Swiftly Dealt With
The Fate Of Ophelia's second bite at the No.1 cherry now mirrors the first. 3 weeks plus 3 weeks now equals six weeks at the top, matching the chart-topping run of Anti-Hero back in 2022 which was until now the American superstar's biggest chart hit. The release of a new Chainsmokers remix was in theory going to consolidate its position but the track oddly falls back in chart sales, although not enough to be challenged for its chart crown.
With this Taylor Swift now inserts herself into another fun niche, becoming only the 11th act in chart history to accumulate a combined 52 weeks at the top of both singles and albums charts. Her tally is made up of 16 weeks at No.1 on the singles chart, and 36 at the albums summit. Amongst female soloists she is beaten only by Madonna (59 weeks) and Adele (58 weeks). The table itself is topped by the big names you might expect, The Beatles way out in front with a phenomenal 246 weeks (70 singles, 176 albums) with Elvis Presley trailing in second place with 146 weeks to his name (80 singles, 66 albums). Ed Sheeran is the only other artist to have accumulated more than 100 No.1 weeks in his career, his tally presently standing at 61 singles and 51 albums for a combined total of 112.
Where Is My Melody
With Huntr/X's Golden slumping to ACR (and a resultant No.7 placing this week) as anticipated, the runner-up slot is indeed inherited by RAYE. I still haven't quite grasped what the long running appeal of Where Is My Husband is about (an excuse for her to show off vocally as she is wont to do, rather than an actual hook-laden song), but after ten weeks around it has now established itself as one of her most successful hits and her biggest chart hit since Escapism topped the listings almost three years ago. Midweek flashes attempted to hype it as a close race, and while there have been larger gaps, RAYE still ended up 4,000 chart units short of a triumph. But there may or may not still be next week.
Meanwhile, it still sucks to be Olivia Dean, the also-ran to the also-ran once more. So Easy (To Fall In Love) finally climbs to a new peak of No.3 in what is now its own 8th week (out of 9) as a Top 10 single. And tagging doggedly behind is the ACR-encumbered Man I Need, its official chart sale qualifying it for the week's No.4 position. Its true sale would be over 56,000 chart units to make it once more the de jure No.1. Five weeks since falling victim to the cull, and fully eight weeks since its first and only spell actually at the top, the sure-to-be Brit Award winner is still outperforming everything else in the market. Even if the official chart is awkwardly not able to reflect it.
Dean's third hit in her trilogy of four is a further place behind - her contribution to Sam Fender's Rein Me In is No.5 in what is also a brand new peak. I feel very bad for all of these hits because they are all about to be blown out of the water by songs your mum prefers.
Rain On Me
If this is indeed our last chance this season to print-screen on a Top 10 mostly full of contemporary hits, let's acknowledge the others which have been floating around unmentioned here since they debuted. Taylor Swift's Opalite is at No.7 in its own 8th week around, while the hauntingly gorgeous Raindance by Dave and Tems has long outlived the appeal of its parent album. Never out of the Top 10 since release, it has moved 5-7-7-8-8 where it sits today.
But I hate to break it to you, the season is encroaching. Last Christmas makes its Top 10 bow for the year at No.9, the latest step in what it would be foolish to presume is not a journey to No.1 for the third year in a row. All I Want For Christmas Is You isn't far behind at No.13 and six more Christmas hits occupy berths in the Top 40. The Yule Log now stands at 29, one more than the tally this time last year although still short of the all-time record of 39 set in this week in 2021.
It's Not Wonka
The only contemporary track to nudge its way into the Top 10 is Century, continuing the startlingly meteoric rise of EsDeeKid. The performer appears to have only benefited from the online conspiracy theory that behind the mask is actually actor Timothee Chalamet (fuelled largely by the way the viral star has a surprisingly small pre-fame online footprint). Researchers have however managed to debunk that one, noting times where the actor was elsewhere when the rapper was supposedly performing. Meanwhile, his two other hits continued to growl at us from lower down, Phantom is No.12 and 4 Raws is at No.27.
Being Green
Just as its predecessor did exactly one year ago this week, the release of the new Wicked: For Good movie (completing the story of the hit musical) has seen its soundtrack soar to the top of the compilations chart and its individual tracks charge the singles chart. Which is to me fascinating, given that all the best songs in the musical appeared to be in the first half when I saw it, or perhaps I fell asleep at that point. Anyway, none are as famous as Defying Gravity, but For Good (credited to Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande) debuts at No.14, followed by No Good Deed (Erivo solo) at No.17 and As Long As You're Mine (Erivo and Jonathan Bailey) at No.29. As with the KPDH singles, the soundtrack rule applies. The movie is the "artist" and is allowed three chart hits regardless of who the credited performers are.
