Week Ending August 27th 2026

I've Told You A Million Times

It is the year 3587. The heat death of the universe has edged just that little bit closer. Humanity has long since merged with its own AI and developed a new form of consciousness. Crocodiles have not evolved any further however. And Rein Me In by Sam Fender and Olivia Dean is still somehow at the top of the charts.

Hyperbolic comedy was never my thing you understand. But who knows how far off the truth it may be.

Welcome then friends to another week of contemplating and head scratching as we marvel at the way that song you by now are all familiar with extends its record-breaking No.1 run to a magnificent 22 weeks, the last nine of these consecutively. Last week I did a round of interviews on various BBC Local Radio stations, all on this topic, meaning I had about eight opportunities to once more reach no firm conclusion as to why this song remains more popular than any other right now, 62 weeks after it first made the charts.

However one of the reasons it has remained in this particular area of the charts for so long has been its charmed life and the ability to avoid being moved to Accelerated Decline by the chart rules. It is time once more to explain this for any newcomers? Why not - there's room to do so this week.

This Is The Relevant Part

Accelerated Decline or Accelerated Chart Ratio (ACR) is the rule that kicks in if a song has been on the charts for more than 10 weeks and if its streams have declined by more than the market variance for three consecutive weeks. When that happens the ratio by which its streams convert to old fashioned sales or "chart units" as we are now told to call them is halved. 1:200 for paid streams, 1:1200 for freemium ones.

For most singles this happens in fairly short order once they have achieved a particular streaming peak. A bell curve kicks in, interest dies away and those three weeks of decline take place without too much fuss. But in 2026 that isn't always a given. As noted in previous columns, the way the singles chart tracks the tastes of everyone rather than just "pop fans" as it were means a song with a genuine ability to cross over to many different new audiences may sidestep this relegation over and over again.

Back in March I compiled a table to illustrate just how Rein Me In had managed to repeatedly avoid ACR status, and so with that situation persisting it seems only appropriate to revisit it. A table with over 50 rows may be a little hard to stomach, so this time around let's deal with the weeks since Rein Me In first crept to the top of the charts. Here is the tale of the ACR tape. Subject to the fact that Music Week only breaks down the streams of a track when it is at No.1, so some guesswork is involved for those rare weeks when Rein Me In wasn't actually top of the charts.

The "market variance" rule very rarely comes into play but has, as shown here, saved the bacon of Rein Me In on two notable occasions. This part of the rule was inserted out of a sense of fairness. Sometimes there can be wild lurches in the size of the streaming universe. They can be weather or seasonal-related, or perhaps sometimes because of technical issues. It ensures that a track is only truly marked as having "declined" if this is clearly out of step with any other factors. It also means force majeure does not affect matters. If a streaming service went out of business overnight and vanished from the market, a huge chunk of its chart contributions would similarly vanish and the market would dip alarmingly until those customers found a new home. It would hardly be fair to penalise a track that was suffering from this unexpected drop. Hence the caveat.

Hope Springs

Anyway, you will note from the table that Rein Me In this week has seen its streams drop week on week from 42,815 units to 41,475, a decline of 3.12%. The singles market overall also declined, but by a mere 2.23%. Rein Me In therefore has dropped by more than the market and so has registered its second straight week of decline. Meaning once more it teeters on the edge of oblivion. But friends, as the table so painstakingly rendered above reveals, this is a song with the most charmed of charmed livers. We have been here a great many times before. If it increases its streams once more, or even declines by less than the market, don't say I didn't warn you.

As one final interesting aside, in the early years of the ACR rule there was the brief phenomenon of singles embarking on what I termed the "golden chart run". Entering at No.1, and spending nine weeks in a row there before falling to ACR at the first opportunity. Perhaps as an illustration as to how the market has evolved and matured, just two singles have done so since the start of the decade: Drivers License by Olivia Rodrigo in 2021 and Taste by Sabrina Carpenter in 2024.

Prospects

We're not done with ACR just yet. Dai Dai by Shakira and Burna Boy spends a fifth straight week at No.2, but having entered a third week of decline the World Cup anthem is destined for a swift and brutal chart relegation to somewhere just outside the Top 10. This may well be to the advantage of Choosin' Texas and Movin' To The Sun which remain locked in place at No.3 and No.4 respectively. The most moribund of singles charts cannot avoid the winds of change, even if for now it is still just a gentle breeze.

Even this time around it is a good week for Stella Lefty as Boston continues to make "stella" progress, lifting 9-5 to reach another brand new peak. And as it starts its own second year as a Top 40 hit single, Man I Need by Olivia Dean returns to the Top 10 after a fortnight away - only the second time in the last 16 weeks it has climbed as high as No.10. It long ago fell to ACR but has refused to stop being one of the most streamed tracks in the nation ever since, meaning it retains an awkward place as the Top 3 (and sometimes No.1) hit that officially isn't. Its chart sales this week would qualify it to be No.2 were the ACR rule not in place.

Gnarled

When Katseye's Animal first charted four weeks ago I noted that none of their singles as a primary artist had ever climbed beyond its initial chart position. That looked to indeed be the case for this one too as it moved 16-18-16. But now buoyed by the release of their EP Wild (the No.2 album on the Official UK Albums chart this week) it jumps to not only its highest chart position yet, but also takes over as their biggest hit ever as a No.12 hit single. Animal is joined in the Top 20 by another track from the collection - Hootie Frutti is the week's highest new entry at No.16, now their third Top 20 hit single. It is also their fifth Top 40 single of 2026 making them the first girl group to accumulate as many hits since Little Mix in their swansong year of 2021.

O Spiderman

Also new to the Top 20 is Steve Lacy's Oh Yeah which moves to a new peak of No.18. Meanwhile the other Spider Man: Brand New Day soundtrack hit Loser by Tame Impala lands on the glass ceiling of No.11 - if it at the very least holds steady it should make it into the Top 10 in seven days' time.

Pheebs

So if Katseye are No.2 on the albums chart who then is No.1? Phoebe Bridgers, that is who. The third studio album from the American singer-songwriter becomes her first solo chart-topping record. That 'solo' qualification is important. As everyone is fond of noting, she also had a No.1 record as a member of on-off supergroup trio Boygenius. Their debut album The Record also made it to the summit in 2023.

Bridgers' album also rewards her with a first ever Top 40 single, the album's title track Lost Weekend landing at No.39. She also completes her eligible trifecta with The Governor's Waltz at No.53 and Lost Boys which returns to the chart at No.69 having originally peaked at No.50 last month. Here's a final fun fact to end on this week: only one credited artist named Phoebe has ever made the Top 30. Phoebe Ryan, the singer on The Chainsmokers' 2016 single All We Know which peaked at No.24.