Not Raining
This was an interesting week to be sure.
The mere fact of Rein Me In breaking the 73-year-old record to become the longest-reigning No.1 single of all time prompted a surge of mainstream interest in the charts, the kind of level we all too rarely see outside of Christmas. But from out of it all came one alarmingly common theme:
"Why have I not heard of this song?"
While this became an online trope within a day or so, a flex that somehow made you look one of the gang rather than a cultural ignoramus, the underlying point was a valid one and indeed one that we've touched on here over the past months. How is it that a song that has been around the upper end of the singles chart for well over a year now and which has spent five months in total at No.1, and indeed won a damn Brit Award for Single Of The (Last) Year somehow still has so little cultural cut-through. The question prompted analyses in the mainstream press, including this one in The Guardian to which I was asked to contribute.
It turned out I was one of several who made the point that the monoculture which previously meant that a No.1 single was familiar to many simply no longer exists. In days when there were only a handful of TV channels you could so easily stumble across Top Of The Pops performances. In days when there were fewer radio stations and those that existed all generally played the same kind of music, it was far easier to stumble across the latest chart sounds even in passing. And when every high street had a record store, it was still a place to drift into and take an interest in what was racked highest in the wall of singles.
In an age when the power of pop to dominate everything is but a distant memory, it is indeed all too easy for even the biggest of music stars to pass you by if that simply doesn't invade your personal universe. It isn't just music that has that problem. Newspapers drift along on a fraction of the sales they once did, for a variety of reasons admittedly, but mostly because they are no longer the only place to be briefed on what is taking place in the world. TV knows the same problem. Saturday, August 1st saw linear TV channels command just 7.7m viewers combined at 9pm, the lowest total since records began. The previous record of 8m had been set just one day earlier.
If Coronation Street is no longer able to be the national talking point it once was, is it really any shock that the No.1 single isn't either? 19 weeks or not.
Numbers Game
Incidentally, it is worth clarifying one point from the Guardian piece linked to above as the report misinterpreted the numbers I quoted. The overall size of the singles market has grown by 50% since the start of the decade, from around 20m units a week to over 30m this year. But that's sales and sales-equivalent streams calculated on the 1:100 basis. The 50-60k that a No.1 single might post isn't directly equivalent, as that's derived from the more complicated singles chart formula that discriminates between paid and free streams. But the point remains the same: the biggest hit of the day might accumulate between 4-6m streams each week. But that total has remained largely static for some time, the appeal of the actual No.1 or indeed the Top 40 has not grown in step with the singles market overall.
That's quite the essay to lead into the news that Rein Me In by Sam Fender and Olivia Dean remains No.1. This time for the seventh week in a row and its 20th in total. And as was all but inevitable, the extra publicity surrounding its record-breaking exploits meant an uplift in consumption for the track. Rein Me In continues to lead the most charmed of charmed lives. Its ACR clock resets once more. With a chart sale of 46,000 it remains there for the taking by any single, new or old, that cares to step up and become consistently more popular. But none right now are capable of doing so.
Ariana Petite?
I'm fairly certain that Ariana Grande's management and label expected the story of this week to be one of the triumphant debut of her eighth studio album Petal. We'd be telling stories of the way it shot to the top of charts across the world, but also the shock value of the story of the video for the album's title track and her new single, depicting our heroine taking feminist revenge on the people who had wronged her.
Well, yes, the album is indeed a triumph. It soars straight to No.1 with consummate ease, becoming her sixth No.1 record with an impressive chart sale of almost 48,000 units. She makes corresponding waves on the singles chart too. Former No.1 Hate That I Made You Love Me climbs back to No.3, for its highest chart placing for four weeks. Petal itself debuts one place behind at No.4, while Kiss Me makes a more understated bow at No.15. But the talking point of the video was not the storyline, but simply the way she looks in it. Her noticeably and in many ways alarmingly thinner appearance. Walking proof in fact that she may well be worryingly ill. And probably should not right now be busy touring the world, including the UK leg that begins this week. The resultant backlash did indeed prompt an announcement that her diary would be cleared following the final concerts and that she would be taking time away from the public eye. So in that sense those sneering at "thin shaming" need to get back in their boxes and face reality. But it remains phenomenally sad that we are talking about one of the bigger music stars on the planet not in terms of how her music sounds, but the way she presents herself.
Petal is her 26th Top 10 hit single and fully deserves the chart placing it has. And its video is indeed a compelling watch. But not for the reasons it should have been.
Treasure
Better news then comes via Sienna Spiro who finally has a long overdue second Top 10 hit as the magnificent and moving Great Expectation rises 15-10, now just one rung away from equalling her all-time chart best. Said best is Die On This Hill which peaked at No.9 at the end of last year but which has been enjoying a renewed chart life of its own since the release of her album. It is down at No.21 this week, her third hit of the week with Material Lover (itself defying its status as a hit from the soundtrack of a quickly forgotten movie) sliding three at No.16. The same people who have contrived to be unfamiliar with Rein Me In may well be ignorant of Sienna Spiro as well, which would be something of a tragedy if this situation persists.
Spider-Winner
As we all know, failing to chart or catch fire upon first release is but the first part of the journey for many songs. Such was the fate of Loser by Tame Impala, a track from his album Deadbeat which was first promoted as a single last September when it peaked at No.79. Fast forward to summer 2026 and the track features on the Spider Man: Brand New Day soundtrack. The result is a swift re-promotion and a chart return at No.27. Hey, he has form for this. Even Dracula needed a second bite, as it were.
Also new to the Top 40 at No.32 - and genuinely new for that - Ain't In LA by Slovakian ballerina turned singer-songwriter Adela. In a way she is a throwback to the golden age of the reality show, having been an initial contender on the Dream Academy show which led to the formation of Katseye. One independently released track later she was signed to a label deal of her own and appears to be taking off just at the right time. Ain't In LA is the third track released from her forthcoming debut album Prima (out in September), and the first to become a true international hit.
But for the week's final new entry we go back to the reactivation pile once more. Where The Wild Things Are by Luke Combs crept to No.81 in October last year but it has maintained constant low-level streams ever since. His recent Wembley Stadium gigs last week have caused the curiously addictive track to reawaken, and so it surges back into life at No.37 to become only his third Top 40 single and his first as a solo artist since his cover of Fast Car limped to No.30 three years ago.
Oops
I'll leave you with one final curiosity from the albums chart. Afrobeats star Davido made No.10 with his 2023 album Timeless, No.7 with his 2025 release 5ive, but this week debuts at a shockingly lowly No.98 with his latest album Oriade, posting a reported 1,864 sales. That should come as something of a shock to anyone tracking midweek updates - the final one last Wednesday showed the album sitting at No.4 with over 7,000 sales to its name. So what happened? A disqualification is what, almost 6,000 of those posted sales removed from the survey after unspecified anomalies were found. As if to show the wafer-thin margins on which the albums chart operates, adding those back in would indeed have seen him make the Top 5 for the first time ever.
