ago.


    Nothing But Thieves enter at number three with Stray Dogs to make it five top ten albums from five releases. This, though, marks a slight decline from their previous album which topped the chart in 2023.


    Soft Cell finished recording their sixth studio album Deanceteria on 20 October 2025. Just two days later singer Marc Almond received the news that Dave Ball, the other half of the duo, had died. Ball had been ill for some time, so it  was known that this would almost certainly be their final album and that is reflected in some of the tracks. Others, by contrast, are far more joyous. The album is named after a New York nightclub frequented by Almond and Ball when they lived in the city.


    Soft Cell formed in Leeds in 1978 and had a huge number one hit with their version of tainted Love in 1981. Further hits followed before the band went into decline, They called it a day after their fourth album limped in at number 116. However, they eventually re-formed (after Marc Almond had a long spell of ill-health following a serious road accident) and had a top ten album in 2022. Their final album enters at number 26. It may well be the first time that we have had new or re-entries with the same title in both charts, but by different artists.


    Europe, best-known for recording one of the most annoying number one singles of the 1980s, are at number 30 with Come This Madness. Tinashe gets her first top forty album with Popstar at number 35.
  3. For the third week in a row, there was a tight race at the top of the singles chart this week. However ,one of last week’s contenders has been removed from the battle. Streams of Hugel, Imarl Angel and Ultra Nate’s Movin’ To The Sun have been declining for the last three weeks. This means that it is moved on to the Accelerated Chart Ratio (ACR) and the value of the song’s streams are halved.


    Sienna Spiro’s Great Expectation held a narrow lead in the midweek updates and duly gets a third week at number one. The last song to have a single run of exactly three weeks at number one was Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In and we know what eventually happened to that.


    In Wednesday’s update Ella Langley’s Chasin’ Texas was ahead of Stella Lefty’s Boston by a little over 100 chart sales. Langley held off the challenge to spend another week at number two while Lefty takes advantage of Hugel’s banishment to move up to number three. Adela climbs eleven places to number four with Nicole Kidman. Dua Lipa’s Training Season remains at number five. Olivia Rodrigo’s The Cure completes an all female top six at number six. Three of those top six have titles which are also the name of a charting act.


    Prospa and Cloonee entered the chart with Free Your Mind in April this year, eventually taking the song to number six. Almost six months on, it is still in the chart. Now the acts have collaborated again, albeit with the roles reversed. They have also brought on board singer-songwriter Tristan Henry to create Good Girl. The song, which is somewhat lacking in originality, is at number 29.


    Hugel and Solto return at number 37 with Jamaican (Bam Bam). two much older songs which have already spent time in the top forty this year are back for another go. Robyn’s Dancing On My Own is at number 35 and Mr Brightside is back. The Killers’ signature song is at number 40.



    Filippino/British singer Beabadoobee remains best known for her role on Powfu’s Death Bed (Coffee For Your Head) which featured her song Coffee. While Powfu seems to have disappeared without trace, Beadaboobee has had three top ten albums, including a number one with 2024’s This Is How Tomorrow Moves. Her success continues with album number four, Pylon, which also tops the chart.


    The Essential Michael Jackson is at number two for the twelfth ime this year. Olivia Rodrigo remains at number three with You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. Sienna Spiro’s Visitor is at number four, one place ahead of Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving which returns to the top five after a six-week absence.


    In one of the weird coincidences that show up occasionally, two of the most successful bands of the 1980s - Queen (whose success began in the mid-1970s) and Duran Duran - both had a drummer called Roger Taylor. Even while working with Queen, the older Roger taylor was recording solo material, releasing his first album in 1981. None of his solo albums performed particularly well until his sixth collection, Outsider, reached number three in 2021. Now he has a second top ten solo album with Violence Insane In A Beautiful World (an incredibly clumsy title) at number six. An orchestral Queen’s most famous song Bohemian Rhapsody was played at a BBC Proms concert last year to mark the song’s half-century. Taylor came on stage to bang the gong at the end.


    Five of Miley Cyrus’s last six albums all reached the top ten. She has dropped her surname for her new album Bass Persuades. It enters at a relatively modest number thirteen. Another mononymous American, Beck, is at number fifteen with Ride Lonesome.


    There is still no sign of an end to the stock of unreleased David Bowie material.The Shel Talmy Recordings is a collection of songs recorded in 1965 when Bowie was still a teenager and known as Davie Jones. This new collection lands at number seventeen to give Bowie a 72nd top forty album.


    Two Liverpudlian acts complete the list of new entries. Echo and the Bunnymen were formed in 1977 and had their greatest success in the 1980s with fabulous singles such as The Cutter, Seven Seas and The Killing Moon. They are at number nineteen with their thirteenth studio album (the first for twelve years) Apples For Isaac. Fellow Scousers Cheap Thrills are at number 23 with their debut album Keep Cheap.
  4. With no recent release making any impact near the top of the chart or threatening to be the new Rein Me In, there was another close race for number one in the singles chart. In Wednesday’s update the top four were separated by roughly 1,600 chart sales. I could have chosen to prepare a separate commentary for each possible top four. However, there are 24 different combinations, so I didn’t.


    The leader in Wednesday’s update was Sienna Spiro’s Great Expectation which climbed to the top last week and it was still there when the final calculations were made today (Friday). The 20-year-old Londoner had her first top forty hit last year with Die On This Hill. She had one further top forty hit in 2025 and, so far, has had a further four this year.


    One of the factors determining what fraction of a sale is given to a stream of a song is the type of account held with a stream from a paid-for account having more value than one from a free, advertising-supported account. The numbers two, three and four on Wednesday were so close that their respective positions may well have been determined by what proportion of streams of each song were from a paid-for account.


    Ella Langley’s one-week number one Choosin’ Texas is at number two.Hugel, Imarl Angel and Ultra Nate remain at number three with Movin’ To The Sun. Stella Lefty’s Boston remains at number four. Dua Lipa’s 2-25 hit Training Season climbs to number five, one place short of its original peak. This week’s top five singles have spent an average of five months in the top 100.


    Nicole Kidman joins the list of people to have had a hit single and to be the title of a hit single joining the likes of Clint Eastwood. Adela’s song Nicole Kidman is a new entry at number fifteen.


    TLC’s No Scrubs, a number three hit in 1999, re-enters at number 23.



    British jazz group Ezra Collective won the Mercury Prize in 2023 but were still deemed eligible for the BBC’s Sound Of 2025 list. Also in 2025 they won Group Of The Year at the Brit Awards. A number one album, however, eluded them with their best performer being a number seven peak with 2024’s Dance. No One’s Watching. That changes this week as their fourth studio album, Here Because Of Hope, sits proudly at the top of the chart. Ezra Collective are the first UK jazz act to have a number one studio album.


    Most of the rest of the top five are albums that have been around for a while. The Essential Michael Jackson is at number two. Olivia Rodrigo is still at number three with You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. Sienna Spiro’s Visitor is at number four.


    The announcement of new tour dates next year and the release of a documentary about last year’s reunion tour sees their albums getting a boost. The Time Flies compilation returns to the top five at number five while (What’s The Story) Morning Glory is at twelve. Definitely Maybe re-enters the top forty at number seventeen. Don't Look Back In Anger, the name of the documentary film, returns to the singles chart at number 30.


    The list of break-up albums gets a new member this week with the release of Bloc Party’s Anatomy Of A Brief Romance. Singer and songwriter Kele Okereke has described it as an unusually personal album. Reviews of the album have not been great, but it still manages to enter at number six making it six top ten studio albums in seven releases for the band.


    Roxanne Emery, recording as RØRY,  achieves a new high in the albums chart by entering at number eight with Bloodletting,


    There is another album by someone who uses a single word pseudonym at number eleven. When he was born in Brighton, the man now known as Bonobo was given the name Simon Green.His first four albums all failed to chart but Distance In Static now makes it four top forty albums in a row. 


    The fount of all knowledge that is Wikipedia describes Green Lung as “a stoner / doom metal band”, whatever that is. Their fourth album Necropolitan earns them a UK chart debut at number 25.


  5. Unfortunately, a domestic emergency means that I have been unable to write a Chart Commentary this week. John (popchartfreak) is also unable to provide his usual replacement commentary.

    I'm very sorry about this. Normal service will be resumed next week.

    In the meantime, congratulations to Sienna Spiro on her first UK number one single.
  6. Three times in the last six months I have been able to report that Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In has fallen from number one. There are at least two reasons why this week’s report that it has happened again is historic. First, as Rein Me In is the first song in history to get four spells at the top in a single chart run, it is now the first song to fall from the summit from the summit for the fourth time in the same chart run.


    That piece of chart history was clearly going to happen when Rein Me In climbed back to number one ten weeks ago. However, this time it is different. Apart from a spell in December, for obvious reasons, streams of Rein Me In have not declined for three successive weeks in a chart run lasting over a year. Until now. That three-week decline in streams means that Rein Me In is now on the Accelerated Chart Ratio (ACR). The value of its streams has been halved. Without that change it would have been at number one yet again. As it is, the race for the top was one of the closest for many years with several songs in contention.


    After Dolly Parton’s death last month, two of her songs, Jolene and 9 To 5, were among the contenders. They occupied the top two positions in early updates, but had slipped down the chart by Wednesday, suggesting that they were no longer serious contenders.


    For many months the slow rise of Ella Langley's Choosin' Texas has led to jokes about it either finally getting to number one just before Christmas or the start of next year. It entered the top forty in February (the week before Rein Me In first topped the chart) and has been climbing ever so slowly since then. In normal circumstances, it would not be unusual for a number one to be succeeded by a song that entered the chart at about the time that song first climbed to the top. However, Rein Me In is no ordinary number one.


    The next contender was Hugel, Imael Angel and Ultra Nate’s controversial Movin’ To The Sun. The reason for the controversy is the part that AI played in the composition of the song. Hugel created a new version of the song himself, but it seems unlikely that the song would exist without AI. Movin’ To The Sun is a relative newcomer having entered the top forty at the beginning of June.


    Sienna Spiro’s Great Expectation is the freshest of the contenders, joining the top forty in July.


    After all the numbers were crunched, Ella Langley was declared the winner with Choosin’ Texas topping the chart in its 31st week in the top forty. Sienna Spiro’s Great Expectation climbs to number two, one place ahead of Hugel, Imael Angel and Ultra nate’s Movin’ To The Sun.


    Stella Lefty stays at number four with Boston. Dolly Parton is at number five with 9 To 5 (sadly it didn’t climb there from number nine) while Jolene is at number six. Both Parton songs have reached new peaks this week.


    In its sixteenth week in the top 100 Noah Kahan’s Willing And Able enters the top forty for the first time at number 39.


    Rein Me In falls to number seven after a total of 23 weeks at the top. The fact that it is now on ACR means that it is unlikely to return to the summit, although it may well remain in the chart for many more months.


    Dua Lipa’s 2024 hit Training Season is a re-entry at number eighteen. Slovakian singer Adela re-enters at number 26 with Ain’ In LA, beating its previous best position of number 32. She may not be in LA but LA is in Adelam right at the end. As well as giving a whole host of acts their first radio airplay, John Peel also had a reputation for playing records at the wrong speed. Part of Ain’t In LA sounds like it is being played too slowly.



    In the week that the longest-running UK number one in history vacated the summit there is a reminder of another long-running number one. Alex Warren’s Ordinary spent a total of thirteen weeks at the top last year and is still in the singles chart this week. Ordinary was on Warren’s debut album, itself a number one, released in July last year. His second set, Wildchild, was released last week and it is at number one today. As well as the title track, there is a song called Passenger. Is Alex Warren an Iggy Pop fan?


    Lovers of chart trivia will forever be amused by the fact that The Courteeners’ biggest hit Bot Nineteen Forever is their highest-charting single, peaking at number nineteen. The Scottish band’s albums have all reached the top ten. That run continues this week as their seventh collection, Pink Cactus Café debuts at number two.


