The Best Of Times
The charts this week can be held to be about two records and two different artists - without whom, I won't lie, there would be the square root of nothing at all to talk about.
Since the start of the spring one thing has become readily apparent. The only things capable of interrupting the No.1 run of Rein Me In have been single releases from returning superstars. Harry Styles was the first, Olivia Rodrigo the second, and now it is the turn of Ariana Grande to bring to a halt its third run at the top.
Her new single is Hate That I Made You Love Me, the title supposed to be rendered in lower case in its entirety but this is an indulgence I'm not going to grant her. The first single from her forthcoming eighth studio album Petal, it is one of those tracks that everyone felt obliged to check out at least once, with a large number of them coming back for more. Ariana Grande singles are either annoyingly formulaic or utterly compelling and this one seems to have a foot in both camps. It is all at once everything you would expect from an Ari single while at the same time being divertingly different. An understated, almost sinister, delivery is underpinned by that bubbling synth line that prefaces every verse. Add to that a video which reaches for Olivia Rodrigo-levels of disturbing and you have a package that is inevitably going to command attention on record charts across the globe this week. So who are we to argue that the British ones have done just that?
Hate That I Made You Love Me is the American singer's eighth No.1 record on these shores. The others are her own singles Problem (2014), Thank U, Next (2018), 7 Rings (2019), Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored (2019) and Positions (2020) along with her guest role on Jessie J's Bang Bang (2014) and Rain On Me (2020) which was credited as an equally billed duet with Lady Gaga. You will note that this notably ends the longest chart-topping drought of her career, with almost five and a half years having elapsed since she was last at No.1 in this country. This is all down to her two big hits of 2024 - Yes, And and We Can't Be Friends (Wait For Your Love) both stalling at No.2 along with none of her contributions to the two Wicked movie soundtracks having made quite the chart waves of her regular pop hits.
But all that is in the past. Another Queen is back to reign over us, although once again this hands us the intrigue of knowing if her streams this week are sustainable or whether this is "new arrival at the monkey house" syndrome again where interest drops off in Week 2. Her 5,000 chart sales lead over Rein Me In is entirely down to the downloads, vinyls and CD singles she sold.
Picking It Up
Those who believe in a certain kind of poetry will note that the No.41 single this week is the newly viral Cinderella, a 2016 track by the late Mac Miller with Ty Dolla Sign on vocals. Miller and Grande were in a relationship in the 10s and indeed her singles chart debut was a song on which he had a performing co-credit - 2013 hit The Way. It's peak: No.41.
Oh, and only on 2026 could an act be promoting both their new and old records at the same time. Ariana Grande's Dangerous Woman album sparks back into life at No.17 this week, this thanks to the release of a new 10th anniversary edition. It topped the charts upon release (not unsurprisingly ten years ago this week) although the biggest hit it contained (No.4 hit Side To Side) did not break out until the autumn. She wasn't the biggest of big deals back then. We as a nation wouldn't take her to our hearts, so to speak, until a desperate tragedy a year later.
Obligatory Mention
So yes, for now Rein Me In isn't No.1 but we can rule nothing out for next time around - especially as there is yet another superstar release theoretically in contention. The track's chart run now extends to 51 weeks, the last 50 of them spent inside the Top 40. As we all know, even in this day and age this is something vanishingly impossible to do thanks to the invasion of Christmas songs every December which wipe out all but the biggest of contemporary hits. It is all but inevitable that Rein Me In will break the current record of 54 consecutive Top 40 weeks held by Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud. And short of a change of chart rules it is unlikely that anyone else will ever come close.
Thumbs Aloft
The other notable record of the week is the one atop the Official UK Albums chart. Sir Paul McCartney's The Boys Of Dungeon Lane impressively soars past the rest of the competition and in the process hands him back to back No.1 albums for the first time in 40 years, coming as it does in the footsteps of McCartney III in 2020.
Exactly how many times the legendary star has topped the albums chart gets a bit messy, so bear with me. Officially (and maybe surprisingly) it is only his sixth to be credited to him as a solo act. But that total is considered to be swelled by the records he made with both The Beatles and Wings as well as 1971's Ram which was credited to both him and his then wife Linda. So officially this is counted as his 24th No.1 album in his career as a whole. Not even Robbie Williams can come close.
A few weeks shy of his 84th birthday he takes over as the oldest solo artist ever to have a No.1 album, a crown he wrests from another knighted pop star Sir Tom Jones who was 80 when Surrounded By Time reached the summit five years ago.
The Boys Of Dungeon Lane makes No.1 with a chart sale of over 33,000 copies (the vast majority of these purchased ones). And it needed to. Michael Jackson's The Essential is still being streamed in huge numbers, enough to ensure it posted over 25,000 sales of its own this week. Just like Olivia Dean earlier this year, he will return to No.1 by default if there is nobody else with a big enough new release to better him.
Top 10 STFU
The rest of the singles chart atrophies a little this week, I cannot lie. Ariana's single is the only new arrival to the Top 10, coming at the expense of Olivia Rodrigo's Drop Dead which dips to No.11 as a consequence. Most of Drake's hits are now tracing a downward spiral on the chart, but not his biggest Janice STFU which rebounds to No.4 in its third week around. This one is no "one and done" album-prompted hit record so fair play.
Also fighting its way through the swarm is the apparently unkillable Choosing Texas from Ella Langley, which after its record five straight weeks at No.35 earlier in the spring has spent the last eight weeks meandering around the Top 20 - this run including five weeks (non-consecutive this time) at No.16. I mention it now as the perennial US No.1 hit now rebounds back to the No.13 peak it last occupied seven weeks ago. Top 10 may not be beyond it yet.
Meanwhile, after its progress was halted last week, the other geographically themed country hit of the moment is up to a new peak of its own. Boston from Stella Lefty celebrates a fifth straight week as a Top 40 hit with a small rise to No.25.
Nob And Nobility
Brand new to the Top 40 this week is a single that is actually just as compelling as the Ariana Grande one. F3miii is the spellchecker-bothering alias of Irishman Richard Adebusuyi whose track Noble may well be a contender for the song of the summer if it makes good on its promise, this despite it having first hit the streets back in January. It has had a devil of a time getting here so far, its first week in the Top 40 is no less than its eighth week as a chart single, the track having previously moved 81-76-71-63-57-56-59. After last week's wobble it is now No.34, from where it really, really should be advancing further.
The continued streaming success of Off Campus has now propelled On The Floor by Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull back into the Top 40 for the first time since its original chart-topping run in 2011. Some reshuffling of the pack means it is now "only" the 11th catalogue song on the Top 40 this week as both Beauty And A Beat and Unwritten have exited. But as noted earlier, Cinderella at No.41 is itself almost ten years old (its parent album The Divine Feminine was released in September 2016) and so if it rises next week we are counting it. On The Floor is itself based on a sample from a track even older - Lambada by Kaoma of 1989 vintage.
The World Cup starts this week and there are precisely zero football-themed tracks anywhere near the Top 40. Twenty years ago this would have been unthinkable.
