Oh My My
The No.1 single on the Official UK Singles chart this week is Ordinary by Alex Warren.
More significantly it is the 12th week running that I have had to write those words, or at least a variation of them. The epic love ballad by the American social media influencer and TikTok creator turned pop performer is now the longest-running No.1 single of the decade so far. It has spent more consecutive weeks at No.1 since Shape Of You by Ed Sheeran bulldozed its way to a 13 week run at the start of 2017. Sheeran's track is indeed one of only four singles to have had a longer unbroken run at the top of the British charts. That's the kind of stratosphere that Alex Warren is now in.
That particular date of 2017 is significant because events later that year meant we kind of reset the chart epoch. Ordinary is notably the first track since the introduction of the automatically-relegating ACR system to go on this kind of chart journey. The purpose of ACR (for the newcomers: a rule that means songs older than nine weeks and with three consecutive weeks of streaming decline have their digital chart numbers halved) was not intended to inhibit extended runs at the top of the charts, but it has done on countless occasions. And in particular has affected other singles which have come close to, but never exceeded, the No.1 run of Ordinary.
Nobody likes it when an ACR relegation brings a premature end to a song's run at the top of the charts. The optics of that remain awkward at best. But that just makes it even more notable that Alex Warren's track has avoided that particular trapdoor time and time again.
To understand just why Ordinary has been No.1 for so long (aside from the obvious bit about it being a phenomenally compelling pop ballad) it is worth once again breaking down the numbers of its run at the top. This is how the single has performed week in week out for the last three lunar months:
To explain the terminology of the last column: 1ST 6 means the track was at the start of its chart life, the ACR clock only starts ticking from its seventh week, the earliest a single can be relegated is week 10. SCR means the track had increased its streaming consumption, resetting the clock to zero. DCL-1 and DCL-2 are the weeks of decline. So you will note that only once has Ordinary been on the verge of having its streams halved, a situation it swiftly recovered from. The one anomaly is last week, Week 11, when the track's streams did indeed decline but crucially by less than the market overall and under the rules this also counts as a clock reset.
The ACR system assumes that the streaming profile of a track follows the same kind of bell curve that sales always used to, something that wasn't an incorrect assumption eight years ago. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that in a more mature streaming market the biggest hits don't behave like that. The appeal of Ordinary is very gradually melting away, you can see that in the total numbers, but only ever in fits and starts.
Why Do You Love It So
The song is the very definition of a crossover hit, at home on the playlists of both Radio 1 and Radio 2 (although it has long since dropped off both). And you suspect the average age of its listener has been steadily creeping up as the weeks go by. What has attracted comment though is the notion that for all the popularity of the song, its singer remains under the radar as a performer himself. It isn't that he hasn't been to the UK, he was here in March, posed for his No.1 Award from Official Charts and was rapidly re-booked into larger venues than originally had been planned. But we are kind of used to acts who are top of the charts for this long having a larger profile than he has enjoyed to date. Some friends suggested this is symptomatic of the charts themselves no longer offering the amplification of an artist's career that it once casually did. I guarantee though that this 12 week Rubicon may be the catalyst to end that. This won't be the only article you read this weekend about just how special it is.
But if you really, really want to know why Ordinary has been No.1 for 12 weeks, I'll tell you the secret. It is the "Oh, My My" ejaculation that arrives precisely 1:33 into the Wedding Version (for some reason it doesn’t quite hit the same in the single mix) and which still has the power to give you goosebumps.
Situation Normal
Well that was fun. Shall we get back to the usual format? After noting Alex Warren is at No.1 and which single is some distance behind at No.2 (Love Me Not by Ravyn Lenae taking back over with a sale of just under 36,000 - 24k behind Ordinary), we can talk about the token Top 10 new entry of the week. Although it would be wrong to overlook that this is now the fourth week in a row that a single has been a new entry at the lower end of the Top 10. Joining Blessings, Family Matters and Bloodline in that club is this week's biggest new hit Just Keep Watching. Taken from the soundtrack of the new F1: The Movie er, movie, the track duly becomes the third Top 10 hit single of the year for Tate McRae, hard on the heels of Sports Car (No.3) and Revolving Door (No.9). If this is destined for a Top 10 run then it will have an opportunity to grow on me. For now it is just… there. Or maybe it works best from the comfort of your cinema seat.