    The Essential Michael Jackson is at number three, one place ahead of Olivia Rodrigo’s You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love.


    Dolly Parton’s Diamonds and Rhinestones: The Greatest Hits Collection climbs one place to number five, a new peak.


    Bananarama were always more of a singles band than an albums band. Only one of their studio albums reached the top ten with their 1986 release True Confessions limping in at number 46. Forty years on there is an anniversary edition at number six.


    We don’t get many Mexican acts in the UK charts but there is one this week. Rock band The Warning make their UK chart debut with their fifth album Everything’s Falling. It will probably be falling next week.


    Steve Hackett and Steve Rothery, former member of Genesis and current member of Marillion respectively. Enter at number 24 with The Roaring Waves. Former Beastie Boy is at number 28 with Thank You. 


    American heavy metal band Mastodon are at number 27 with Marrow Deep. Their fellow Americans Interpol are at 33 with This Mirror Weighs A Ton.


  7. Sam Fender and Olivia Dean continue their record-breaking run as Rein Me In tops the chart for a tenth consecutive week, and the 23rd overall. The ascension of Last Christmas to the title of longest-running UK number one has now been delayed by two or three years. Of course, if Fender and Dean record a Christmas song of their own, that moment could be postponed for even longer. Dean was at number eight this time last year with Man I Need. This week the song is …. at number eight.


    Sakira and Burna Boy’s Dai Dai has now moved on to the Accelerated Chart Ratio (ACR). With its streams now worth half their previous value, its five-week run at number two is over. It is replaced in the runner-up spot by Hugel, Imael Angel and Ultra Nate’s Movin’ To The Sun. 


    Stella Lefty is at number four with Boston. There is more American geography at number three in the shape of Ella langley’s Choosin’ Texas. Sienna Spiro’s Great Expectation is at number five.


    Dublin band Fontaines DC got a deserved first top forty single last year when It’s Amazing To Be Young from their excellent album Romance reached the dizzy height, for them, of number 59. While it was by no means their best single, it did at least gain them a little more recognition.


    For reasons best known to themselves and/or their record company, Fontaines DC released Marianne, the first single from their next album, on a Tuesday. Even without the benefit of a full chart week, it still reached number 60 in last week’s chart. This week, the song - which is wonderful - climbs to number nineteen. The band are headlining at the Reading Festival tonight. Their set is on BBC1 at 22:40.


    After a six-year wait Ashe gets her second top forty hit with the rather lovely Stop The Wedding at number 38. It is one place below Raye’s Where Is My Husband. Given how long she has been looking for him, perhaps she should have stopped the wedding.


    Sienna Spiro enters at number 40 with Pure. It is nowhere near as good as the Lightning Seeds song of the same name. 


    Even though it had already been reported that Dolly Parton was suffering from ill health, it was still a shock to hear on Tuesday that she had died at the age of 80. The coverage of her death demonstrated how much she was loved as a person, including by those who weren’t particularly fans of her music. Her incredible generosity and support for good causes added to her reputation as a truly wonderful woman. One of her biggest causes was to get children reading and enjoying books, partly inspired by the fact that her father was unable to read and write.


    I’m going to divert briefly to mention an anecdote in a book I read over the summer by former children’s laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce. He was visiting a primary school where a little girl wanted to show him her writing. She scrawled something totally unintelligible on a piece of paper, so Cottrell-Boyce asked her what it said. “I don’t know”, she replied. “I can write, but I can’t read yet”.


    Anyway, back to Dolly Parton. Given her fame, it is a surprise to many people just how modest her singles chart history is. Before today she had had just two top forty singles, Jolene (number seven in 1976) and Islands In The Stream with Kenny Rogers (number seven in 1983. One of her best known hits, 9 to 5, peaked at number 47.


    Islands in The Stream, a song I don’t really like at all, is back at number thirteen this week. Forty-five years after it failed to reach the top forty, 9 to 5 comes in at number twelve and Jolene is at number nine. 


    Unsurprisingly, my two favourite Dolly Parton songs are missing. I rate her version of I Will Always Love you far better than Whitney Houston’s overblown version and I have been a fan of Love Is Like A Butterfly since it was used as the theme tune to 1970s sitcom Butterflies.


    In the albums chart, Diamonds and Rhinestones: The Greatest Hits Collection soars to number six, easily surpassing its previous peak of number 32.





    Three of the most distinctive vocalists released new albums last week. Two of them have done very well, the third not so much. As the music world, and much of the music world in general, mourns the loss of Dolly Parton, the two successful albums have a very strong country influence.


    Paul Heaton first made an impact on the UK charts as a member of the Hull-based Housemartins, alongside Norman Cook. After that group disbanded, he formed The Beautiful South. Both Housemartins albums reached the top ten, as did eight of The Beautiful; South’s ten studio albums. Two Beautiful South albums made it to number one. A compilation album, Carry On Up The Charts also reached the top of the pile.


    Paul Heaton’s solo career didn’t go well until he teamed up with fellow former member of The Beautiful South Jacqui Abbott. He has recorded four albums with her, all of which reached the top five, two of them getting to number one. His next purely solo album also performed well. Now he has scored his first solo number one album with his sixth attempt Jenius.


    Many of the tracks on Paul Heaton’s album have a distinctly country flavour to them, and the same can be said of Brandon Flowers’ latest work. Unlike Heaton, Flowers’ solo albums have performed well from the start. Both Flamingo (2010) and The Desired Effect (2015) topped the chart, adding to Flowers’ seven number ones from seven Killers studio albums. However, Heaton has the last laugh as he stops Flowers from getting a Perfect Ten. Thrasher is at number three.


    Rock band Westside Cowboy were formed in Manchester although I suspect at least two of the members (Aoife O’Connell and Paddy Murphy) may possibly have some Irish roots. According to their Wikipedia page (interpret that as you will). Westside Cowboys were people riding horses in front of early American trains to prevent people being hit by this new-fangled mode of transport.


    Two Westside Cowboy EPs failed to trouble the charts, as did a string of singles led by I’ve Never Met Anyone I Thought I Could Really Love (Until I Met You). That somewhat lengthy title does not appear on the album, although it does close with You Could Have Died There On The Dancefloor. The album It Goes On, which could describe some of their song titles, is at number five.

    The Essential Michael Jackson is at number two. Ilivia Rodrigo is at number four with You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love.


    Of the albums released last week that I listened to, the most disappointing has to be that from Australian band DMA’s. That has nothing to do with the fact that they still haven’t dropped the grammatically incorrect apostrophe. They have even compounded the error by calling the album DMA’s as well. It is because it just isn’t very good. I have enjoyed their previous releases, but I didn’t make it to the end of this one. Their previous four albums have peaked at progressively higher positions. That ends this week as this set enters at number nine.


    It has been a relatively disappointing week for The Smiths. Sam Smith, the third vocalist with a distinctive voice to release an album last week can only reach number 21 with Hazel Eyes. All of their previous albums hit the top two. After three top ten albums Jorja Smith is at number seventeen with her latest release What Are The Odds.


    Antony Szmierek makes his top forty debut with Decoding Birdsong at number 30. Back in the 1970s, it was possible to buy albums of bird songs.


    I’ll sign off this week with some words from Dolly Parton - “If you see someone without a smile  today, give them yours”.


  8. .In 2007 Rihanna spent ten weeks at number one with Umbrella. While it would be an exaggeration to say that it never stopped raining in that time, we did have a rather wet summer. 


    In 2026, Rein Me in (let’s not worry about minor details such as spelling) has now notched up a 22nd week at number one and rain has become something people talk about nostalgically. Indeed, it has been at number one for so long that it is easy to forget that it climbed to the top at a time when we desperately longed for just a couple dry days. Yesterday (Thursday), it became the first song to be at the top of the UK singles chart exactly six months after climbing to the summit. The betting companies might want to start thinking about the odds for Last Christmas to be the next number one.


    On a more quirky note, my general rule is to spell out numbers up to twenty and to use numbers thereafter. This is the first time I have used numbers to indicate how long a song has spent at number one. If it is still number one next week, I might demonstrate an exception to the rule.


    A long-running number one almost inevitably leads to at least one particularly unlucky number two. That label can be applied to Shakira and Burna Boy’s Dai Dai which gets a fifth consecutive week in the runner-up position.


    Ella Langley is still Choosin’ Texas at number three. Hugel, Imael Angel and Ultra Nate stay at number four with Movin’ To The Sun. From where? The Daily Express? Stella Lefty has her first top five hit as Boston climbs to number five. I assume that is a second US geographical; reference in the top five rather than being about the town in Lincolnshire.


    As the summer draws to a close, it is not unusual for some utterly naff track to hit the charts. This trend dates back at least as far as Y Viva Espana in 1970-something. That serves as an introduction to the fact that Katseye have their fifth top forty hit of the year with something called Hootie Frutti at number sixteen. Tutti Frutti it ain’t. It is roughly the same length as the Little Richard classic, but definitely does not leave this listener wanting more.


    Noah Kahan’s Orbiter has been making its way round the charts for a coup[le months, mostly in the forties but briefly dropping into the fifties as well as a short spell in the top forty. Now it is back in the main chart at number 32, a new peak.


    Robyn’s wonderful Dancing On My Own reappeared in the top forty for a couple weeks while I have been away, before dropping out last week. This week it is back again at number 34.


    Raye’s Where Is My Husband is still in the top forty. Can’t she swap it for a version of U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking for?


    The Killers’ Mr Brightside moves back up two places to number 38. Its current top forty run is its longest. At five weeks it easily surpasses the classic song’s initial three-week run back in 2004. Despite being on permanent AACR (meaning that its streams have only half the value of most songs in the chart), it has been in the top 100 almost continuously since the start of 2021. It typically drops out for a week or two over the festive period. This is its 519th week in the top 100, but only its twelfth in the top forty.





    When American singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers released her debut album, most people in the UK took no notice whatsoever. It entered the lower reaches of the downloads chart, but didn’t make the main chart at all. Three years later, album number two performed much better, reaching the top ten. After a six-year gap, she has finally released her third album. Lost Weekend, and has grabbed herself a first UK number one. The title track is also a new entry in the singles chart, at number 39.


    Lost Weekend is the 24th album to top the chart since Rein Me In first topped the singles chart. Bear in mind that four other swings have topped the chart since then while Sam Fender and Olivia Dean were having a little rest.


    People who think they can stand a full album of Katseye got their wish last week with the release of Wild. It lands at number two this week. Oh joy.


    While they haven’t had a top forty single for over a decade, Dublin band The Script continue to enjoy chart success with their albums. All of their first seven studio albums have reached the top two. However, the midweek updates suggested that their eighth collection, The User’s Guide To Being Human might see that run come to an end. Today (Friday) sees that confirmed. It is a new entry at number three.


    A look at the Script’s upcoming dates in the UK shows something of a contrast, After dates at the Bournemouth International Centre, a large venue I know well, and the O2 Arena in London. They have a date at the 600-capacity Concorde 2 in Brighton. This must either be a special treat for a select number of Sussex-based fans, or an acknowledgement that there would be a lot of empty seats in the Brighton Centre.


    If one album title could sum up the summer of 2026 in much of Europe, Jungle’s Sunshine would be a good contender. Sadly, neither Eric Morecambe nor Ernie Wise is alive to be able to walk into a record shop and ask someone behind the counter to “Bring Me Sunshine”. Nevertheless, sufficient people are alive to buy or stream the album for it to have got to number four.


    The top five is completed by The Essential Michael Jackson. 


    The Kris Barras band, fronted by a former UFC fighter, are at number 21 with Monsters We Made. Marilyn Manson gets a twelfth top forty album with One Assassination Under God - Chapter 2 at number 27. Chapter 1 reached number 36 in 2024.



