If I Had A Hammer
No longer with the entire Top 3 to herself, Sabrina Carpenter nonetheless enjoys hegemony over the Top 2 for a third week in a row as Taste and Espresso continue their domination. The single of hers that falls away is Please Please Please which reverses to No.5.
All of that means we get to update the key statistic from last week, this being the American singer's 15th week at No.1 in 2024 - setting a new all-time record for a solo female singer. "Solo" here is the operative work. Olivia Newton-John technically holds the female record with 16 weeks at No.1 in 1978 but all of those were in duet with John Travolta.
We still however have a Top 3 made up entirely of American female singers with Chappell Roan's Good Luck Babe the hit that refuses to die. This its 12th consecutive week as a Top 10 single, 10th in total as a Top 5 hit and now with a rise to No.3 its sixth as a Top 3 hit. The only thing it hasn't done is make it to the top of the charts.
Roan continues to have three hits of varying sizes too - Hot To Go has also found its level but floats around on the edge of the Top 10, rising back to No.11 and with Red Wine Supernova up to No.34. The presence of these three means the virality of another of her older releases remains invisible to the singles chart. Pink Pony Club, first released over four years ago, has been enjoying streaming success of its own - it is at No.51 on the streaming chart this week - but a combination of ACR rules (due to its age) plus the fact it is in those terms her fourth most popular single of the moment means it just isn't getting a chart look in. Which seems something of a shame.
One Step Closer
We wanted some brand new singles on the chart, and we have one from a rather startling source. If Linkin Park had simply faded away following the death of frontman Chester Bennington in 2017 nobody would have been shocked. And indeed that largely appeared to have been the case, the release of their singles collection Papercuts earlier this year appearing to put the final exclamation mark on their storied career.
But then a week and a half ago they made a shock announcement. The band had reformed with a new singer - Emily Armstrong - and were not only making plans to tour old material but release brand new music as well. News of the new lineup didn't quite go according to plan, the internet discovering and expressing discomfort with the Scientology-adjacent views of Ms Armstrong, but those who prefer to make it just about the music appear to have been more than ready to set that minor issue aside.
Which leads us to this week's charts. No.2 on the first sales flashes, Linkin Park's new single The Emptiness Machine more than held its own as the week progressed and as a result debuts at No.4 to become the band's biggest ever chart single in this country. That's not a typo - never before have they managed a Top 5 single, their best showing until now the No.6 peak scaled by What I've Done in May 2007. The renewed attention to the group and their work has had a positive effect on their back catalogue too - hits collection Papercuts - Singles Collection 2000-2023 charted at No.4 when released earlier this year and is now back up to No.8. The group came very close to having two Top 40 hits as well, their classic Numb making a re-debut at No.41 following an ACR reset, charting for the first time since it returned to No.20 in the wake of Bennington's death in 2017. Numb is famously one of those singles which peaked at the same position in two different versions. The original mix made No.14 in September 2003 before being reworked as the Jay-Z mashup Numb/Encore, the revised version also peaking three times over at No.14 in late 2004 and early 2005.
Growers, Not Showers
There's a noticeably fresher look to the Top 10 overall this week, a combination of some long overdue ACR plunges by long-running hits and the decline of the revived Oasis oldies. The most noticeable beneficiary of this is Somedays by Sonny Fodera, Jazzy and DoD which makes the Top 10 for the first time with a leap to No.10. A few places behind my long-standing obsession Move by Adam Port once again nearly makes the Top 10 but falls frustratingly short. That track is back up to No.12 three weeks after it spent a fortnight at No.11. One more push, that's all it needs. One more push.
Based on current momentum we should expect to see a Top 10 placing for Gigi Perez' Sailor Song. After stalling at No.35 for a fortnight it now has the wind in its sails (so to speak) and has moved 35-24-13 in the last few weeks. An even slower-burning hit is The Door from Teddy Swims, now entering its sixth month as a chart single and this week finally a Top 20 hit for the first time as it advances to a new peak of No.16. Awkwardly this is on the same day he releases new single Bad Dreams, so let's see what transpires from here. Meanwhile his breakthrough hit Lose Control is another of those chart singles that just refuses to die, ACR be damned. A No.2 hit back in the spring, it has yet to fall lower than No.31 since that initial peak run and is this week's No.29 hit on what is now its 45th week on the Top 100.
Also worth a mention in dispatches - I Love You I'm Sorry from Gracie Abrams which is at a new peak of its own at No.21.
Finally!
If you want proof of the "all good things come to those who wait" philosophy, then check out the story of Carry You Home from Alex Warren. A track that debuted online in May, it charted here for the first time a month later and has spent most of the summer scuttling around the lower end of the singles chart without ever threatening to climb higher. However the release of a new mix which adds guest vocals from Ella Henderson appears to have been the sprinkling of magic it needed, since when the single has moved 51-46-42-41 and now to No.36 where it makes its debut as a Top 40 single for the first time after an almost four month wait. It is a gorgeous single regardless of which version you choose, and keep your fingers crossed this is now the catalyst for a properly extended chart run at the higher end of the market.
There's just one more new arrival to recount this week, Moi from the unlikely but somehow absorbing combination of Central Cee and RAYE, as her jazz-revivalism and his grime stylings prove to be a fascinating collision. It is just a shame her contribution to the track is so vanishingly brief.
