We Are All Big Fans
Everyone appreciates the UK Top 4.
Even if they are all the same as before.
There's a ginger-coloured earthquake on the way and everyone knows it, but for now we have a sense of calm at the upper end of the Official UK Singles chart. The Top 4 singles are in turn: the current No.1 single; the previous No.1 single; a song which really should be a No.1 single; and a track that was the No.1 single exactly one year ago.
Yes, step forward Ordinary which is top of the charts for a third week for Alex Warren, Pink Pony Club, Anxiety and Beautiful Things. About which we've surely said all there is to say already - aside from the fact that after topping 60,000 chart sales last week Ordinary now soars even higher and posts a sales total well over 71,000. Ignoring Christmastime oldies, that's the highest weekly count for a No.1 single since Sabrina Carpenter moved 75,000 units of Please Please Please in its second week at the top in July last year.
Eternally Ari
Ripples however land on an otherwise becalmed singles market thanks to the arrival of the new deluxe edition of Ariana Grande's now year-old Eternal Sunshine album. The Deluxe: Brighter Days Ahead release augments the tracklisting of the original with six brand new cuts (plus more mixes depending on which edition you happen to have swung for). And regardless of origin these are brand-new Ariana Grande tracks so the appearance of three of them somewhere on the chart was more or less a given.
The Ari charge is led by Twilight Zone which not only makes No.5 but ensures she at long last has a hit single that shares a song title with a 2 Unlimited track. Well, I was waiting for it anyway. Returning her to the Top 10 for the second time since the end of last year (hard on the heels of Defying Gravity) it is her highest charting single since We Can't Be Friends (Wait For Your Love) of which many people have commented the new track bears more than a passing resemblance. In fact Twilight Zone pulls off the new trick of sounding comfortingly like every other song of its genre right now, derivative of not only her own work but that of other singers, but at the same time being a bright and in truth quite lovely pop record. I'm torn. I'm not supposed to think this is really good, it is a cut that wasn't originally good enough to make it onto the album. But somehow it is.
Ari's other two singles also account for the second and third highest new entries on the chart this week, Dandelion planting itself at No.19 and the vanishingly brief (161 seconds long) Intro (End Of The World) at No.26.
Samsung Galaxy
Also new to the Top 10 is Nokia from Drake and the still invisible PartyNextDoor which edges up to No.10. Originally a cut from the pair's Some Sexy Songs 4 U collaborative album, the track has survived the drop off in interest of its parent to be a constant chart presence for the last seven weeks. As we noted last week, initially marooned between 19 and 20 for most of those, the song has come alive in the past 14 days and this week enjoyed a further boost from the release of its own promotional video. I don’t want to like Drake songs, most of his past work annoys the crap out of me for being so tedious. And the four-month No.1 run of One Dance back in 2016 is still a memory that can bring me out in hives. But Nokia pulls of the trick of being both good and interesting and with its wild video making it a worthwhile consumption experience this elevated chart position is actually not a surprising as you might think. Official Charts regard this as Drake's 46th Top 10 single, Alan Jones in Music Week says it is the 47th. I lost count of them some time ago.
Best Of The Rest
Also making chart progress is Ravyn Lenae's Love Me Not which is now up to No.15 to prove that the British public have taste, the chart run of the song now giving off Good Luck Babe vibes in the sense that it is classic in the making that is on a fascinating slow burn (it has taken 8 weeks on the chart to get this far having been first released almost a year ago).
Mutt by Leon Thomas is another burning under the radar gem, edging up four places to No.22 after making the Top 40 for the first time last week.
Cheer Up It May Never Happen
If American singer-songwriter Sombr goes on to become a big star, mark this week down as the moment it all began. Not every unknown artist can land their first and second Top 40 hits in the same week, but that's what the real life Shane Boose has achieved. Back To Friends is his biggest hit for now, sitting pretty at No.35 but hard on its heels is Undressed which is two places behind. Back To Friends is the harder and grittier (and distorted) one of the pair, but Undressed is the more accessible pop song. Assuming these are no one off it will be fascinating to see which one grows the quickest from here.
After a handful of flops rapper Nemzzz (three Z's and don’t forget any of them) finally has a breakthrough hit of sorts, Dilemma debuts this week at No.39 with a helping hand from a co-credited Central Cee.
We should go back to numbers before we finish. The singles market overall keeps stretching for new highs. 31.4m chart sales were logged this week in another high for 2025. We are edging towards exceeding the all-time record of 33m which was set in the final week of last year. And again, if you ignore Christmas which tends to skew all statistics, this is the highest it has ever been in any "normal" chart week.