Also new to the Top 10 is Sombr's Back To Friends which finally makes the grade after four weeks hovering inside the Top 20. Meaning the two-hit wonder (both tracks have been charting simultaneously ever since they first appeared) doubles up inside the Top 10 as Undressed holds steady at No.4.
Shake My Fly
There may well still be a handful of unkillable evergreens clogging up the listings, but the upper end of the chart has a relatively fresh feel to it, half of the Top 20 are within their first ten weeks of chart life. Those younger hits continue their upward progress too. Shake It To The Max (Fly) by Moliy and Silent Addy is at a new peak of No.12, Can't Decide by Dean/Dean/Locky is up to No.13 while Lola Young's Raye-aping One Thing breaks into the Top 20 in its third week around with a climb to No.19.
Warning Shot
Leading a charge of three more new entries is Addison Rae, back with her fifth chart hit and third Top 40 single as Fame Is A Gun debuts at No.27. It is her second Top 30 hit in just over a month, hard on the heels of Headphones On which debuted at No.24 in early May but which alas was never able to capitalise on that start. Last year's No.10 hit Diet Pepsi remains her biggest hit for now.
British neo-soul singer Olivia Dean has had an oddly fractured path to fame. Hailed as the next big thing at the start of the decade, she was awarded Amazon Music's Breakthrough Artist Of The Year in 2021 and was hailed by BBC Introducing as their own Artist Of The Year two years later. Her debut album Messy reached No.4 that same year but did not produce any chart singles, and until this year her only mainstream attention came thanks to her recording of The Christmas Song for her Amazon cheerleaders which peaked at No.19 for the season. Although like all Amazon Christmas Exclusives it has not been seen since.
She finally broke her duck earlier this spring when It Isn't Perfect But It Might Be from the Bridget Jones movie had a cup of coffee in the Top 40, reaching No.36. Now she is back with what you might regard as her first hit single under her own terms. Nice To Each Other heralds the release this September of her second album The Art Of Loving. It isn't a Christmas song, it isn't a soundtrack hit. It's her own work, and it is brand new at No.28. Is this finally the start of something better?
Up Yer Kilt
Some hits are instant Top 40 successes, some take a short while to get there. Into the latter category falls Levi Heron whose hit single comes with the most curious origin story of the week. Although The Glen is credited to the DJ and producer it actually is someone else's song, first recorded by Caledonian folk-rock band Beluga Lagoon back in 2019. Heron's techno take on the track was made for his own amusement, and for that of his mother at whose 50th birthday party he debuted the mix back in January. After uploading it to SoundCloud it took on a life of its own, particularly via a viral TikTok clip. Spotting a good thing when they saw it, Sony imprint Robots & Humans picked the track up, cleared it with its writers (who seem more than happy to take an under the table credit) and prepped it for release. Now it is the No.37 hit in Britain. All hail the Scottish techno revolution.
Nobody Buys Albums
The albums market remains utterly barmy. The biggest new release of the week was Miley Cyrus' Something Beautiful, but off the back of her constant indications that she is tiring of pop music it was so low key that it drifts into place at No.3. That left the door open for a surprise - Ed Sheeran's Tour Collection compilation sneaking back to the top for no particular reason, five months after it first topped the charts. But it is now the second week running that the No.1 album of the week has not topped five figures - Sheeran's album posted just 9,908 chart sales, the vast majority of those from streaming.
For all the talk of the success of Ordinary, Alex Warren hasn't been able to translate that into large success for the album on which the track appears. You'll Be Alright Kid (Chapter 1) has been on the charts for 24 weeks, first appearing in October last year briefly before kicking off a more extended run back in January. It has only made the Top 10 twice in all that time, peaking at No.9 four weeks ago. It rests this week at No.13 for its tenth week in the Top 20. But that's still only due to about 4,000 chart sales. Fleetwood Mac's near 50 year old Rumours enjoyed more attention.
Up until last week everyone expected Alex Warren to be the person to replace Alex Warren at No.1. But that situation hasn't materialised. Ordinary's 13th week at No.1 now lies ahead - just as long as it can navigate the Sabrina Carpenter-shaped Exocet heading in our direction.
