Suedehead2

This week's ramblings in chartland can be found from the Blogs page or the Forums Index page.

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.

Whereas de Pfeffel merely discussed getting a journalist beaten up.

Great to see Basement drop just one place from Monday!

🤣

Wednesday 13th May Manchester City 2-0 Crystal Palace (20:00)

A great start for Basement. They really deserve to get their first hit album.

And two others were covers of old songs.

If Piers Morgan was a panellist on QT, I assume there were 132 others. Otherwise, what was he doing on the programme?

Fingers crossed for Basement. Their new album is really good. Their chart history suggests they won't make it, but I can always hope!

Saturday 9th May Liverpool 2-0 Chelsea (12:30) Brighton & Hove Albion 2-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers Fulham 1-2 AFC Bournemouth Sunderland 1-2 Manchester United Manchester City 3-1 Brentford (17:30) Sunday 10th May Burnley 1-3 Aston Villa (14:00) Crystal Palace 0-2 Everton (14:00) Nottingham Forest 1-0 Newcastle United (14:00) West Ham United 0-2 Arsenal (16:30) Monday 11th May Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 Leeds United (20:00)

This week's ramblings can be found from the Blogs page or the Forums Index page. Sadly, I didn't get time to drop in loads of subtle references to David Attenborough's 100th birthday.

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!

Tears For Fears - Pale Shelter Yazoo - Nobody's Diary Robert Wyatt - Shipbuilding Eurythmics - Love Is A Stranger Blancmange - Blind Vision Worst Chill Fac-Torr - Twist (Round 'N' Round) Julio Iglesias - Hey! The Kids From 'Fame' - Friday Night (Live Version)

For Sunday's session, it would be great to see a tribute to the wonderful David Attenborough. He is a great classical music buff. He used to be a regular guest on Face The Music, a classical music quiz which I used to watch with my parents in the 1970s. BBC4 are currently showing repeats. When he was last on Desert Island Discs, his top choice was the 3rd of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, so that might be a good piece to play.