She's Still There
Oh come on this is FUN, admit it. Yes, we are in another of those periods of chart stagnation (the whole of the Top 6 on the Official UK Singles chart are non-movers this week) but even that means stories are still unfolding.
Take Sabrina Carpenter for instance. You may have heard of her. Taste is No.1 for the sixth week on the bounce, the second single this year (after Stick Season) to have an unbroken run of this length. This is also now Sabrina's 18th week at the top of the charts in 2024, drawing level with the total achieved by Ed Sheeran in 2021.
One place behind well, it barely needs me to say. Good Luck Babe by Chappell Roan, the song now celebrating exactly sixth months on the chart, spending its own fifth week in total in the runner's up slot and its 15th consecutive week in the Top 10.
Meanwhile Espresso, the song that has been at No.1 twice, is once more No.3. It can now boast 22 weeks in the Top 10 in total, the 12th highest total for a non-Christmas hit in chart history, a record that it shares with no fewer than nine other singles - amongst them Bad Habits, Blinding Lights and Prada. And with Please Please Please still knocking around at No.5 Carptenter has had three singles in the Top 5 for six weeks in a row. And not even Ed Sheeran has ever managed that.
See you next week for more of this perhaps?
Taking Saturday Off
Breaking up the party a little though is the week's highest new entry and an instant Top 10 single. Because it has been a couple of weeks since we had one of those. This however is one of those moments where I scratch my head and wonder if this old man isn't getting rather more out of touch than he used to be when younger.
Two weeks ago The Weeknd debuted at No.12 with Dancing In The Flames. Which I thought was gorgeous and publicly said so and anticipated it would become a huge smash hit, and intimated as such. And then of course it immediately slumped back to No.26 and further reduces to No.35 this week. Which is awkward.
This week the Canadian star is back, this time with Playboi Carti in tow on Timeless, a track which to these ears is hot garbage. A tedious meander through three minutes of the two men posturing at each other on a single which goes out its way to avoid whatever melody it possesses. And yet here we are, the song bigger than any other newly released track this week as it debuts strongly at No.7. This is the second time the pair have teamed up together on a Top 10 single, their last collaboration coming last year when Popular (with a barely audible Madonna on co-credited vocals) eased its way up to No.10. Both singles mark the zenith of Playboi Carti's chart career so far, his last solo hit All Red debuted at No.32 a fortnight ago and hasn't been seen since.
Tug
It slumped to ACR a few weeks ago, but Billie Eilish's Birds Of A Feather still refuses to die, and in fact this week rises three notches to No.15 - pushed by extra streams resulting from the someone belated release of its official video. I confess I'd completely forgotten it didn't even have one, but it genuinely didn't - just the odd "visualiser" of her floating in water. Mind you, even the biggest hits don't necessarily need a video. Shaboozey's A Bar Song (Tipsy) has just spent the last three months at the top of the Hot 100. Yet beyond the original visualiser with which it launched there has been no sign of anything resembling a proper promotional clip.
Trigger Finger Numbness
Linkin Park's big comeback single The Emptiness Machine was by no means a one-week wonder and retains a place in the Top 20 in its fourth week around with a small slide to No.14. But it is joined at the upper end of the Top 40 by the follow-up Heavy Is The Crown which made an understated debut at No.66 last week following a low key midweek release but now advances to No.18 after a full seven days of sales and streams. As much as Timeless was poor, this is actually quite worthwhile as new singer Emily Armstrong demonstrates just why the band hired her, delivering an intense yowl that if you squint is almost indistinguishable from the vocals of the late Chester Bennington. One day someone will construct an AI duet between the pair and I am all for it.
As well as being from the band's forthcoming album From Zero, Heavy Is The Crown is the main theme to the 2024 League Of Legends World Championship esports tournament. Which if we are being honest only adds to its mystique. It has long struck me as strange that the soundtracks to video games so often feature some quite ridiculously good music but which is naturally heard in an environment that means it never gets anywhere near the charts. And in many cases that is a crying shame. I don't play Fortnite, but I could sit for hours listening to the seasonally rotating lobby music tracks. Any of these could be hits, if only they reached a larger audience. Hence one of my favourite YouTube channels is Nitegamic which produces self-made animated videos for these lobby music tracks.
Other chart activity of note - OK work with me here because there isn't much. The fastest mover within the Top 40 is easily Addison Raye's Diet Pepsi which flies 15 places to No.22. And there's also a new entry for Nines at No.39 with Going Crazy, a track from his 'farewell' album Quit While You're Ahead which itself debuts at No.4 on the albums chart.
Juice anyone? I seem to have finished this earlier than usual. How odd.