    Finally, many thanks to popchartfreak for his commentaries in five of the last six weeks.


  9. At the beginning of the chart week, Sam Fender and Olivia Dean looked all set for a seventeenth week at number one with Rein Me In, putting them just one week behind the all-time record. However, that changed in the early hours of Sunday morning when England reached the World Cup semi-final. As a result, various football-related songs got a hefty boost. Even by the time of Monday;s update (which uses incomplete streaming data for Sunday), three of those songs were in the top five.


    It was a slight surprise to see Rein Me In comfortably ahead in Wednesday’s update. Later on Wednesday, England lost the semi-final against Argentina. This meant that streams of the football-=related songs will have taken a tumble.However, as most of Thursday’s streaming figures are estimated (because only one major streaming provider seems to have worked out how to report streams on time), that drop-off may not have been reflected in the estimate.


    This all means that Rein Me In is at number one yet again. With seventeen weeks at the top, it is now the second longest-running number one in UK singles chart history. It is just one week behind Frankie Laine’s I Believe which set the record in 1953, less than a year after the first UK singles chart was published.


    What, then, of the football-related songs. The word “related” is important here, as  the highest placed one is not actually a football song. At this World Cup, England fans have finally joined the rest of the world in getting fed-up with Sweet Carolin and have decided that a song by an English act might be more appropriate. They have started singing Wonderwall, by the football-loving Gallagher brothers and the rest of Oasis. It climbs to number two, matching its peak from 1995.


    Three Lions, by The Lightning Seeds with help from David Baddiel and Frank Skinner is at number three. This is the eighth year in which the song has been in the top ten. 


    The official song of the 2026 World Cup, Dai Dai by Shakira and Burna Boy, climbs eight places to number five. It is Shakira’s first top ten hit since She Wolf in 2009.Shakira also recorded the official song for the 2010 World Cup, held in South Africa. Waka Waka (This Time For Africa) is back at number 26.There are still some people not fed-up with Sweet Caroline, enough of them to see it back at number 35.


    One of the best performers for England was Jude Bellingham. As a result The Beatles' Hey Jude, written by Paul McCartney to comfort John Lennon’s young son Julian, is back at number 24. It spent two weeks at number one in 1968. Vindaloo by Fat Les (including Lily Allen’s father Keith) returns at number twenty. It reached number two in 1998.


    ANOTR and 54 Ultra climb to number four with Talk To You.


    Olivia Rodrigo has a new entry at number 30 with Honeybee. In the 1930s, diminutive comic Arthur Askey recorded The Bee Song whose chorus went “Bzz bzz bzz bzz honeybee honeybee / Bzz if you like but don’t sting me / Bzz bzz bzz bzz honeybee honeybee / Bzz if you like but don’t sting me / Bzz bzz. This is not a cover of that song.


    Last week Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler died after having been seriously ill since early May. Her best-known song is probably the Jim Steinman power ballad Total Eclipse Of The Heart. It reached number one in 1983 and is back in the chart this week at number 29.


    Alyssa Grace’s Bloodstream entered the top forty last month at number 25 but dropped back out again the following week, tumbling all the way to number 65. After a four-week absence, it is back this week at number 36.





    When The Rolling Stones released Hackney Diamonds in 2023, there was widespread agreement that it was their best album for decades. It is, therefore, something of a surprise that their new album, Foreign Tongues, has been described as even better, and with good reason. Hackney Diamonds spent ten weeks in the top ten, two of them at number one. Foreign Tongues, the Stones’ 25 studio album, also tops the chart, giving them as fourteenth chart-topping album. Among the guest musicians are Paul McCartney, Robert Smith and Bruno Mars.


    One of the finest moments in the career of My Chemical Romance came when the Daily Mail was less than kind to them on the release of The Black Parade and its chart-topping single. Last week they released a new version of their fourth studio album Danger Days: The true Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys. The original release, in 2010, reached number fourteen. This reissue is a new entry at number two.


    My Chemical Romance are not the only act to get a high entry with a new edition of an old album. However, Bring me The Horizon have gone more down the Taylor Swift route and have re-recorded their 2006 debut album Count Your Blessings. The original version of the album fell well short of the top forty. Count Your Blessings: Repented is a new entry at number six.


    Olivia Rodrigo is still at number three with You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. The Essential Michael Jackson stays at number four.


    For many years, Simon Cowell made a lot of money after being given many hours of primetime television to promote acts signed to a record label he just happened to own. Eventually, increasing numbers of viewers lost interest in X Factor which has now been off our screens for some time. However, last year Cowell announced a new show called The Next Big Act. This time, though, the show was on Netflix which made it less of an event watched by millions at the same time. Therefore, when the winning act - a boyband called December 10 - released their debut single, it failed to reach the top forty. Two subsequent singles did even less well.


    Now, December 10 (who came up with that name?) have released an EP, On Your Side. Under current chart rules, it qualifies for the albums chart, and it is a new entry at number five.


    This means that Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving has left the top five after 41 weeks.


    Future is at number 27 with The Real Me. Jack White is at number 29 with his seventh solo album Frozen Charlotte. The Specials enter at number 39 with their final album Life From The Cathedral, recorded as a tribute to their late singer Terry Hall.


    As mentioned two weeks ago, I shall be on holiday for the next four Fridays. So, thanks to Popchartfreak for filling  in for me last week, and thanks also for agreeing to cover for the next four weeks, with or without a new chart record for Rein Me In.


  10. Rein Me In’s fourth run at the top (itself a record for a single chart run) continues for a second week, bringing its total run up to fifteen weeks. It matches Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around as the longest run at number one by a British act. Not so long ago, number one songs by British acts had become a rarity, apart from Wham’s annual spell and a Beatles song.


    Olivia Rodrigo is still at number two with her Stupid Song. Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean is at number three. Harry Styles’ American Girls continues to rise back up the chart, climbing four places this week to number four.Ariana Grande is back up to number five with Hate That I Made You Love Me. Four of this week’s top five have been to number one, albeit over four decades ago in one case (no that isn’t when Rein Me In first topped the chart even if it feels like it to some).


    Gracie Abrams gets her second hit single of the year with Look At My Life at number 39. The song sounds like one Taylor Swift threw away. Sombr gets his third hit of 2026 in the form of My Body Isn’t Ready at number 27.


    French DJ Florent Hugel gets his first top forty hit at the age of 38 with Movin’ To The Sun at number 31. It has to be said that 93 million miles is a very long way to move. The removal costs would be immense. Hugel, as he is known, is joined by Imael Agent, another chart debutant, and by Ultra Nate who had two top ten singles in the 1990s.


    Anita Ward's Ring My Bell was one of the most annoying number ones of the 1970s thanks to the incessant use of a syndrum. Thankfully that has been removed from Aitch’s RMB (Ring My Bell). It still isn’t great, but it is a good deal better than Ward’s version. It is a new entry at number 40.



    Maybe one day Muse will record an album of quiet, gentle ballads, even if they do it just for the shock effect. That day hasn’t arrived yet and The Wow! Signal is very much what we have come to expect from the band.  Most of the album is written by Matt Bellamy, with or without the rest of the band. However, Hush has a number of co-writers, including Theo Hutchcraft of Hurts. It also features vocals from Ellie Goulding and is one of the album’s stand-out tracks.


    Muse’s debut album Showbiz, released in 1999, performed modestly in the charts, peaking at number 26. Origin Of Symmetry, released in 2001 did much better, getting to number three. That album included signature songs Plug In Baby and New Born as well as a brilliant version of the soul classic Feeling Good, most associated with Nina Simone.


    After those first two albums, it has been number ones all the way for their studio albums. That run continues as The Wow! Signal becomes their eighth success number one with a studio album.


    Olivia Rodrigo slips to number two with You Look Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love after two weeks at the summit. The Essential Michael Jackson is still at number three. Harry Styles stays at number four with Kiss All The Time. Disco Occasionally. Olivia Dean keeps her top five place for a 40th week with The Art Of Loving at number five. All of the top five albums have been to number one.


    The Pretty Reckless have had mixed fortunes with their albums. Three of them made the top ten although none of them quite made it to the top five. The exception was 2016’s Who You Selling For which got no higher than number 23. Album number five Dear God enters at number six, their third album to peak in that position.


    Bad Bunny played live shows at the home of almost-relegated Tottenham Hotspur last weekend. As a result, his album Debi Tirar Mas Fotos returns to the chart at number 27.


    Metallica released their seventh studio album Reload in 1997 when it reached number four. It has now been reissued as a boxed set of 15 CDs and four DVDs. die-hard fans with deep pockets can enjoy live recordings, demos and other bits and bobs. The reissued Reload enters at number 39.


    Next Friday, I will be on a day-trip to France with a group of Year 7 students, so Popchartfreak will be filling in for me. If I survive the trip, I will return for a week before handing the reins back to Popchartfreak while I go back to France for a holiday. Be nice to him.


  11. For the last few years, it has been assumed that the record for the most weeks at number one would be broken by Wham’s Last Christmas as it has been accumulating more weeks each year. Last Christmas has accumulated twelve weeks at the top, just behind the fifteen weeks of Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around and sixteen weeks for Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. Those two songs picked up all their weeks at the top in one single run.


    The current record for most weeks at number one has been held since 1953 when Frankie Laine’s I Believe spent a total of eighteen weeks at the summit in three separate runs, albeit in the same chart run. Last Christmas is likely to match that eighteen week figure in 2027 or 2028 unless a massive new Christmas song keeps it off the top for at least one of the next few years. However, by then, I Believe may have lost its record to Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In.


    Whether Rein Me In breaks the record for the most weeks at number one remains to be seen, but this week it achieves another record by becoming the first song to have four separate spells at number one in the same chart run. It entered the chart last June, so it was already quite old when it finally climbed to the top in February, in its 35th week in the top forty.. Last week it slip[ped to number four in its 52nd week in the top forty. Now, at the start of its second year in the top forty, it climbs back to number one bringing its total run at the summit to fourteen weeks. It is the longest-running number one single since Drake’s One Dance spent fifteen (consecutive) weeks at the top in 2016.


    Olivia Rodrigo’s Stupid Song remains at number two. She is also at number four with The Cure and at five with Drop Dead. The only song in the top five not to feature someone called Olivia, Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, is at number three. Taylor Swift’s I Knew It, I Knew You falls to number seven after two weeks at number one.


    The rest of the chart is only slightly more exciting than England’s incredibly boring 0-0 draw with Ghana in the World Cup earlier this week. Ella Langley’s Choosin’ Texas enters the top ten for the first time, at number nine, almost six months into its chart run. Earlier in its run, it spent five consecutive weeks at number 35. It has also spent five non-consecutive weeks at number sixteen. A number one around Christmas still can’t be ruled out!


    While much of this week’s commentary is devoted to the longevity of Rein Me In at the top of the chart, one other long-running number one also earns a mention. Alex Warren’s Ordinary, which spent thirteen weeks at number one last year, climbs nine places to number 22. He also has a re-entry at number 35 with Fever Dream. 


    Calvin Harris and Clementine Douglas re-entered the top forty at number 27 a few weeks ago with Blessings. It slumped to number 40 before falling further. Now it is back again at number 25. Oasis’s Wonderwall enters the top forty for the sixth time at number 33. Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull are back at number 32 with On The Floor, just a few wells after it last polluted the chart.


    As well as his record-breaking dates at Wembley Stadium, Harry Styles has also found time for a lower-key appearance at the Festival Hall (a smaller audience, anyway) with an orchestra. Publicity surrounding both events, added to streams by people who attended one or more of them, give another boost to his songs. Sign Of The Times climbs nine places to number twenty. American Girls returns to the top ten, at number eight. Sadly, Aperture, a far better song than the rather bland American Girls, falls a couple places.


