Uneventful, really.

1. Lil Nas X – “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”

Five weeks, and still performing strongly. Not that it’s facing much in the way of new challengers – it heads up a static top three, with “Peaches” spending its fourth week at number 2. There are no significant new entries this week at all – for the highest, we have to go all the way down to…

38. Years & Years – “Starstruck”

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Another week with only three new entries on the singles chart.

1. Lil Nas X – “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”

Four weeks, and miles ahead of the number 2 single (which is Justin Bieber’s “Peaches”, for the third week). I’ll come back to the climbers – let’s tie up the new entries first.

29. AJ Tracey – “Little More Love”

One for the “filmed that during a pandemic, did you?” file. I know there are protocols for this sort of thing, but for the sake of a three minute video… I don’t know. It’s offputting. Anyway, this is the release-week single from his album “Flu Game”, which enters at number 2. His previous self-titled studio album reached number 3 in 2019; he’s also released a couple of mixtapes which placed significantly lower. “Flu Game” has already produced four top 40 singles – “Dinner Guest”, which got to number 5; “West Ten”, which got to number 5; “Bringing It Back”, which got to number 5; and “Anxious”, which got to … er, number 34. Not sure what happened to that one.

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The market for Taylor Swift doing Taylor Swift covers is a healthy one.

1. Lil Nas X – “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”

Three weeks, which is longer than “Old Town Road” managed – making it his biggest UK hit. Its sales are also continuing to increase, and so it could be here for a while to come. It holds “Peaches” by Justin Bieber at number 2 for a second week.

3. Polo G – “Rapstar”

This isn’t Polo G’s first UK hit, but you’d struggle to say his previous chart record qualified him as a star – he has a technical number 3 hit by guesting on KSI’s hit “Patience”, and he has co-billing with Lil Tjay and Fivio Foreign on “Headshot”, which scraped a week at number 40.

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Because of the death of the Duke of Edinburgh, the BBC is in national mourning mode today, and so it didn’t air the regular chart show. But the chart itself was still published online as usual, and to be honest, it’s such an uneventful week that listeners to Radio 1 didn’t miss a great deal.

1. Lil Nas X – “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”

Two weeks. Which matches “Old Town Road”, for what that’s worth. Number 2 is “Peaches” by Justin Bieber featuring Daniel Caesar & Giveon, climbing one place; “Bed” by Joel Corry x RAYE x David Guetta climbs 7-6. That is the sum total of excitement in the top 10 this week. Slightly more interestingly, “Body” by Russ Millions & Tion Wayne climbs 21-12. “Astronaut in the Ocean” by Masked Wolf climbs 20-18. “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals climbs 24-21, five weeks after reaching its previous peak of 22. “Ferrari Horses” by D-Block Europe featuring RAYE climbs 28-22 – that is more notable, because it’s been climbing ever since it entered the chart three weeks ago, and D-Block Europe tracks don’t normally do that. And we finally reach the first new entry all the way down at…

27. Olivia Rodrigo – “Deja Vu”

Following up “Drivers Licence” is… a challenge. Technically Olivia Rodrigo is already off the one-hit wonder list, because her Disney song “All I Want” got to number 32 as a spillover when “Drivers Licence” took off. Still, this is the single that has the impossible task of being the actual follow-up.

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We were overdue for a big new entry, and lo.

1. Lil Nas X – “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”

This is Lil Nas X’s second UK number one, after 2019’s “Old Town Road”. Both his subsequent hits, “Panini” and “Holiday”, landed just outside the top 20 – so while he wasn’t a one hit wonder by any means, he was in some danger of being an artist who had one Really Big Hit as an outlier on an otherwise mid-table career. It’s tempting to ascribe Montero’s success to the video, though really, that’s been more controversial in the USA than in Britain; religion just doesn’t have the same traction in British culture wars. Still, it won’t hurt that the charts count YouTube views. But mainly, “Montero” is just a much better track than “Panini” or “Holiday” – it feels like more of a complete song.

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In which Justin Bieber has a new album out, and so everyone just stands back and lets shim get on with it.

1. Nathan Evans, 220 Kid & Billen Ted – “Wellerman”

Two weeks at number one, with a comfortable lead. It’s been out for nine weeks already, though, so if it’s already peaked then it might find itself being hit with the downweighting rule next week. We’ll see.

