The Hope That Kills
We were teased - TEASED - this week with the prospect of the changing of the guard at the top of the Official UK Singles chart. Early midweek flashes suggested the reign of Gracie Abrams was about to be paused once more. By the time of the final Wednesday update it was clear that we are grinding along the same old groove.
Not that it wasn't close, as just over 1,000 sales separate the Top 3 singles this week. But alas a miss is still as good as a mile. In fact the Furious Four all remain locked in place as they have been since the start of the year. That means an eighth non-consecutive week at No.1 for That's So True, a third consecutive and fourth total week at No.2 for APT (which ends the week just 825 chart sales behind), a third straight week at No.3 for Messy (a further 291 sales adrift) and - you guessed it - a fourth straight week at No.4 for former No.1 Sailor Song. The latter is the only one adrift from the rest, Gigi Perez pulling in 33,000 sales compared to the 50,000 of Gracie.
The No.5 single is at the very least a rotating prize, that rung this week occupied once again by Chrystal with The Days after a week away. The track that interrupted it last week, Who by Jimin, isn't quite able to sustain its renewed momentum and dips away once more to No.13. The bubble deflated it seems.
A Miss Is As Good As A Myle
So the week's biggest winner I guess is rising star Myles Smith who claims a second Top 10 hit single as Nice To Meet You soars to No.6 after a fortnight locked at No.13. As the industry continues to naval-gaze and work out just what the hell has happened to the conveyor belt of British talent, Smith at least proves there is room for a new face to emerge. And you'll note that both of his smash hits so far - this one and Stargazing - have been performed entirely solo without a guest star in sight.
Back in the Top 10 for the first time since late November is Bed Chem by Sabrina Carpenter. The accidental and previously invisible hit single clearly has some potential behind it and is being given the space to breathe. It is also absorbing to see something that has all but died off in this new era of instantaneous album consumption - a hit single from a long player that emerges blinking into the sun some months after its parent album and indeed the planned hits have all had their own moments to star. No longer, goes the wisdom, can you continue to mine albums for single after single and expect things to happen to them. But Sabrina Carpenter just proves a big album will continue to vomit them out. So to speak.
Rise And Rise
Albums chart champion this week is Chappell Roan who climbs back to No.1 with The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess following the release of, naturally, a new special vinyl edition. Those 2,000 sales it commanded were enough to lift it above Sabrina's Short N' Sweet by just 104 sales, the smallest victory margin the charts have seen since 2017. It continues the somewhat meteoric life of Roan's debut album. Released in 2023, it did not chart here until May 2024, topped the chart for the first time 17 weeks later and now returns to No.1 for a second go after an absence of 22 weeks - and on its 31st consecutive week in the Top 10.
This is all to the benefit of its even more vintage lead single, Pink Pony Club which hits a new post-Christmas high of No.16 and is now just three places behind its overall peak, a position it occupied for a fortnight in mid-October. However, Pink Pony Club is the only single to climb into the Top 20 this week. The rest of the biggest hits of the moment are the biggest hits that have been there since January begun.
Panning For Nuggets
For movement then we look to the less glamorous end of the Top 40. Pawsa's remix/reworking/remake of The Adventures Of Stevie V's Dirty Cash advances still further to No.22. I was reminded in the week that the song has popped back into people's consciousness on more than one occasion since its first 1990 chart run. Its most notable comeback came as the basis for Dizzee Rascal's Dirtee Cash (a No.10 hit in 2009), which was followed in short order by his BRIT awards medley You Got The Dirtee Love (alongside Florence and The Machine) which matched the peak of the original by hitting No.2 early the following year.
Back in the Top 40 after a small viral surge and the gift of an ACR reset is Carry You Home by Alex Warren which sparks back into life at No.25, beating with some ease the No.32 that it scaled first time around last autumn. We'll wait with interest to see if this is a one-off.
WTF
The actual highest new entry of the week is a rather startling one. Following an almost out-of-nowhere viral surge on the benighted TikTok, a 2014 BBC Radio One Live Lounge cover by Hozier of Do I Wanna Know (made famous by the Arctic Monkeys) explodes into life at No.26. This could be a one-off or it could be the start of something extraordinary. 2014 was of course the Irishman's first brush with fame, so it seems only appropriate that the single that inspired this - Take Me To Church - lingers this week at No.100.
It must be so awkward working in the music industry. It isn't that things weren't released this week, but a viral cover version from a decade ago is literally the only "new" entry to the Top 40. The rest are what Top Of The Pops used to euphemistically call Chart Entries, songs climbing up from below. But pleasingly there are many of them. Three years on from Encanto fever the world of Disney spawns another chart hit. I Always Wanted A Brother from the soundtrack of Mufasa : The Lion King (a prequel to the 2019 CGI remake of the first movie) continues a chart odyssey that began a fortnight ago with a rise to No.34. As with many Disney soundtrack singles it bears an unwieldy artist credit of all the contributing voice actors combined, and so bears the names of Braelyn Rankins, Theo Somolu and Aaron Pierre. We'll just call them "cast of Mufasa" for tagging purposes if that is OK.
It was mentioned in dispatches a few weeks ago but the computer game-inspired revival of Imogen Heap's 2006 single Headlock now becomes her first ever fully credited Top 40 single with a rise to No.37. I say "fully credited" as her voice also featured on Jason Derulo's No.3 hit Whatcha Say which sampled her track Hide And Seek.
Also sneaking into the Top 40 at last - Indigo by American country singer Sam Barber is No.39.
This does mean - awkwardly - no place in the top for the latest single release of Jade Thirwall. Angel Of My Dreams was huge, her recent releases less so. The much hyped IT Girl, a bizarre slice of mostly narrated hyperpop, fails to live up to it and can only land at No.44. And trust me, this one isn't going any further than that. Attempts to turn the Little Mix ladies into solo stars are going off like a fart in a sewage plant.