    If anyone is wondering what has happened to the part of the commentary usually devoted to new entries, there aren’t any. Not a single one.



    Olivia Rodrigo gets a second week at number one with You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love. It is the fifth album to get a second consecutive week at the top in the first half of 2026. In the whole of last year, there were just two.


    Myles Smith-Thompson, better known simply as Myles Smith released his first single in 2023. It was a song called Sweater Weather, something which large parts of the UK, and elsewhere in Europe, definitely have not been experiencing this week. He had his first hit in 2024 when Stargazing reached the top ten. Nice To Meet You gave him a second top ten single at the beginning of the following year. Both of the latter songs appear on his debut album My Mess, My Heart, My Life which was released last week. Among the album’s co-writers are Ed Sheeran, Dan Smith (Bastille) and Niall Horan. The album led the way in the mid-week updates, although its lead on Wednesday was a narrow one. Therefore, it is no surprise that it enters at number two. If it is any consolation to him, it is at number one in the Vinyl Albums chart.


    The Essential Michael Jackson is at number three. Harry Styles is at number four with Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving is at number five.


    For a band with just two core members, Placebo have a good claim to be truly multi-national. Singer Brian Molko is British / American (having been born in Belgium to an American father with French and Italian heritage) while guitarist Stefan Olsdal is Swedish / Luxembourgish. Molko’s androgynous appearance and high-pitched vocals made the band stand out. They had three top ten singles in the 1990s and continued to have top forty hits until the mid-noughties.


    Only one of Placebo's top ten singles appear on Re-created, a collection - as its title suggests - of re-recordings of some of their songs. It is a new entry in this week’s chart at number fourteen.


    After a succession of studio albums and live recordings achieved little or no chart success, duo When Rivers Meet made their breakthrough in 2023 when Aces Are High reached the top ten. They got a second top ten album last year with Addicted To You. Rhythm Rust and Static gives them a third chart hit as a new entry at number twenty.


  12. After entering the chart at number one last week, Taylor Swift holds off a strong challenge from three Olivia Rodrigo songs to remain at number one with I Knew It I Knew You. She remains the only artist to have two chart-topping singles in 2026.


    In the midweek updates, Olivia Rodrigo led the way with Stupid Song, although she insists on using all lower-case letters. However, a late rally by Taylor Swift means it enters at number two.


    There have been many other “song songs” in the charts over the years. They include the instrumental Heartsong by Gordon Giltrap as well as This Is Not A Love Song (Public Image Ltd) and This Is Not A Song (The Frank And Walters).


    As someone who spends part of my working life teaching children about when to use capital letters, I find the recent trend of artists styling their song titles entirely in lower case infuriating. On the other hand, it does give me the opportunity to say that Olivia Rodrigo’s stupid song is at number two. 


    Time for a slight diversion. Back in the days of the printing press, compositors had to select each letter individually from a rack and set it up for printing. Capital letters were on a higher shelf than small letters, hence the term “upper case”. They were, literally, chosen from the upper case of letters. The lower case letters were more common, so were easier to reach. Who said these commentaries were not educational?


    Anyway, back to Olivia Rodrigo. She is also at number three with The Cure while her previous number one,Drop Dead, rebounds eight places to number five.


    The Olivia Rodrigo dominated top three means that Olivia Dean, alongside Sam Fender, falls to number four with Rein Me In. It brings an end to a sixteen-week run in the top two. It has been in the top ten since last November, apart from two weeks over Christmas, and this week it completes a full year in the top forty, having been one of the few non-Christmas songs to survive the annual onslaught of festive tunes (and other noises).


    K-Pop act Le Sserafin make their top forty debut at number 22 with Iconic By Mistake. They are joined by fellow K-Popsters Illit and Katseye. The latter act have had three previous top forty entries, two of them this year. Regular readers will know that I am not much of a fan of K-Pop, but this offering is truly dreadful.


    For the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, FIFA chose Colombian singer Shakira to record the official anthem Waka Waka (This Time For Africa). Little did we know that this would appear perfectly logical compared with many subsequent decisions by world football’s governing body. This year, Shakira is back, aided by Burna Boy, with a contribution to the official album for the 2026 World Cup in North America. Wales didn’t qualify for the tournament, but that hasn’t stopped them recording a song called Dai Dai. It is a new entry at number 28, giving Shakira a first hit as lead artist since 2014. It’s not quite as good as Waka Waka, but at least it brings something fresh to the chart. Waka Waka returns to the chart at number 37, its first top forty appearance since its original run in 2010.


    While Shakira’s World Cup[ anthem is only in the top forty for a second time, another football anthem has been appearing regularly for thirty years, in which time the years of hurt (for the England men’s team) have doubled to 60. That song is, of course, Three Lions by Frank Skinner, David Baddiel and The Lightning Seeds. This week it enters the top forty for a tenth year at number 35.




    The reason for Olivia Rodrigo’s dominance of the top places in the singles chart is, unsurprisingly, the release of a new album. Equally predictably, You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love goes straight to the top of the chart by a wide margin with total “sales” of over 100,000. All three of her studio albums have topped the chart, but this third set has first week “sales” almost as high as the two previous albums combined.


    The Essential Michael Jackson remains at number two. Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving is at number four.


    With his record-breaking run of Wembley dates under way, Harry Styles climbs back up to number three with Party All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. His previous two albums are also in the top forty. His two best number ones are in the singles chart. Aperture is a re-entry at number 25 while Sign Of The Times climbs to number 29.


    Yorkshire indie band Embrace are at number five with their ninth studio album, Avalanche. It maintains their run of reaching the top ten with every album.


    Earlier this year, Drake inflicted three albums on us. That put him one ahead of Bruce Springsteen and Guns ‘n’ Rose who had each released two albums on the same day. All three of those were established acts, but last week Canadian duo Angine de Poitrine released two albums with the uninspiring titles Vol I and Vol II. More accurately, they were both released physically for the first time having originally been released in 2024 and in April this year. Neither of them charted on their initial release but this week Vol I is at number 23 and Vol II is four places higher.


    Jonathan Coe is one of my favourite novelists with The Rotters Club probably being the work I enjoyed the most. It includes a wonderfully pretentious review of a Yes album, written by one of the characters for his school magazine. The fact that the novel is based in the 1970s, when booth Coe and I were in our teens, shows just how long Yes have been together. They released their first album in 1969. They are at number 42 with their 24th studio album Aurora, narrowly missing out on a 22nd top forty album.


    Sonny Fodera gets his first top forty album with Can We Do It All Again at number twenty.


  13. One of the most successful current film franchises has now reached its fifth instalment with the release of Toy Story 5. Disney have managed to persuade Taylor Swift to contribute to the soundtrack which has led to her bagging a seventh number one single in the form of I Knew It, I Knew You. Thankfully, it is a lot better than most of the Disney songs that have reached the charts in recent years. This week Swift became the youngest woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame


    Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In remains in second place. Ariana Grande falls to number three after a week at the top with Hate That I Made You Love Me. Olivia Rodrigo’s The Cure is at number four. Michael Jackson completes the top five with Billie Jean at number five.


    Alex Warren gets his ninth top forty hit with Passenger at number 22. The song has rather more energy than some of his previous hit singles as well as a cheerier title than Fine Place To Die.


    One of those earlier Alex Warren hits was Bloodline which leads neatly into Bloodstream,  Alyssa Grace’s new entry at number 25. It is a debut top forty hit for the Californian teenager. The song is OK, but I prefer the Ed Sheeran song of the same name.


    American rapper Malcolm McCormick, performing as Mac Miller, died of an accidental drug overdose in September 2018, a few months after his relationship with Ariana Grande ended. His previous biggest hit in the UK was as a featured artist on Grande’s The Way which fell just short of a top forty place in 2016. In the same year he released the album The Divine Feminine. Ten years on, a song from that album, Cinderella is a new entry at number 27. It features Ty Dolla $ign who gets a twelfth top forty hit.


    There is a clear winner in the race to have this week’s most irritating artist name and song title. A Manchester-based artist who styles himself Silva Bumpa has insisted on calling his debut hit single On 2nite. Ugh. The song isn’t much good either, but it is a new entry at number 32.



    Niall Horan gets his third successive number one album with his fourth solo release Dinner Party. Impressively, its first week sales are the highest of his solo career. He regains his status of having had as many chart-topping albums as his erstwhile bandmate Harry Styles.


    The Essential Michael Jackson is at number two. Drake’s Iceman is back up one place at number three. Olivia dean’s The Art Of Loving is at number four.


    Birmingham band Overpass formed in 2020. They were initially expecting to be a covers band, but 2020 turned out to be a rather bad year for live music. Therefore, they used the time to start composing their own songs. They are at number five this week with their debut album Elsewhere, Always. It is the biggest selling album of the week in independent record shops.


    Regular readers will not be surprised to know what word the Official Charts Company has used to describe actor and musician Jeff Goldblum. Yes, the word multi-hyphenate has been wheeled out again. He, along with the Mildred Seltzer Orchestra, is at number nine with Night Blooms. It is at number one in the Jazz and Blues albums chart, a chart which I believe hasn’t been mentioned here before.


    Evansescence get a fifth top ten album with Sanctuary at number ten. It is their first release since The Bitter Truth in 2021. 


    It has been nearly seven years since the last Pink Floyd compilation, so it is apparently time for another one. This one is a bit of a curiosity. For a start, it has only eight tracks, leading to the title 8-Tracks. It features tracks from their 1970s albums (a time when 8-track tapes were available)  Meddle (1971) to The Wall (1979). It enters at number seventeen to give the band a 30th top forty album.


    The strangest choice of tracks on 8-Track is that of Pigs On The Wing, easily the weakest track(s) on their 1977 album Animals. I have always felt that this album is under-appreciated. Its reputation may have been damaged by the fact that the first and last tracks are Pigs On The Wing, Parts I and II. It is by no means a bad song; it’s just that all the other tracks are a lot better. The two parts on the Animals album run to under three minutes combined. For some reason, the track on this collection is over three-and-a-half minutes long. I can’t see it encouraging many people unfamiliar with Animals to make the effort to listen to the whole album.


    Two months after Earrings gave him a first top forty single Malcolm Todd makes his albums chart debut with Do That Again at number nineteen, the same position held by Earrings in the singles chart this week. Perhaps we should call it a Paul Hardcastler double.. Soul singer Jalen N’Gonda has his first top forty album with his second release Doctrine Of Love at number 29. Barry Manilow has been around for rather longer. He gets a 25th top forty album with What A Time at number 34.


    Prospa are at number seventeen in the singles chart with Free Your Mind. The album of the same name is a new entry at number 24.


  14. After finishing comfortably ahead of the field in the singles chart for several weeks, Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In finally had some competition again this week. It came in the form of a new song from Ariana Grande, meaning that we could see the end of an eleven-week run oif number one singles by someone called Olivia.


    Ariana Grande’s new single Hate That I Made You Love Me comes from her forthcoming album Petal, due to be released at the end of July. The song is pleasant enough, but I can’t say I will be making any great effort to hear it again. By entering the chart at number one, it becomes Grande’s eighth chart-topping single and her first since Positions spent six weeks at the summit at the end of 2020. 


    Ariana Grande’s seven previous number ones have spent an average of three weeks there, so Rein Me In may face a struggle to become the first single to get four spells at the top  in the same chart run. For now, it falls back to number one having spent a total of thirteen weeks at number one.


    Olivia Rodrigo’s The Cure falls one place to number three. Drake’s Janice STFU is back up to number four (why?) and Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean is at number five.


    According to Spotify, F3miii is pronounced Femi. Why didn’t he just spell it like that, then? Perhaps he was hoping that people might spend so much time ridiculing his moniker that they didn’t have time to mention how boring his song Noble is. That worked well. Weird spelling or not, he makes his UK top forty debut this week at number 34.


