Suedehead2

And what about the people involved in a trial that gets delayed for the convenience of Chris Brown? A rape victim, for example. Or someone whose life is being put on hold after being charged with a crime they didn't commit.

Slightly late due to the lack of a BBC Chart Show, but this week's commentary is now available from the Blogs page or the Forums front page.

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

3-2 anyone? Lots of chants of the scoreline at a few Liverpool supporters at school today!

There was a Commons statement today on the UK-EU dela negotiated by Starmer. Farage wasn't there; he was on holiday. This, of course, is the same Farage as the one who was on the EU Fisheries Committee when he was an MEP. The committee held 42 meetings in that time. Farage attended one. I have finally discovered something Farage is good at - he makes Johnson appear hard-working.

Eventually.

Immediately after the referendum, I predicted that Leave voters would soon be looking for new scapegoats when leaving the EU didn't magically solve all the country's problems. Subsequent events have proved me right, and hardline Quitters just find any reason to get angry. They won't even look at the facts if they have the likes of Farage to tell them what to think.

Hardline Quitters will, off course, be free to join the longer queues to demonstrate their loyalty to their cause.

Suede are expected to release their new album Antidepressants on 5 September.

I would guess that Biden's people would have informed the White House before the public announcement so that Trump (or someone on his behalf) could issue a response. Where is that response?

Why?

Seconded

So you don't care if he leaves the country and doesn't return if he is charged?

Why should his case get a higher priority than others? Isn't that the two-tier justice your lot keep complaining about?

One of the considerations when deciding whether to grant bail is the risk of a suspect fleeing the country. You seem to want Chris Brown to be encouraged to leave so that he can continue his tour. Would you also want to allow an Iraqi or an Iranian to leave the country if they were accused of a serious crime?

As a Brighton fan. I don't like seeing Palace win a match, let alone a trophy. OTOH, it's great to see Man C fail to win a trophy. On yet another hand, If City had won., that would have opened up another European place for Premier League positions which could help Brighton.

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

Friday 16th May Aston Villa 2-0 Tottenham Hotspur (19:30) Chelsea 2-2 Manchester United (20:15) Sunday 18th May Everton 2-0 Southampton (12:00) West Ham United 0-2 Nottingham Forest (14:15) Brentford 2-1 Fulham Leicester City 1-0 Ipswich Town Arsenal 1-1 Newcastle United (16:30) Monday 19th May Brighton & Hove Albion 2-1 Liverpool (20:00) Tuesday 20th May Crystal Palace 1-2 Wolverhampton Wanderers (20:00) Manchester City 3-1 AFC Bournemouth (20:00)

Most British people don't want to eat the fish that are caught i9n British waters. If we could only fish in UK waters, we would have to import almost all the sea fish we eat. UK fishers were given licenses to fish in UK waters when the EU fisheries policy was introduced. Thatcher insisted that fishers should be able to buy and sell licenses. UK fishers chose to sell them in large numbers.

Whereas the Tories just gave away all the public utilities.

Yeah, the album is OK, but nothing special. It's a long way short of the quality of Funeral.

I saw that as well. Another very good series.

That would actually be even more hilarious than him failing to win a byelection engineered to get him back into the Commons.

It sums up Man C's season that they are the ones to allow Southampton to avoid matching Derby's record. Let's hope that they continue to under=-achieve for many years to come, ideally in lower divisions after being punished for multiple breaches of the rules.

Don't you think it is a reasonable rule for members of the armed services to be barred from representing a political party? This numpty should also have realised that, and checked with someone.