Gone Up Up Up Again
How on earth is this piece dated "October"? Summer was yesterday, I'm sure of it.
The story we tell this week isn't quite the one that was anticipated based on the first sales flashes. As not for the first time in recent weeks they presented a slightly misleading position.
The big news (for it is news) is that Golden by Huntr/X is once more the nation's No.1 single. Because nothing but nothing can get in the way of K-Pop Demon Hunters, even now. The smash hit single duly spends its seventh consecutive week at No.1, its eighth in total. And as I've been so keen to flag up over the past few weeks, this means it draws level with the 1969 No.1 run of Sugar Sugar by The Archies as the longest-serving single by a cartoon act in chart history.
But you can also look at it another way, because eight weeks at No.1 was also the total ratcheted up by Stay from Shakespear's Sister in 1992 - the long-standing record holder by an all-female group. Which Huntr/X technically are, both in the cartoon universe and in the guise of their real-world performers Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami. If you wish to argue that the group cannot be both cartoons and women at the same time, feel free to do so. Either way, they may go on to break both those records next week. After a fortnight teetering on the precipice, Golden has increased in chart consumption this week over last. The damn thing has reset its ACR clock.
But the extraordinary and highly unusual two-way battle at the summit of the charts continues apace as Olivia Dean's Man I Need is not giving up without a fight. No.2 for the fifth consecutive week it posts its own highest sales total so far - 67,151 to be precise. And that's just 705 chart sales behind Golden. The British singer also has the built-in advantage of the release of her new album The Art Of Loving this week - nailed on to top the charts next time out. But which may well finally give the single the edge it needs to deservedly make it to the top of the charts.
Ball-Squeezing Vocals
Now I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but Lewis Capaldi has released his song again. No.1 for a brief cup of coffee earlier this spring with comeback single Survive, the hefty Scotsman is back once more with another quite patently Lewis Capaldi song Something In The Heavens. The song debuts at No.3, his seventh Top 3 single and for the moment the only one not to make it to the very top. As always this is a slightly false chart position, because Something In The Heavens like all his other big hits in recent years has benefitted from a drop of physical product - physical product that the army of mums who worship his every move seem to be programmed to snap up. So Something In The Heavens charts with a sale of just shy of 50,000 copies, but a full 25,000 of those are accounted for by CD singles. On downloads alone the single would be somewhere in the mid-teens.
That limp streaming performance is perhaps a fascinating curiosity. Despite my barbs above, Something In The Heavens is a notable attempt to change up the Capaldi formula a little, a soft piano and cello-led ballad in which he even breaks out a falsetto for the chorus to show he really does have hidden singing chops. It is a Lewis Capaldi single which tries to deviate from the formula. And it hasn't quite blown up in the way others have. Make of that what you will.
She's Found A Hit
You know it and I know it, it is time for RAYE to start delivering. It has been 18 months since her "sweeping all before her" Brits night, two and a half years since she finally blew up properly as a solo artist, stepping free from the confines of clubland guest vocalist to become the shining star in the firmament she took such obvious joy in being. Since then however we've not seen much from her. Her only new solo work was the extraordinary bit of self-indulgence that was the epic Genesis (No.22 in June 2024) and even the possibility of her being huge next to Mark Ronson on the brassy Suzanne turned into a disappointment when it bombed out at No.34 earlier in the summer. She had a co-credit alongside Doja Cat on Lisa's No.13 hit Born Again back in the winter, but that too was just a one week K-Pop wonder. So I repeat, it is time to start delivering.
Which in a sense she does. The first single proper from her forthcoming new album and a track she debuted at her Glastonbury performance back in the summer, Where Is My Husband! barges its way into the charts at No.4, her biggest hit single since her legal credit on the Casso track Prada which reached No.2 two years ago this month. The worst thing you can say about it is that it is very, very her. The track featuring her own unique fusion of rap and jazz techniques in a manner which shows off her enormously impressive set of pipes. But for all that the song itself is… frustrating. Meandering around in search of a big hook that never arrives. When I mused on Twitter about the track being disappointing, I was jumped on by some of her very scary online Stans. RAYE is also her own biggest fan, which comes across every time she speaks, but she and her frequent songwriting muse Mike Sabath aren't above criticism. And I really wanted this to be better than it is. The most notable thing you can say about Where Is My Husband! is that it would have made a fantastic Amy Winehouse single. You can't unhear it now I've planted that idea.
Increased RAYE interest has also handed a boost to her most famous solo single, former No.1 Escapism being granted an ACR reset and re-debuting at No.37, its first time in the Top 40 since February 2024 when THAT Brits night gave it another surge of interest.
Triple Sabs
This means nothing really, but in one of those nice visuals having failed to do the chart grand slam (all 3 Top 3 singles) in the week her Man's Best Friend album was released, Sabrina Carptenter does at least get all her ducks in a row this week. Her three current hits Tears, Manchild and When Did You Get Hot all line up at 9, 10 and 11 respectively in what will make for an entertaining Sabrina-fest on any chart countdown shows this week.
That's practically all she wrote for the singles chart this week, with nothing of any interest going on down below. We genuinely all are holding our breath for Taylor Swift week aren't we? Biffy Clyro (who are apparently still going) have the No.1 album, denying Sabrina another return to the top as she languishes at No.2, while Lola Young's I'm Only F**king Myself, her third album but her first since celebrity, is at No.3. And I have to note, given speculation about it last time out. Jade's That's Showbiz Baby doesn't suffer a total collapse in sales in Week 2, but does tumble to No.30 after posting just over 4,000 chart sales. Fans care a lot about her. Precious few others do, that's the frustrating truth.