    The steady flow of old songs returning to the chart continues. This week it is the turn of Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull’s 2011 number one On The Floor, back at number 35. More than one-quarter of the songs in this week’s top forty are at least a decade old. That includes four of the top ten.



    Dungeon Lane is a lane in the Speke area of Liverpool where schoolboy Paul McCartney used to play with his friend George Harrison. It now lends its name to McCartney’s 20th solo album, The Boys Of Dungeon Lane. The album is a very nostalgic collection, looking back to the days before he and Harrison formed the most successful band in UK chart history. It features a mixture of ballads and rockier songs, and demonstrates that McCartney can still write some cracking tunes at the age of nearly 83.


    The Boys Of Dungeon Lane is Paul McCartney’s ninth number one album since he became an ex-Beatle. Including those with the Fab Four (starting with Please Please Me in 1963), he has now had 24 number one albums, more than anyone else in UK chart history.


    The Essential Michael Jackson is at number two. One of the various editions of the album includes his duet with Paul McCartney, Say Say Say, a number two hit in 1983. Both Jackson and McCartney have now had a number one album this year.


    Despite their name, Boards Of Canada are a Scottish duo who have been performing their electronic music since 1986. Since then, they have not exactly been prolific; Tomorrow’s Harvest, released in 2013, was only their fourth album. That album saw them make their top ten debut, but they haven't rushed the follow-up. It was released last week, thirteen years on. Inferno fires them into the top five for the first time, at number three.


    Boards Of Canada may not be from Canada, but Drake is. Maybe he could have styled himself Boreds Of Canada. His album Iceman is at number four. Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving is at number five.


    Lovers of chart quirks might enjoy this bit. Skye Newman released SE9 Part 2 last week. However, it hasn’t charted in its own right. Instead, Part I is back in the chart. It reached number eighteen last year; now it is back at number eleven.


    Kiefer Sutherland is best known as an actor, but has also carved out a music career. Naturally, the Official Charts Company (OCC) has seized on the chance to increase their number of uses of the word multihyphenate. I am pretty certain I have never seen the word used apart from on the OCC website and on the two sites that host this commentary. Grey is his fourth album and, as a new entry at number 31, the third to reach the top forty.


    Freya Ridings is at number 26 with Mother Of Pearl. Dua Lipa celebrates her recent wedding with another top forty album as Live From Mexico lands at number 21. This means that the USA is the only one of the hosts of the World Cup starting next week not to feature in either the name of the act or title of the album in this week's new entries. The closest they get is Floridian band whose eighth album, Ei8ht, is - hurrah for coincidences - at number eight. All three of their charting albums have peaked at a multiple of four, all in an even year which is not a multiple of four.


  15. There is still no catching Sam Fender and Olivia Dean at the top of the singles chart as Rein Me in gets a thirteenth week at the top. It matches the thirteen weeks at the top achieved by Alex Warren’s Ordinary last year.


    Rein Me In’s thirteen weeks at the top has been split across three separate runs, each interrupted by a one-week number one. Its current run now stands at five weeks, matching the previous run. Sandwiched between these two runs was a seven-day spell at the top for Olivia Rodrigo’s Drop Dead.


    At the start of the week, there was the prospect of Olivia Rodrigo toppling Sam Fender and Olivia Dean once again, which would have meant a third successive swap of Olivias at the top. However, by Wednesday, Rein Me In had established a healthy lead over Rodrigo’s The Cure. It would be good to think that Rodrigo is paying tribute to the best band Crawley has ever produced, However, the only reference to Robert Smith and co comes at the very beginning of the video when the name of the song is spelled out in a typeface close to one used by the band. The song is at number two.


    Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean is at number three. The Chemical Brothers are at number four with Go. Tame Impala’s Dracula stays at number five.


    In a further indication of Drake’s declining popularity, the three songs of his that entered the chart last week have dropped significantly this week. One of them has fallen so far that it is no longer one of his three most popular songs. His third most popular song is now Shabang which is a new entry at number 25.


    Everywhere was the fifth, and most successful, single in the UK from Fleetwood Mac’s 1987 album Tango In The Night. It has been hovering around the lower reaches of the chart for much of the last three years. For all that time it has been on the Accelerated Chart Ratio as it is over three years old. Now, for no obvious reason, it is back on the standard ratio. The consequent doubling of the value of its streams sees it back in the chart at number 24.


    There’s more. Dreams was a single from Fleetwood Mac’s classic 1977 album Rumours. While the album did very well in the UK, and even better in the USA, it didn’t spawn any major hit singles. Dreams, probably one of the best known songs on the album only got to number 24. Like Everywhere, it has been in the lower reaches of the chart for three years. Now, it to has returned to the Standard Chart ratio and enters at a new peak position of number eighteen. 


    Clementine Douglas was among the acts performing at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Sunderland last weekend. She reached number three last year as the vocalist on Calvim Harris’s Blessings. The song is back in the top forty at number 27.


    Natasha Bedingfield’s Unwritten was a top ten hit in 2004. Twenty years later, it returned to the chart for an extended run. Now it is back for another go at number 40. Pinkpantheress’s Stateside re-enters at number 38.



    Singer-songwriter Maisie Peters was born in Steyning, a few miles north of Shoreham, and is now based in Brighton. In 2021 she became the first act to join the record label set up by Ed Sheeran and she released her debut album You Signed Up For This. That album debuted at number two, but its successor The Good Witch went one place higher. Album number three, Florescence, started the week at number one, but its lead over The Essential Michael Jackson halved between Tuesday’s update and Wednesday’s.


    In the end, Maisie Peters did enough to grab herself a second number one album with The Essential Michael Jackson in second place, just 250 “sales” behind.. He is also at number five with Thriller.


    Darke’s Iceman falls two places to number three. His other two new albums suffer more drastic falls. Olivia Dean is at number four with The Art Of Loving.


    Michael Ball is at number nine with his latest album Glow. Ball has had two top ten singles, 31 years apart. His debut hit Love Changes Everything reached number two in 1989. He famously topped the chart in 2020 with a version of You’ll Never Walk Alone, accompanied by charity fundraiser Tom Moore who was approaching his 100th birthday. 


    American rock band finally got a deserved hit album in the UK when their fourth studio set reached number five in 2024. They now have a second hit to their name as Everyone For ten Minutes lands at number ??? Their singer, and main songwriter, Jack Antonoff, is more widely known as a co-writer with the likes of Taylor Swift, Lana del Rey, Pink and Florence Welch.


    In the early days of search engines, it would probably have been quite hard to find information on a band called A. However, they are now more sophisticated and can take into account a user’s previous searches. Therefore, someone who looks up a lot of musical acts only has to type a few letters of “A band” to find them. We can soon find that the band were formed in Lowestoft, a coastal town between Ipswich and Norwich, and the birthplace of Benjamin Britten as well as three members of The Darkness. Only one of their four previous albums reached the top forty. Album number five nearly gave them a second top forty hit, but they just missed out. Prang is at number 42. It is at number one on the Rock and Metal albums chart.


    Dominic Harrison, better known as Yungblud, had two number one albums last year - Idols and One More Time, the latter recorded with Aerosmith. Two new physical editions of Idols were released last week, allowing the album to return to the chart at number seventeen.


  16. San Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In remains at the top of the singles chart. It has now spent twelve of the last fourteen weeks at the summit. With one of Rein Me In’s three runs at the top having been ended by Olivia Rodrigo, there has been an Olivia at the top of the chart for the last eleven weeks. Olivia Newton-John still holds the record for the longest continuous run at number one by a single Olivia.


    Last Friday (15 May), Drake released not one, but three new albums. It is fair to say that some people were rather more enthusiastic about this development than others. With a total of 43 tracks between the three albums, Drake songs could have swamped the singles chart if the three-song limit for a single artist had not been introduced. When his popularity was at its peak, he could have occupied almost the entire top forty.


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


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


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


    Apart from the Drake songs, there are just two other new entries. The first is by Gracie Abrams. She made her chart debut in 2023 but didn’t enter the top forty until the following year. Her biggest hit to date came later in 2024 when That’s So True went to number one. The song spent a total of eight weeks at the top, having made way for Wham for three weeks part-way through its run. Hit The Wall, a new entry at number eighteen, is her sixth top forty hit.
    .
    Last weekend the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Vienna. The UK entry came last (again) and is nowhere to be seen in this week’s top 100. The only Eurovision song in the top forty is the winner, Bangaranga by Dara at number 21. The Bulgarian entry sounds a little like two songs mashed together. It starts of as a fairly pleasant song until it is spoilt by the Bangaranga bits.


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



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


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


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


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


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



  17. Sam Fender and Olivia Dean continue their reign at the top of the shingles chart, in a week that has seen both heavy rain and hail, withRein Me In. It has now been at number one for a total of eleven weeks. The last song by a British act to spend as long at number one was Ed Sheeran’s Bad Habits in 2021. That song had a single eleven-week run whereas Rein Me In is now in its third run at the top. Rein Me In moves past Rihanna and Jay-Z’s Umbrella to become the longest running number one single by as male/female duo.


    There are three Michael Jackson songs in the top ten, thanks to the popularity of the recent biopic. Billie Jean leads the way at number two and Beat It is at number three. The third song is Human Nature. That was released as a single from the Thriller album in some countries, but not in the UK. It eventually reached number 62 immediately after Jackson’s death and when downloads meant that any song was eligible to chart. It would have been in the chart last week if the three-songs limit was not in place. It is now one of the three  most popular Jackson songs of the week, so it enters at number six, giving the late singer a 45th top ten single.


    Tame Impala is at number three with Dracula. Olivia Rodrigo’s Drop Dead is at number four. It is the only song in the top seven that was released in 2026 . The Chemical Brothers jump fifteen  places to number seven with their 2015 track Go. It is their first top ten hit since the brilliant Galvanize in 2005.


    Sienna Spiro enters at number 23 with Material Lover. The song comes from the soundtrack of the much-hyped film The Devil Wears Prada II. The Visitor, a number eleven hit for Spiro earlier this year, re-enters at number 33.


    For five years from 2008, almost every single released by Katy Perry made the top ten. Four of them reached number one. Her later singles have been less successful although she did manage a fifth chart-topper, helped by the presence of Calvin Harris and Pharrell Williams. In her early five-year run of top ten singles, one of the rare singles to peak outside the top ten was the aptly-named The One That Got Away. Maybe that is about to be changed as the song re-enters at number 30.


    In thirteen years of steady chart success Charli XCX has had two number one singles. Rather unusually, they were eleven years apart. Her debut single I Love It (where she played second fiddle to Icone Pop who has rarely been heard from since) topped the chart in 2013. She didn’t return to the summit until 2024 when Guess, with Billie Eilish, got there. She has a re-entry at number 36 with Rock Music, a song that would benefit from being longer than just two minutes. Strangely, some of her songs would have benefitted from being cut to two minutes.



    The Essential Michael Jackson remains at the top of the albums chart, giving it a ninth week at number one when added to the time spent at the top after Jackson’s death in 2009. Jackson is also at number five with Thriller, one place ahead of Bad.


    In the 27 years since they released their first album Dublin band Westlife have achieved a lot of chart success while also being widely criticised as being bland and predictable. One thing they were particularly good at (or, more accurately, their record label was good at) was releasing albums and singles at a time that would maximise their chances of getting to number one. That timing has given them eight number one albums and fourteen chart-topping singles. They are about to go on tour again which has given them an excuse to release another compilation album. This one has 25 songs which is the best explanation I can come up with for the title 25: The Ultimate Collection. That said, their tour is called The 25th Anniversary World Tour which suggests that someone isn’t very good at arithmetic. The album led the way in the midweek updates, but finishes the week at number two. Insert your own joke here.


    Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide is at number three. Olivia Dean is at number four with The Art Of Loving.