3. Justin Bieber featuring Daniel Caesar & Giveon – “Peaches”
24. Justin Bieber featuring Khalid – “As I Am”

Bieber’s album “Justice” enters at number 2, which is his sixth top five album (admittedly, two of them are the regular and acoustic versions of “Believe”). Two of them reached number 1 – the main version of “Believe” in 2012, and last year’s “Changes”. It gets the maximum permitted three tracks into the chart – the two tracks above, and “Hold On”, which rebounds from 31 to a new peak of 10.

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Ah, so it’s that week. “Drivers License” by Olivia Rodrigo has now been out for 11 weeks and so – since it passed its peak several weeks ago – it shifts to the lower streaming points for older records. This rule, designed to stop the top end of the chart being logjammed with older singles, goes unnoticed most of the time, because it normally affects records that were on their way down anyway. With number 1s, its more of a problem, since it has the absurd consequence of a song dropping direct from 1 to (in this week’s example) 18. Which is to say, you can see the strings a bit too obviously.

Anyway, that leaves the door open for…

1. Nathan Evans, 220 Kid & Billen Ted – “Wellerman”

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She’s not going without a fight.

1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers Licence”

The midweeks had Olivia Rodrigo being dethroned by “Wellerman”, but in the end she hangs on for a ninth week – by a margin equivalent to 742 sales. This surely has to be the end, right?

“Wellerman” has spent seven weeks now hovering between 2 and 3. It finally gets a proper video this week, which is, um… well, it’s so obviously thrown together that you have to wonder why it took seven weeks to appear. Covid issues, maybe. “The Business” by Tiesto climbs 4-3, which is his highest position since 2014. And the big release of this week…

4. Drake – “What’s Next”
6. Drake featuring Rick Ross – “Lemon Pepper Freestyle”
10. Drake featuring Lil Baby – “Wants and Needs”

That’s all three of the tracks from his EP “Scary Hours 2”. I struggle to get worked up about Drake, to be honest, but there’s no doubt that he’s still in the peak phase of his career. The two B-sides are somewhat more interesting than some of his singles have been, but this is very much a relative thing.

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Well, this is quiet.

1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers Licence”

Eight weeks. As mentioned last week, it’s the longest run at number 1 since the tail end of 2019, when “Dance Monkey” managed 11 weeks. And once again, it’s a long way down to the highest new entry. In the meantime, there’s just a bit of position-switching among the established hits. “Friday” by Riton x Nightcrawlers climbs 7-5, and “Goosebumps” by Travis Scott & HVME climbs 9-8. “Your Love (9pm)” by ATB, Topic & A7S climbs 15-12. “Up” by Cardi B is up one place to 16, “Commitment Issues” by Central Cee up 1 place to 17. We hit a peak of excitement at number 19, which “My Head & My Heart” by Ava Max climbing a whole six places – which is still only the peak that her spring 2020 single “Kings & Queens” reached.

20. Joel Corry x RAYE x David Guetta – “Bed”

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It’s not budging.

1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers License”

That’s seven weeks. So it’s time to start paying attention to the records. Two records managed six weeks last year: Ariana Grande’s “Positions” and Joel Corry & MNEK’s “Head & Heart”. “Drivers License” now overtakes them both. The next step is a big challenge, though – “Dance Monkey” by Tones & I, which lasted 11 weeks at number 1 in 2019. I don’t see Rodrigo making it that long – she’s had one close call already. But we’ll see.

The rest of the top 3 is static, with “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay & 6LACK at 2, and Nathan Evans’ “Wellerman” at 3. And it’s a long, long way down to the first new entry. “The Business” by Tiesto climbs 6-4, becoming his highest placing single since 2014. “Friday” by Riton x Nightcrawler featuring Mufasa & Hypeman climbs 10-7. Remarkably, “Save Your Tears” by the Weeknd continues to climb despite having been available as an album track for months, and now moves 13-11. “Latest Trends” by A1 & J1, which entered at 19 and climbed to 17 last week, gathers momentum by climbing to 12. “Your Love (9pm)” by ATB, Topic & A7S climbs 21-5. Cardi B’s “Up” climbs 22-17. Central Cee’s “Commitment Issues” climbs 23-18. “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals climbs 26-23. “My Head & My Heart” by Ava Max climbs 29-25, which coincidentally leaves it one place above “Head & Heart”, still hanging in there months after it left number 1.

28. Ella Henderson & Tom Grennan – “Let’s Go Home Together”

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