Well, Eminem’s got an album out, so something is happening.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”

That’s seven weeks in total, two weeks in the current run. “Espresso” has been either 1 or 2 since the start of May. “Please Please Me” is still at 2, which means Sabrina Carpenter has occupied both number 1 and number 2 for five weeks in a row. Both tracks are past their peak but… there’s just nothing coming along to challenge them. We’re really overdue for a shake-up. “Espresso” isn’t likely to make it to week eight, though, because barring a miracle it’s due to be hit by the downweighting rule next week.

11. Eminem featuring White Gold – “Habits”
13. Eminem – “Renaissance”

These are the first two tracks on the album “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace)”, which might well be the main reason why they top the list. “Renaissance”, in particular, is under two minutes long and it’s not obvious why you’d be singling it out for re-listening. The lead single, “Houdini” rebounds 7-4. Most of the album would have made the top 75 if it hasn’t been for the three song rule.

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Once again, not a great deal is going on. Perhaps this is just seen as a bad time of year to promote singles, since there’s not much happening outside the top 40 either. Still, even with rules designed to shoulder records out of the chart if they’ve been out for more than 10 weeks and have passed their peak, we’re very much clogged up with long running records right now.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”

No, that’s not a typo. “Espresso” gets a sixth week at number one, after five weeks at number 2. In the interim, we had two weeks for Eminem’s “Houdini”, and three weeks for Carpenter’s own “Please Please Please” – which is now number 2. The difference between the two tracks is absurdly small – the equipment of 962 sales, a margin of 1.8% – and both tracks are actually past their peak. There just isn’t anything else to take them on.

20. David Baddiel, Frank Skinner & The Lightning Seeds – “3 Lions”

The Euros are on right now, and England are doing quite well, so here’s the obligatory England football perennial. In fact, we had this as a re-entry at number 32 three weeks ago, but it promptly dropped out of the top 75.

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Britain’s attention is elsewhere, and so we have another rather quiet chart. I’m doing this on my iPad, so no embedded videos this week. But there isn’t actually much to embed anyway, so don’t get too comfortable.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Please Please Please”

That’s three weeks at number one, and “Espresso” has spent all three of them at number 2.

30. The Kid Laroi – “Nights Like This”

Not a new release, but a 86-second track from last year’s album “The First Time” – although there is a new video for it in order to promote his tour.

35. BL3SS & CamrinWatsin featuring Bbyclose – “Kisses”

This week’s only actual new entry, and it’s a track that’s been out for three months and climbs from the lower reaches. Debut hit for everyone – as best I can tell, BL3SS and CamrinWatsin are the producers. Although I’ve linked the primary version above, a lot of the streams seem to belong to the Evan McGee remix.

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After last week’s coma, there’s a bit more going on this week. Almost all outside the top 20, admittedly, but hey.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Please Please Please”

Two weeks. It’s peaked already, but she still has both the number 1 and 2 slots.

21. Tommy Richman – “Devil is a Lie”

Climbing from the lower reaches, this is the follow-up to “Million Dollar Baby”, which is still at number 10. It’s a decent production in search of a better song, and I think the first hit is the stronger, but yeah, it’s not bad. The video is the sort of thing you used to see at number 7 on the Chart Show Indie Chart, which is an interesting call. The microbudget video is making something of a comeback, not least because labels are starting to wonder what the point of expensive videos even is in 2024. For example…

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This week’s chart is laughably uneventful. Well, except for…

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Please Please Please”

Climbing from 3 to give Sabrina Carpenter her second number one, a mere three weeks after “Espresso” ended its five-week reign.

A bit of context: Sabrina Carpenter has been releasing singles since 2014. During years in the Disney orbit, she had negligible impact on charts anywhere. She had a number 19 hit in Norway in 2017. After she jumped from Disney she had a minor internaional hit with “Skin” in 2021, mainly because it was widely understood as an answer record to Olivia Rodrigo. And then somewhere around 2022 she seemed to get it to click, but even then, her UK peak was just inside the top 20. To go from that to two number 1s in a row is quite the step up.