    Reverend And The Makers are one of many acts not to java matched the success of their earliest releases. Their fantastic debut single Heavyweight Champion Of The World remains their biggest hit. Its parent album The State Of Things is also their most successful, although they did get a second top ten album with Heatwave In The Cold North in 2023. This week their eighth studio album, Is This How Happiness Feels?, is at number seven.



    Rock band Basement were formed in Ipswich in 2009. From then until 2018, they released four albums, none of which sold very well. They gained a decent following in the USA, but that was not enough to sustain them. Despite being considered suitable to support Weezer and The Pixies in 2019, they disbanded the following year. The members pursued various careers outside music. Singer Andrew Fisher became a popular teaching assistant in Brighton - Hove, actually.


    In 2022, they decided to give things another go. This came after the release of an EP which included a great version of Suede’s Animal Nitrate. They ultimately quit their jobs to concentrate full-time on music again, not letting the fact that two members now lived in the USA get in the way.


    Last Friday (8 May) Basement released their fifth album Wired. Pre-release tracks had suggested that this would be slightly less rocky than previous releases, and so it has proved. There is a distinct feel of their near namesakes Pavement about the album. 


    In Monday’s update Basement were at number eight. By Wednesday, they had fallen just one place. A probable top forty finish had turned into a possible top twenty placing. That deserved top twenty hit has duly happened. Wired is a new entry at number sixteen.


    As mentioned in the singles section, Katy Perry’s The One That Got Away has re-entered the singles chart this week. It is included on a new compilation The Ones That Got The Plays (see what they did there?). The album is currently only available as a playlist on streaming sites with no physical release or even a download release. That lack of anything that could be called a release in conventional terms has not excluded it from the chart. It is a new entry at number thirteen despite only landing on streaming sites on Wednesday.


    The Covasettes join a very long list of Manchester bands with a top forty album to their name as Honeymoon Forever lands at number 34.


    Chris Brown is at number seventeen.




  18. Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In gets another week at number one this week, finishing well clear of all rivals. Its current run has now lasted two weeks, bringing its total up to ten weeks. It is the third song to spend at least ten weeks at number one since the beginning of last year. The other two songs both remain in the top forty. This is, surely, the first time we have had three songs in the top forty which have spent at least ten weeks at number one in their current chart run.


    Rein Me In is the joint longest-running number one by a male/female duo, matching Rihanna and Jay-Z's Umbrella in the wet summer of 2007. It is the longest-running chart-topper by a British female artist.


    Tame Impala’s Dracula is back up to number two. Olivia Rodrigo is at number three with Drop Dead.


    One of the songs to have spent at least ten weeks at number one recently is Alex Warren’s Ordinary. That climbed to the top in March last year and stayed there for twelve weeks. After Sabrina Carpenter’s Manchild toppled Ordinary for a week, it returned to the top for a thirteenth and final week. It remains in the top forty today and would be even higher if it had not been moved on to the Accelerated Chart Ratio for most of that time. 


    In recent weeks Fever Dream has provided Alex Warren with another major hit single. It currently sits at number five. This week, another new Warren song is in the chart as Fine Place To Die enters at number twenty. Both songs are said to be on his forthcoming album. However, there is currently no title or release date for the album.


    Madonna’s last top forty hit as a lead artist was Living For Love in 2015. Sabrina Carpenter, on the other hand, has had fifteen top forty hits as the lead artist (including four number ones), plus one hit playing second fiddle to Taylor Swift. The two have now joined forces to record Bring Your Love with Madonna getting top billing. The song is a new entry at number 29, providing Madonna with a 70th top forty hit.


    The latest song to benefit from appearing on a soundtrack is Chemical Brothers’ Go. It originally appeared on their 2015 album Born In The Echoes and it reached number 46 as a single. It has now been used in the film Apex and is at number 22. Chemical Brothers’ last top forty single was The Salmon Dance in 2007.


    Two Los Angeles acts make their UK top forty debut. Stella Lefty, a singer-songwriter from , is at number 38 with Boston. Perhaps she will now move to Boston and release a song called LA. Temper City, from Israel but now based in LA, are at number 35 with Self Aware.



    The race for the top of the albums chart was a three-way battle between two new releases and a much older album.


    When Kneecap released their album Fine Art in 2024, they were a little-known hip-hop trio from Ireland. Even so, the album came close to reaching the top forty. Then, in April 2025, they expressed support for Palestine but, more controversially, also made some inflammatory remarks about Israel. This caused outrage in certain sections of the UK press who managed to unearth some earlier controversial comments made by members of the band.


    All the controversy meant that Kneecap’s set at Glastonbury attracted a rather higher attendance than might have been anticipated when they were booked. It also meant that there would be a lot more interest in their third album when it was released. That release came last week in the form of Fenian.


    The second new album to be in contention for the top spot was the latest solo album from former Spice Girl Melanie C. Her first solo set, Reason, reached number five in 2003. However, all of her subsequent releases have performed significantly less well with three of them not even making the top forty. The trend has gone into reverse more recently with Version Of Me reaching number 25 in 2016 before Melanie C went to number eight four years later. She is now back with Sweat. A top three finish would not only be her first; it would also be the highest peak for any former Spice Girl.


    The third contender was not a new album by any stretch of the imagination. The Essential Michael Jackson was released in 2005 when it reached number two behind James Blunt’s Back To Bedlam. It then spent seven weeks at number one following Jackson’s death in 2009. As a result of the critically-unacclaimed Jackson biopic, it is now back at the top. Kneecap are at number two with Melanie C in third place.


    Noah Kahan's The Great Divide falls to number four after seven days at the summit. Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving holds onto its top five place at number five. Two other Michael Jackson albums are in the top ten. Thriller is at number six, two places ahead of Bad. Billie Jean is at number four in the singles chart. Beat It climbs twelve places to number ten and Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough climbs to number fifteen. I Want You Back is a re-entry at number 33. The song, a number two hit in 1970, is credited to The Jackson 5 which means that it doesn't fall victim to the rule limiting an artist to three singles in the chart simultaneously.


    Melanie C is not the only female singer-songwriter to get her best performing album for many  years. Tori Amos reached number fourteen with her much-praised debut Little Earthquakes in 1992. The follow-up, Under The Pink, topped the chart in 1994 and was followed bu two more top ten albums. Subsequent releases have not achieved the same success with one of them only just scraping into the top 100. She now gets a fifteenth top forty album with In Times Of Dragons at number thirteen, matching the peak of 2014’s Unrepentant Geraldines. That was her highest peak position since her third album, From The Choirgirl Hotel, reached number six in 1998.


    Nigerian rapper Asake is at number 27 with M$ney. In the latest episode of Multi-hyphenate Watch, the Official Charts Company has used the term to describe Asake even though all his achievements are within the music industry.


    Texan country singer Kacey Musgraves is at number seven with Middle Of Nowhere. Ohio Duo The Black Keys land at number 33 with Peaches!

  19. Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In returns to number one again, making it a total of nine weeks at the top for the song. It also means that one Olivia replaces another Olivia at the top for the second successive week. As nobody has pointed out any previous occasions since last week, I am assuming that this is only the second time in chart history that somebody has replaced another singer with the same forename at number one. Olivia Dean has another new entry with Baby Steps at number 31. It is the eighth song from The Art Of Loving to enter the top forty.


    Rein Me In is only the eighth song in UK singles chart history to have three spells at number one in a single chart run. However, a closer look at the history of this phenomenon is an illustration of how things have changed since streaming data was included in the compilation of the chart.


    The first song to have three separate spells at number one in the same chart run did so when the UK singles chart was less than a year old. Frankie Laine’s I Believe climbed to the summit in June 1953. It spent nine weeks at number one before dropping to number two. Just a week later, it returned to the top, spending a further six weeks there. After slipping back to number two for another week, it went back to the top for another three weeks. The total of eighteen weeks at number one remains a record over 70 years later.


    In early 1957, Guy Mitchell’s version of Singing The Blues was the next song to have three goes at the top although each one lasted just seven days. One of the singles to topple Mitchell was Tommy Steele’s version of the same song. 


    It didn’t happen again until 2014 when Pharell Williams’ Happy accumulated four weeks at number one in three spells with a five-week gap between the second and third. Since then it has also been achieved by Justin Bieber’s What Do You Mean (2015, five weeks), Despacito by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber (2017, eleven weeks), The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights (2020, eight weeks) and Golden from K-Pop Demon Hunters and co. (2025, ten weeks). The fact that we now have six songs in just twelve years achieving this (compared with two in the previous 62 years) suggests that this will soon be an unremarkable feat. We will, instead, be waiting for the first song to have four spells at number one in a single chart run.


    The other Olivia is, of course, Ms Rodrigo who was at number one last week with Drop Dead. That song slips to number two this week.


    Justin Bieber stays at number three with Beauty And A Beat (with Nicki Minaj). Bieber is also at number six with Daisies while Yukon is at 27.


    Tame Impala remains at number four with Dracula. Alex Warren’s Fever Dream is back up to number five.


    The other new entry is from the number one album with five re-entries also linked to the albums chart, so let’s just deal with the other re-entry before moving on to the albums. That other re-entry is Sombr’s 12 To 12 at number 39.


    On this May Day, there is, alas, no sign of a re-entry for The Beatles’ Help or Abba’s SOS.



    Naoh Kahan’s Stick Season album clocked up 150 weeks in the chart last week. In those 150 weeks it became a rather unusual number one album in two, linked, ways. First, it came after his first two albums (released in 2019 and 2021) had made no impact on the chart whatsoever. Second, it took a very long time to get there. The album was released in 2022 and, initially, it suffered the same fate as the previous two. It finally entered the chart in June 2023. Then, as the title track took off as a single, the album returned to the chart and has stayed there ever since. It eventually spent a week at the summit in February 2024, sixteen months after it was released and in its 35th week in the top 100.


    The continuing success of Stick Season meant that the follow-up was bound to get off to a far better start than Noah Kahan’s first three albums. That has proved to be the case, and in spectacular style. Not only did Monday’s update show that The Great Divide was at number one, it held a large lead over all others, including a new Foo Fighters album. It, therefore, becomes Kahan’s second number one album.


    Three songs from The Great Divide are in the singles chart. Doors is a new entry at number twelve. Porch Light (which you might find very near a door) re-enters at number twenty. The title track, which reached number ten in February, is back at number seventeen.


    As mentioned above, Foo Fighters released a new album last week. As their last three albums (and five of the last six) had all reached number one, the expectation was that Your Favorite Toy would provide stiff competition for Noah Kahan. However, as we have seen, that didn’t happen. It is a new entry at number two.


    Despite largely poor reviews, the Michael Jackson biopic has attracted large audiences, making more money in its first weekend than any previous musical biopic. The soundtrack from the album is at number four this week. While most soundtrack albums are now only eligible for the compilations chart, this qualifies for the main chart as all songs are performed by Jackson, including some with the Jackson 5.
    .
    Normally, the chart rules mean that only one compilation album by an artist qualifies for the chart. Streams of a song can only count towards one compilation album by that artist. However, if the albums have a significantly different tracklisting, more than one album can make the chart. This week, two more Michael Jackson collections have qualified. Number Ones is at number five with The Essential collection at fourteen. Furthermore, his classic 1982 album Thriller is at number eight and 1987’s Bad is at thirteen.


    Three Michael Jackson songs have re-entered the singles chart. Billie Jean, a number one in 1983, is at number thirteen. Beat It (also 1983) is at number 22, one place ahead of Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough (1979). The latter two songs both peaked at number three in their original chart run.


    Paul Weller is at number nineteen with Weller At The BBC (Vol 2). It features recordings from the whole of his career, including with The Jam and Style Council. There is also a version of What Was I Made For, performed with Billie Eilish.


    Californian singer-songwriter Kehlani is at number 28 with an eponymous album, giving her a third top forty success.