Little Man
The long-awaited deluxe edition of Tate McRae's So Close To What made its bow this week, the expanded version of the collection naturally prompting its new tracks to make a bid for chart freedom. Hence the Canadian star peppers the listing this week, Nobody's Girl is new at No.16, the previously released Tit For Tat down at No.19, and Anything But Love new at No.25. It takes her tally of Top 40 hits this year to seven - with an eighth to be added if you include her appearance on Morgan Wallen's No.30 hit What I Want.
We also have to briefly circle back to Olivia Dean. Her album cuts are now all playing chart hokey-cokey with each other. A Couple Minutes abruptly vanishes from the singles chart, where it was a Top 20 single last week, replaced instead by Let Alone The One You Love, another cut from The Art Of Loving, which just edges the former hit out to chart at No.21.
The album itself is No.2, out-charting Taylor Swift this week. It is only denied another spell at the top by the sensational collaboration between Yungblud and Aerosmith. Their "album" One More Time is this week's champion although it is actually just a five-track EP - one too many to qualify for the singles chart where it would otherwise have been No.8. Meaning that effectively Olivia Dean would have been enjoying a chart double this week but for circumstances beyond her control.
Bold prediction: Christmas by Michael Buble will be No.1 again at the end of December. That festive perennial is already No.24.
Gone Astray
Just sneaking in under the wire to be mentioned in dispatches (as alas it will be a one week wonder) is Do It from K-Pop boy band Stray Kids. This week's No,35 single, it is their second Top 40 hit of the year following No.37 hit Ceremony back in September. Their biggest hit so far remains 2024's Chk Chk Boom which reached the dizzy heights of No.30.
Now, who wants to hear the full breakdown of the most fascinating story of the winter?
The Most Fascinating Story Of The Winter
You may recall two weeks ago everyone noted the curious absence from the charts of viral track I Run by Haven which had been tracking for somewhere close to the Top 10 on midweek flashes. A statement from Official Charts noted they had excluded the track due to the large number of takedown notices that were flying around, removing it from streaming services. A few days later, Billboard followed suit, denying the track a place on the Hot 100 despite it gathering enough streams to be eligible.
The reasons behind this that were hinted at did indeed turn out to be true. The female vocal line which had everyone going "wow, that sounds like Jorja Smith" wasn't her at all - this despite the act themselves cheekily leaning in to the speculation and tagging her in a now deleted TikTok post. Billboard eventually sourced the takedown notices to The Orchard (who just happen to be Smith's distributors) along with two other unnamed industry bodies, their claim being that the track "misrepresents other artists". While Spotify themselves confirmed the track violated their impersonation policies. The bottom line: I Run was AI-generated and sounded too close to Jorja Smith to be allowed to remain.
Haven themselves are two British creators: Harrison Walker and Jacob Donaghue. Approached by The Washington Post, Walker confirmed that the vocals on the original track had been generated by Suno, but insisted it was actually his voice that was the reference for them, the prompt nothing more than asking the app for "soulful vocal samples". It may well have been that the producers just fell foul of the app itself leaning too heavily into its training material.
But the problem was fixable; all that was needed was a new vocal track. From a real person this time. In the wake of the song's explosion in popularity, all manner of fan-created covers began to appear. One of the most striking ones was an entirely a acapella rendering by Phoenix, Arizona singer Kaitlin Aragon whose own TikTok upload nearly went as viral as the original.
This turned out to be the solution everyone was searching for. A few phonecalls later and Aragon was signed up, her vocals recorded professionally and sent over to Walker and Donaghue. Earlier this week I Run reappeared on streaming services - now credited to "Haven featuring Kaitlin Aragon". The returned track scraped just enough streams to debut inside the Top 40 this week, charting at No.37, up from the No.56 the "original" reached before being yanked. It now faces twin challenges - the tsunami of Christmas mush which renders contemporary tracks invisible until January, and having to somehow recover the momentum lost by the track's enforced absence from official platforms.
I've spent weeks pondering what might end up the first No.1 of the new year when the dust clears. It couldn’t be this viral track with the best legal story behind it in 25 years, could it?
What Larss
Mind you, I Run isn't the most surprising chart return of the week. That honour goes to Zara Larsson's 2016 No.3 hit Lush Life which returns to the chart for a brief appearance at No.39, its revival thanks to virality prompted by videos of fans dancing with her onstage on her latest tour. May there always be room for randomness in our lives. Rather than Spotify's seasonal playlists.