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Have we wandered into the album chart or something?

1. Eminem – “Houdini”

Two weeks. Which is surprising in itself from a man in his fifties who ought to be a legacy act by this point. But it’s even more surprising when you realise that none of his other ten number ones made it past a single week.

3. Sabrina Carpenter – “Please Please Please”

Well, there you go – “Espresso” wasn’t a one-off, and Sabrina Carpenter is a star now. Remember, she’d never made it past number 19 until “Espresso” became a number one. In fact, “Espresso” is still there at number 2, so she has a majority of the top 3.

“Please Please Please” is an interesting choice of follow-up single – technically I suppose it counts as a ballad, of a sort? I like it, but I doubt she could have got a hit out of it before “Espresso”. She has a persona that only really makes sense that you accept the premise that she’s a star – which is obviously a lot easier once the public agree with her.

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Now here’s someone I wouldn’t have predicted having a number 1 hit in 2024.

1. Eminem – “Houdini”
38. Eminem – “Without Me”

This is the lead single from his upcoming album “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)”, which seems to be some sort of weird meta thing about his past career and old Slim Shady persona. This track is, fairly obviously, a riff on “Without Me”, even though the hook is from the Steve Miller Band’s “Abracadabra” (number 2 in 1982). “Without Me” itself re-enters at 38, which is an unusual case of a spillover hit. His greatest hits album is back in the top 10 as well.

Whether the whole album is throwback stuff or whether this is set-up for something else… who knows. It’s Eminem’s 11th UK number 1, spanning a period of 25 years. For those wondering, the other 10 are: “The Real Slim Shady” (2000), “Stan” (2000), “Without Me” (2002), “Lose Yourself” (2002), “Just Lose It” (2004), “Like Toy Soldiers” (2005), a guest appearance on Akon’s “Smack That” (2006), “The Monster” (2013), “River” (2017) and “Godzilla” (2020). Basically, Eminem’s imperial phase is long behind him but, unusually for someone at this point in his career, he can still pull out a number 1 single or at least a big hit from each new album. In fact, the streams on this are huge – equivalent to over 100,000 sales, which is the biggest we’ve had in a year.

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It’s a quiet week on the singles chart.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”

That’s five weeks. The top three are all non-movers, with Billie Eilish’s “Lunch” at 2, and Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” at 3.

4. Central Cee featuring Lil Baby – “Band4Band”

The highest new entry by quite some margin, though it feels like autopilot stuff to me. Number 4 is way above average for Central Cee, though. It’s his highest position since Sprinter reached number 1 last year, and that gave equal billing to Dave; as sole lead artist, it’s his biggest hit since “Doja” reached number 2 in 2022. By most people’s standards that wouldn’t be so long ago, but Central Cee is quite prolific – this is his fourth top 40 hit of the year (none of the others got above 18).

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Well, Billie Eilish has an album out, and nobody’s going up against that. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to number one…

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”

That’s four weeks, in the face of a major release. Her biggest British hit by a mile.

2. Billie Eilish – “Lunch”
7. Billie Eilish – “Chihiro”
9. Billie Eilish – “Birds of a Feather”

Three tracks from her album “Hit Me Hard and Soft” – officially her third album, though her 2018 EP “Don’t Smile at Me” also qualified for the album chart. All three official albums have gone to number one, so this is not a surprise in the slightest. For what it’s worth, the first album hung around a lot longer than the second, but both had very respectable chart runs.

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This is the Eurovision chart, in an unusually controversial year for the show. But we’ll get to that.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”

That’s three weeks, and by a very small margin. It may not be entirely coincidental that her CD single was released on Thursday, just in time for its fan sales to boost her total.

2. Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen – “I Had Some Help”

This is the lead single from Post Malone’s next album. He’s tacking to country – isn’t everyone? – but fans will be pleased to hear that there are still traces of annoying vocal processing. Mostly, though, it’s a perfectly fine  track for country radio. It’s better than I was expecting. Morgan Wallen is a big name in country, but his only previous appearance on the UK singles chart was with “Last Night”, an American number 1 that got to 28 here.

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