  20. One Olivia replaces another at the top of the singles chart as Olivia Rodrigo goes straight to the top to bag her fourth number one with the cheerfully-titled Drop Dead. While it has a fairly slow start, the song does pick up to become another pleasant Olivia Rodrigo song. Her fourth number one is the first in an even year. It is the first number one single to contain the worf dead in its title, although Dead Or Alive topped the chart with You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) in 1985. I can't think of a previous occasion when there were successive number ones by different people with the same forename, but two of Michael Jackson’s number ones were followed by George Michael (one of them with Elton John).

    The other Olivia, Ms Dean, falls to number two alongside Sam Fender with Rein Me In. That song has now accumulated eight weeks at the top. Justin Bieber’s songs continue to enjoy a boost after his Coachella appearance. Beauty And A Beat (with Nicki Minaj) jumps eight places to number three to reach the top ten for the first time. Former number one Daisies is up to number five while Baby is a re-entry at number seventeen. That song, which features Ludacris, originally reached number three. As he gets second billing behind Sean Kingston on Ennie Meenie, the song does not count towards Bieber’s three-song limit. It is, therefore, able to re-enter at number 32. It is an unexpected return to the chart for Kingston whose last hit was in 2011.


    Tame Impala’s Dracula falls two places to number four.


    Tyla and Sara Larsson have a new entry at number 40 with She Did It Again. It is Tyla’s fifth top forty hit but only the second to have more than one word in the title.





    The battle for supremacy in the albums chart was between two new releases by very different acts. Monday’s sales figures suggested that Olivia Dean could outsell them both, but the closeness of the race encouraged Skindread and Jessie Ware’s marketing teams to make a big push for the top spot. As a result, both albums picked up significant sales throughout the week, unlike many new releases.


    The eventual winners were Skindred who describe themselves as a Welsh ragga punk metal band. At least that means they can claim to be the first act of that description to have another number one album. Their last album, Smile, missed out on the top spot by just 150 sales so this victory should be especially sweet for them. Commenting to the Official Charts Company, they described the win as “a fairytale of Newport”.


    Skindred were also very generous towards Jessie Ware, describing her album Superbloom as “amazing”. While the album has missed out on first palace in the main chart, it is at number one in the Official Record Store chart which measures sales from independent record shops. Ware has now had six top ten albums but still awaits her first number one.


    Olivia Dean finishes at number three with The Art Of Loving. In its 30 weeks in the charty, it has not yet left the top five.


    Zayn (Malik, formerly of One Direction) is at number four with his fifth studio album Konnakol. According to Wikipedia, Konnakol is a south Indian art of performing percussion rhythms vocally. 


    The Michael Jackson biopic Michael has not been well-received by the critics, particularly as there is no mention of certain parts of his life. As his family was closely involved with the project, that omission is hardly a surprise. The Essential Michael Jackson collection climbs to number five.


    Tom Rowlands of Chemical Brothers has joined forces with Norwegian singer Aurora to form Tomora. Their album Come Closer is at number sixteen. All together now - The sun will come out Tomora, bet your bottom dollar that Tomora there’ll be sun.


    Last Saturday was Record Store Day which saw lots of limited editions released. One of them was a new edition of The Cure’s Greatest Hits. The album returns to the top forty at number 27.


  21. There’s still no stopping Sam Fender and Olivia Dean who get an eighth week att the top of the singles chart with Rein Me In. It is the longest run at number one since Huntrx and a cast of thousands spent a total of ten weeks at the summit starting in August last year. Golden is still in the top forty today.


    Tame Impala’s Dracula entered the top forty between two of Golden’s three runs at the top  of the singles chart. It climbed to number 21 before dropping out of the chart altogether in November. It returned to the top forty in February and started to gain momentum, climbing nine places to number three two weeks ago. This week it climbs one more place to number two. 


    Alex Warren’s Fever Dream climbs two places to number three. The top five is completed by two other songs climbing two places. Sombr’s Homewrecker is at number four, one place ahead of Dominic Fike’s Babydoll. It is Fike’s first top five appearance since 3 Nights in August 2019.


    It is no secret that I am not generally a fan of K-Pop. Therefore, the chances of me liking a song by a Los Angeles-based group clearly inspired by K-Pop were never going to be great. However, I wasn't quite prepared for just how awful the song in question, Pinky Up by Katseye, would be. Pinky Up, a new entry at number fourteen, is their third top  forty hit. It is the first to reach the top twenty.


    One of the surprise hits of last year was Doechii’s Anxiety which peaked at number three. The success of that song has earned her the chance to work with Lady Gaga, a performer with a chart history dating back to 2009. The result, Runway, is a new entry at number 32. It deserves to go higher.


    Prospa are a DJ duo from Leeds. They had minor hits in 2020 and last year, neither of which came anywhere near the top forty. They have teamed up with another DJ by the name of Cloonee to record their latest singleFree Your Mind. The combination of two acts with little chart success has worked as they enter at number 39.



    In the week that Olivia Dean gets an eighth week with the number one single alongside Sam Fender, she also gets an eighth week at the top of the albums chart  The Art Of Loving climbs back up to number one. It first topped the chart on its release last October and was most recently at the top in February. It has been in the top five for its whole 29-week run in the chart with all but two of those weeks in the top three.


    Jack Savoretti’s ninth studio album, We Will Always Be The Way We Were, was at number one in the two chart updates this week. However, with fewer that 10,000 sales by Wednesday it always looked likely to miss out by the end of the week. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of that figure came from actual sales, both physical copies and downloads. As real sales are heavily weighted towards the beginning of the chart week, it was unlikely that he would add many sales to that total in the final two days. It is, therefore, no surprise to see him entering at number two. It is at number one in the Official  Record Store chart which only counts physical sales from independent record shops.


    It comes as a pleasure to note that Holly Humberstone is the singer-songwriter’s real name. When you are blessed with a name like that, why change it? Her first full-length album reached number five in 2023. Her second has narrowly outperformed it; Cruel World is at number four. It is number one in the vinyl albums chart.


    Raye falls one place to number three with This Music May Contain Hope. BTS are still at number five with Arirang. I’m still not sure whether they are referring to Ari Styles, or what he might have been ringing about.


    Ella Langley’s first album got precisely nowhere in the UK albums chart  However, with a big hit single to her name in the form of Choosin’ Texas, her second release was always likely to do significantly better. And so it has come to pass; Dandelion is at number seven.


    British rock band Enter Shikari are at number sixteen with Lose Your Self, an album that was a surprise release last week. Alfie Boe enters at number 32 with Face Myself. Unlike his previous albums, this includes some songs written by Boe himself.


    Justin Bieber’s Purpose returns at number 37 following his performance at the Coachella festival last weekend. He also returns to the singles chart with Beauty And A Beat (with Nicki Minaj) at number eleven, five places above its original peak position in 2012. Daisies, a number one hit last year, has sprouted at number fifteen and Yukon is back at number 26. Yukon reached number eighteen last year.


  22. Sam Fender and Olivia Dean stay at the top of the singles chart with Rein Me In. Pedants will hope that the success of this song will mean that more people can tell the difference between rein and reign. Rein Me In (not Reign Me In) has now spent seven weeks at number one.


    There have been many long-running number one singles this century. Whenever it happens, chart enthusiasts lament that these number ones don’t enter the public consciousness as much as songs such as Bohemian Rhapsody, (Everything I Do) I Do It For You or Love Is All Around.  Sadly, there is a lot of truth in this. A poll of the general public would probably show that Sam Fender is still a long way from being a household name. It would probably also show that a lot of people have no idea who Drake is. Lucky them.


    Bella Kay’s Iloveit cubed remains at number two. Tame Impala’s Dracula (on Columbia records) completes a static top three. Zara Larsson’s Lush Life is back up to number four. Alex Warren’s Fever Dream returns to the top five at number five.


    ANOTR’s first hit Relax In My Eyes had been in the top 100 for three months before it finally broke into the top forty. It peaked at number 33 in its tenth, and final, week in the broadcast part of the chart. Hit number two, Talk To You, launched into the top 100 last month and now climbs into the top forty at number 29. The Dutch duo are joined by 54 Ultra, a singer-songwriter from New Jersey.


    Californian singer-songwriter Malcolm Todd makes his UK top forty debut at number 40 with Earrings, a song I have already forgotten a few minutes after hearing it. There have been very few Malcolms named on single credits. One of the members of that exclusive club is Malcolm McLaren whose hits include Double Dutch and Madam Butterfly. Carl Malcolm’s Fattie Bum Bum is best forgotten.


    Harry Styles swaps one former number one with another this week. Aperture drops out of the top forty as it is no longer one of Styles’ three most popular tracks. Its replacement is his equally good first number one single, 2017’s Sign Of The Times at number 28. This slightly bizarre occurrence is entirely down to the quirks of chart rules. Most obviously, Aperture is a victim of the three-song limit. However, the biggest factor is that it has gone on to the Accelerated Chart Ratio meaning that its streams have halved in value. Sign Of The Times, on the other hand, has gone in the opposite direction. After its use in a film, it has been restored to the Standard Chart Ratio.


    Sean Paul and Keyshia Cole continue to climb the chart with the 20-year-old (When You Gonna) Give It Up To Me. It hits a new peak of number 24. I hope Tim is pleased.


    Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide climbs back up to number 36. If it had been released as a single at the time, some people might have been curious to find out what song was on the other side. Others wouldn’t have bothered. That lack of interest in b-sides probably led to many people buying Boney M’s Brown Girl In The Ring, not realising that it was on the b-side of the Rivers Of Babylon single they already owned.




    There is a dearth of new entries in the albums chart this week which means that this section will not take up much space. Those new entries start, and almost finish, with the number one. After topping the chart with his first two albums Dermot Kennedy may be over the moon to complete a hat-trick as The Weight Of The Woods rockets to the top. It follows Without Fear (2019) and Sonder (2022) in topping the chart. He is the first Irish solo artist to top the UK chart with their first three albums. While the US Kennedy political clan has Irish roots, I am not aware of any connection with this Irish Kennedy.


    Raye falls one place to number two after a week at the top. Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving is at number three. Harry Styles climbs back up to number four with Kiss All The Time Disco Occasionally. BTS are at number five with Arirang. All of the top five albums have started their chart run at the top.


    Anaïs Marinho, recording as Arlo Parks, has a truly international background. While she was born in London, her ancestry is Nigerian, Chadian and French. She now lives in the USA. Her first two albums reached the top ten in the UK. Her third, Ambiguous Desire, ?is at number eleven. Her main co-writer on the album is Paul Epworth who has also worked with Adele (Rolling In The Deep, Skyfall), Florence and the Machine (Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)), and Coldplay (A Sky Full Of Stars, as producer) among many others.


    There is a new biopic on Michael Jackson who didn’t invent the moonwalk although he did do a lot to make it popular. That has led to an increase in streams of tracks from his Essential collection which helps it climb back into the top ten at number seven.


    Last week’s commentary referred to controversy surrounding Kanye West. By that time, some politicians had already started to call for him to be barred from entering the UK after the news that he would be headlining all three nights of the Wireless Festival in the summer. He has now been barred and the whole festival has been cancelled. As decisions by arts bodies go, the decision to choose West as a headliner is a definite arty miss.


    There are many re-entries in the albums chart this week. It is disappointing that Dark Side Of The Moon and The Race For Space are not among them. They do include the Beatles 1967-70 collection at number 39, a compilation that covers the time of the first moon landing, unless you think it was staged in a studio.


  23. Sam Fender and Olivia Dean’s Rein Me In gets another week at number one. Its current three week run matches the three weeks it spent at the top before being interrupted for a week by Harry Styles’ American Girls. Styles’ previous number one, the excellent Aperture, was also sandwiched between separate runs of the same song, in this case Dave and Tems’ Raindance.


