Suedehead2

This week's ramblings are available from the Blogs page and the Forums Index page.

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.

19 please

Ian Fletcher is back! After stints working on the 2012 Olympics and at the BBC Fletcher, played by Hugh Bonneville is now working on the 2026 World Cup. His assistant, inexplicably, is the loveable idiot Will Humphreys, still played by Hugh Skinner. David Tennant returns as the narrator of the mockumentary. I saw the first three episodes on iPlayer this evening and it is just as good as its predecessors. It has the additional benefit of a running joke as FIFA didn't give permission for their name to be used. Therefore, any mention of the self-important organisation is bleeped out.

Friday 10th April West Ham United 1-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers (20:00) Saturday 11th April Arsenal 2-1 AFC Bournemouth (12:30) Brentford 1-2 Everton Burnley 0-2 Brighton & Hove Albion Crystal Palace 1-1 Newcastle United Nottingham Forest 1-2 Aston Villa Liverpool 3-1 Fulham (17:30) Sunday 12th April Sunderland 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur (14:00) Chelsea 0-2 Manchester City (16:30) Monday 13th April Manchester United 3-1 Leeds United (20:00)

TACO

Ed Davey was calling for West to be barred from entering the country last week. If West's only offence was to make anti-semitic remarks that would be bad enough. However, he went further than that by endorsing merchandise with the same message. That's a long-term thing, not an off-the-cuff remark.

I'm sure it was rehearsed many times to get the timing right. However, he only had one chance of getting it right in the actual shoot, and he nailed it. If he'd fluffed his lines, there would have been no second chance.

Number 11 is indeed an impressive achievement for a song that is very different from the mainstream. That doesn't make me change my mind about how it should have been a long-running number one.

It should be a multi-week number one.

James Burke was arguably the BBC's best science correspondent in the 1970s and '80s. He worked on Tomorrow's World before fronting his own programmes, including Connections. On The Last leg last night, I was reminded of perhaps his finest moment, demonstrating brilliant timing in his only chance of getting the take right. He had one chance to get it right and he absolutely nailed it. Burke will be 90 in December. It would be great if the BBC finally celebrated his career in the same way that they have paid tribute to other, equally brilliant, broadcasters. The Greatest Shot In Television

Buzzjack survived! The commentary is up as normal!

The site has been struggling this afternoon, but it has survived long enough for me to post this week's commentary. Happy Easter!

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.

Buzzjack is running very slowly for me. Just in case it is not working at 6 o'clock, the chart commentary will be available on Haven. if I can't post it here on time, it will be up as soon as I can.

If they played every song in full, they would still need a lot of chat to fill three hours with so many really short songs.

Sweden seem to have got to a point where they knew they wouldn’t qualify by the normal route. They look like they just fulfilled the remaining fixtures and hoped they could get through the play-offs. An interesting day for two former Brighton managers.

A lot has been said about how much oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, currently blocked by Iran. Rather less has been said about how much fertiliser passes through the same strait. This could have a massive effect on crops grown around the world, with an eventual impact on food prices. The orange imbecile looks like creating more economic damage than any other individual for a very long time.

A truly classic number one!

Slightly later than planned as the OCC's write-up missed out Jane McDonald's position (it can happen to anyone) nut this week's musings are available from the Blogs page and the Forums Index page.

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.

This Raye / Hans Zimmer song is fabulous.

There have been five series in the Netherlands and the USA with several other countries having two or more. Yes, contestants might have more idea of how to play it tactically, but that doesn't mean another series wouldn't work. I wondered how may series The 1% Club could manage as people got more used to the style of the questions, but it is still going strong after five series.

A second series has been commissioned. I hope someone can persuade Hugh Dennis that he looks ridiculous with his dyed hair.