    Bella Kay climbs back up to number two with Iloveitiloveitiloveit. Tame Impala gets his first top ten singles as Dracula climbs to number three in its sixteenth week in the top forty. His first chart appearance came in 2012 when his Lonerism album reached number fourteen.


    Harry Styles is still at number four with American Girls. BTS fall to number four with Swim. It looked like sinking far further earlier in the week, but the release of new physical copies boosted its sales.


    Zara Larsson’s I Love It climbs to number seven, just four places below the number three peak it reached a decade ago. 


    I always like to try to understand the appeal of certain types of music, even if I don’t like it myself. With some artists, that is a real struggle. Why do people choose to listen to Central Cee? However, they do and he has a new entry this week with Wagwan at number 31. It is, predictably, as awful as its title. Does it stand for something? Maybe What A Git, What A Numpty?


    Nice To Each Other has regained its status as Olivia Dean's third most popular song. This means that The Hardest Part drops out of the chart while Nice To Each Other is back at number 30. Rein Me In counts as a Sam Fender song, so does not count towards Dean’s limit of three songs in the chart.


    Sean Paul and Keyshia Cole’s (When You Gonna) Give It Up To Me climbs to number 26, ahead of its original peak in its initial chart run twenty years ago.


    Last week I commented on Ella Langley's Choosin’ Texas, specifically the fact that it had spent eight weeks in the top forty without ever falling, but still only achieving a peak of number 32. This week it climbs again, to number 29. At this rate, it might be the last number one before Wham take over again in December.


    Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide slips back into the top forty again at number 40.




    Raye’s struggle to be able to release the music she wanted to release, rather than what record companies wanted her to release, has been well documented. It meant that her debut album, My 21st Century Blues, wasn’t released until 2023, more than six years after her first appearance in the singles chart. While the album didn’t quite get to number one - she was beaten to the top spot by Shania Twain - it did give her a first number one single in the forn of Escapism.


    Last week Raye released her second album, This Music May Contain Hope, a set which includes another number one single, Where Is My Husband. There was never any real doubt that the album would go to number one and it has done so by a large margin. The fabulous Click Clack Symphony climbs to number eleven in the singles chart. The former number one single is back up to number fifteen while she gets a third track in the top forty with I Know You’re Hurting entering at number 22. With seventeen songs and a running time of 73 minutes, it is another album that bucks the general trend for pitifully short albums.


    Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving returns to the top two at number two. BTS's Arirang falls to number four after a week at the top.


    In recent years Kanye West has become known more for expressing some rather controversial views than for his musical output. He has also decided to shorten his name to a simple Ye. Apart from his debut, which stalled at number two, all of his studio albums have topped the chart in the USA while his performance in the UK chart has been less consistent. I haven’t counted Donda 2 as it was ruled ineligible for the US chart. His latest album Bully is a new entry at number three.


    Two tracks from Ye’s album are in the singles chart. All The Love, featuring his music director Andre Troutman is at number 28. Father, featuring Travis Scott, is one place above it.


    Melanie Martinez first entered the consciences of the American public when she appeared in the US version of The Voice in 2012. She lands at number five with her fourth album Hades, a very un-hellish debut position.


    Don Broco will forever be included on the lists of bands whose name sounds like that of a solo artist. None of their members is called Don, or Broco for that matter. Their last album, Amazing Things, topped the chart in 2021. Their new set, Nightmare Tripping, hasn’t done quite such amazing things, but still enters at a respectable number seven.


    When Queen released their second album, unimaginatively titled Queen II, they were still relatively unknown. Their debut album, Queen, had failed to chart and they were just getting their first hit single with Seven Seas Of Rye. Queen II eventually climbed to number five with their debut finally getting into the chart in its wake. Now, to mark the second anniversary of its fiftieth anniversary, there is a remastered edition with some added live recordings and tracks from BBC sessions. The new edition is at number fourteen. Their Greatest Hits drops out of the top forty for the first time this year in its 1,200th week in the top 100.


    London singer-songwriter Tom Misch isn’t exactly a household name, but he gets a third top ten album this week with Full Circle at number nine.


    Swedish singer Robyn finally gets a top ten album with Sexistential at number ten. Her previous albums chart peak was with her eponymous debut album which reached number eleven in 2008.


    While they are generally thought of as a London band, Blur’s roots are actually in Colchester. If you consider Blur to be a Colchester band, Pet Needs’ chances of being the most successful band from the Essex town are close to zero. They are at number sixteen this week with Elbows Out! This Is Capitalism.


    Comedian Dave Gorman once spent time gently ribbing Scouting For Girls for releasing a second Greatest Hits album when most people could only name one of their songs at most. They haven’t had a top forty single for nearly fifteen years, but they are still going. They have a new entry this week with These Are The Good Days at number seventeen.


    Courtney Barnett is at number 29 with Creature Of Habit. Central Cee has persuaded enough people to listen to, or even buy, All Roads Lead Home for it to get to number 34. Catherine Garner thought it was a wise move to call herself Slayyyter for her musical career. She is at number 26 with Wor$t Girl In America.


  24. Sam Fender and Olivia Dean hold on at the top of the singles chart. Rein Me In now has a total of five weeks at number one. It is the longest-running number one since Taylor Swift’s The Fate Of Ophelia spent seven weeks at the summit in October and November last year. Like Rein Me In, that song had two separate runs at the top.


    Last week BTS released a new album.There is more on that to come, but the album’s release has also had an impact on the singles chart with three tracks entering this week. The most popular by far is Swim which is at number two, becoming their fifth top ten single. Further down the chart, Body To Body is at number 28 and FYA is at 39. They have now had twelve top forty hits.


    Bella Kay falls to number three with a triple dose of Iloveit. Harry Styles’ American Girls is at number three. PinkPantheress falls one place to number five with Stateside.


    German Hans Zimmer is probably the second most famous composer of film soundtracks behind John Williams. His work includes soundtracks for Gladiator, the Pirates of the Caribbean films and Dunkirk. He had a hit single in 2007 with Spider Pig, one of the shortest “songs” ever to reach the chart. Nineteen years on, he enters the top forty for a second time, this time playing second fiddle (not literally) to Raye on the rather wonderful Click Clack Symphony. There has been just one previous chart hit with the word clack in the title. Bryan Hyland, best known for Sealed With A Kiss, had a number 29 hit with Four Little Heels (The CLickety Clack Song) in November 1960. It would be great to see this Raye song climb a loy higher than its current position of number ???


    Ella Langley entered the top one hundred three months ago with Choosin’ Texas. A month later it reached the top forty. In all the time it has been in the chart it has either climbed or stayed in the same position. In its eighth week in the top fort, it climbs to a new high of number 32 this week. Tame Impala’s Dracula also continues to climb. It reaches a new peak of number twelve five months after first entering the top forty.





    Some people who usually oppose the idea of National Service may have found themselves grateful that it is still practised in South Korea. It has been responsible for BTS being unable to release any new music for the last three years. Other people will have disagreed. Regardless, it is a simple fact that BTS, one of the very biggest names in K-Pop, did release an album last week. 


    Three years is a long gap for such a band, a gap which could easily have seen their fans move on to other acts. BTS seem to have risen above that as Arirang becomes their second number one album. The title is the name of a traditional Korean folk song. Several of the tracks have a dozen or more credited songwriters with the co-writers including OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder.


    Harry Styles slips to number two after two weeks at number one with Kiss All The Time. Disco Occasionally. Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving is at number three, ending a run of nineteen consecutive weeks in the top two. It still hasn’t left the top five since it entered the chart exactly six months ago. Fleetwood Mac’s 50 Years: Don’t Stop is at number five.


    Like most American country singers, Luke Combs remained pretty anonymous in the UK for many years. His albums made brief appearances in the chart but he didn’t receive much attention until his version of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car became a hit. While many albums these days are relatively short, Combs’ latest, The Way I Am’s 22 tracks clock in at a total of 73 minutes. It is a new entry at number four, one place ahead of his previous highest position.


    Back in the days when reality TV was unscripted and featured real people rather than people seeking fame, the BBC chowed a series called The Cruise, following the staff of a luxury cruise ship. The one member of staff who might have hoped that the series would lead to bigger things was the resident singer Jane McDonald. She proved popular with viewers which led to a recording contract and a debut album which reached number one in 1998. She has now released an eleventh studio album. Living The Dream, which is described as a nod to country music. It is a new entry at number ten.



  25. After being replaced by Harry Styles last week, Sam Fender and Olivia Dean climb back to number one in the singles chart with Rein Me In. The song has now had four weeks at the summit. It used to be fairly rare for a song to return to number one in the same chart run, but nowadays it is hardly worth highlighting. Rein Me In is already the second song to return to the summit this year.


    Bella Kay’s Iloveitiloveitiloveit climbs back up to number two. Harry Styles’ American Girls falls to number two after a week at the top. Pink Pantheress climbs to number four with Stateside. Olivia Dean’s So Easy (To Fall In Love) is at five.


    Sienna Spiro gets her third top forty hit with The Visitor at number e;even. The instrumentation is rather lovely, but the vocals occasionally grate a bit. While I did not expect to find a long list of hit singles with the word Visitor in the title, I was rather surprised to find that this is the very first, even when extending the chart to a full top 100.


    After the huge success of the splendid Stick Season, it took Noah Kahan some time to get a second top ten hit on his own. That happened earlier this year when The Great Divide reached number ten. He is now looking for another one with Porch Light. It’s not there yet, but a new entry at number nineteen is a good start. Unsurprisingly, the word Light has appeared in the title of a lot of hit songs. Among those to use it as a singular noun are Blinded By The Light (Manfred Mann’s Earth band’s version of a Bruce Springsteen Song), Red Light Spells Danger (Billy Ocean) and the unforgettable Red Light, Green Light by Mitchell Torok.


    Zara Larsson’s Lush Life continues to be a big hit for the second time. It spent thirteen weeks in the top ten at the beginning of 2016, peaking at number three. Exactly ten years later, it returned to the top ten and, again, peaked at number three. Last week it dropped out of the top ten, but this week it is back up to number eight.


    Tame Ompala’s Dracula climbs to a new peak of number fourteen. His only top forty single entered the chart last October. After spending the last five weeks at number 35, Ella langley’s Choosin’ Texas climbs two places to a new peak of number 33. Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide slipped out of the top forty last week. This week it edges back in at number 40.





    To no great surprise, Harry Styles gets a second week at the top of the albums chart with the curiously-titled Kiss All The Time. Disco Occasionally. A combination of its huge sales last week and the lack of any serious competition from last week’s new releases made it almost inevitable. It is the first album by a male artist to get a second successive week at number one since Eminem’s The Death Of Slim Shady (Coup De Grace) in summer 2024. The last British male act to do so was Lewis Capaldi with Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent in May and June 2023 which immediately followed a two-week run for Ed sheeran’s -.


    Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving eventually provided Harry Styles with his nearest challenger. It remains at number two, extending its run in the gold and silver medal positions to nineteen consecutive weeks.


    While James Blake has never had a major hit single, he has had a good run of successful albums, beginning with his eponymous debut in 2011. This week he reaches the top three in the albums chart for the first time as Trying Times enters at number three.

    Fleetwood Mac’s 50 Years: Don’t Stop is at number four.


    Tate McRae’s So Close To What entered the albums chart at number two in February of last year, somebody told me. It has remained in the top forty ever since and last week stood at number 22, stacked up there for a second consecutive week. Following the release of a double vinyl version of the deluxe edition, it soars back up to number five.


    The Official Charts Company’s review of the albums chart insists that there will be celebrations on the East Sussex coast tonight for Brighton band Yonaka. I can’t hear anything yet, but perhaps something will happen later this evening. That would be to celebrate Until You’re Satisfied becoming their second top forty album at number 25.


    The Black Crowes get their ninth top forty album with A Pound Of Feathers at number 37. It comes almost 35 years after their first top forty album back in August 1991.