For the first time in a while, this is a dead week for the singles chart.

1. Dave & Central Cee – “Sprinter”

That’s 10 weeks, tying with Miley Cyrus’s “Flowers” as the longest running number one of the year. In theory, the next target is Ed Sheeran’s “Bad Habits”, which had 11 weeks in 2021. But “Sprinter” is due to be hit by the downweighting rule next week, so in practical terms it has no prospect of getting there. The top three is all non-movers – in fact, there are six non-movers in the top 10 – so Billie Eilish has a reasonable shot of taking the number 1 by default next week.

20. Doja Cat – “Paint the Town Red”

Doja Cat’s previous single “Attention” stalled at number 37, but probably achieved its actual goal of signalling that she’s tacking away from pop. That means we can follow it up with a track with a nice familiar sample – “Walk On By”, which reached number 9 for Dionne Warwick in 1964. Warwick’s biggest UK hit was actually “Heartbreaker”, which got to number 2 in 1982. “Walk On By” has also been a hit single for the Stranglers (number 21 in 1978), Sybil (number 6 in 1990) and Gabrielle (number 7 in 1997). The 1962 top 5 hit of the same name by Leroy Van Dyke is a different song entirely.

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Not even Barbie can shift this. Well, not yet.

1. Dave & Central Cee – “Sprinter”

That’s nine weeks – it needs one more week to match Miley Cyrus’s “Flowers” from earlier in the year. It’s not due to get hit by the downweighting rule last week because it isn’t far enough past its peak yet, so it’s got a decent chance of getting there. It’s not a track I would have predicted having this much sustained popularity, but there you go. Central Cee has another track out this week too, but we’ll get to that later.

It’s holding off three Barbie tracks – Billie Eilish at 2, Dua Lipa at 3 and Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice at 4, with Charli XCX also entering the top 10 at number 9.

10. Travis Scott featuring Drake – “Meltdown”
13. Travis Scott featuring Playboi Carti – “Fein”
21. Travis Scott – “Hyaena”

That’s the maximum three tracks from Travis Scott’s fourth album “Utopia”. It’s his first UK number 1 album, but since the chart positions for the previous three were 22, 19 and 3, it’s not a huge surprise. He’s not a consistent singles act in the UK, despite having a few big hits to his credit (his peak was number 2 in 2019 with “Highest in the Room”). The lead single for this album was “K-Pop”, which got to number 24 last week, and gets immediately shouldered aside by these tracks.

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Hope you like pink.

1. Dave & Central Cee – “Sprinter”

That’s eight weeks. Still two weeks to go before they match “Flowers” from earlier in the year. “Vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo remains stuck at number 2 for a fourth week, and after that we have the march of the Barbie soundtrack, with Billie Eilish at 3, Dua Lipa at 4 and Nicki Minaj & Ice Spice at 5. Apparently, this is the first time a single movie soundtrack has produced three simultaneous top 5 hits. (Three simultaneous top 10 hits has been done before, by Encanto, Grease and Saturday Night Fever.)

But the three song rule only applies to artists, not compilation albums. It applied to Encanto because even though individual tracks were credited to different actors, the chart treated it as a single album by The Cast of Encanto. Barbie‘s album is a true compilation of unrelated acts, which means the whole lot can chart if people listen to it all. So…

19. Charli XCX – “Speed Drive (From Barbie The Album)”

Charli XCX hasn’t had a top 20 hit of her own since “1999” in 2018 (though she did guest on a Joel Corry track in 2021). This is the one which interpolates the hook from “Mickey” by Toni Basil (number 2 in 1982, and yes, it’s her only UK hit). “Mickey” is actually a gender-swapped cover of a 1979 album track by Racey, originally called “Kitty” – it’s a Chinn/Chapman song. But the original version doesn’t have the cheerleader chant that “Speed Drive” lifts – that’s Toni Basil’s contribution. Racey are almost entirely forgotten now, but they had two top 5 hits in 1978-9.

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It’s a fairly busy week for new releases. But at the top of the singles chart…

1. Dave & Central Cee – “Sprinter”

That’s seven weeks, which beats the six-week run of its immediate predecessor “Miracle”. It still need another three weeks to match Miley Cyrus’s ten-week run with “Flowers” earlier this year. We seem to be in an era where records either get 1-2 weeks at number 1, or stay there forever. Its sister tracks “UK Rap” and “Trojan Horse” are still clinging in there, at 33 and 40 respectively. It holds Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” at number 2 for a second week.

3. Jung Kook featuring Latto – “Seven”

This is the solo debut of BTS’s Jeon Jung-Kook, and it matches the peak of BTS’s biggest hits – “Dynamite”, “Butter”, and their appearance on Coldplay’s “My Universe”. Technically he was on a Charlie Puth single last year, but it only got to 41, so we can pretend it didn’t happen. Latto’s bit of the video is, um, something. It’s only her second hit, following “Big Energy” getting to 21 last year.

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We’ve missed a couple of weeks, but not much has changed.

1. Dave & Central Cee – “Sprinter”

That’s six weeks, which is a record for Dave. As a result, this record has spent two weeks stuck at number 2…

2. Olivia Rodrigo – “Vampire”

This is the lead single from her second album, which was expected to be a surefire number 1 but… well, it’s been stuck behind a juggernaut. Nice melodramatic video.

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Not the most memorable of top 10s. We have a static top four, and nine of the ten songs were there last week too. So for a third week…

1. Dave & Central Cee – “Sprinter”

… is number one.

11. Leigh-Anne – “Don’t Say Love”

That would be Leigh-Anne Pinnock of Little Mix, whose surname has apparently been deemed unsuitable for solo status. The fact that she misses the top 10 is likely to cause a bit of concern, but Little Mix tracks have climbed from mid-table entries before, so the jury is still out. The track itself is… okay, I guess?

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Intro.

1. Dave & Central Cee – “Sprinter”

Dave and Central Cee hang on for a second week, and the other two tracks from the “Split Decision” EP both climb – “Trojan Horse” moves 14-12, and “UK Rap” 17-14.

2. J Hus featuring Drake – “Who Told You”

More UK rap, but it’s not quite enough to shift Dave. This is comfortably J Hus’s biggest hit – he made it to number 5 in 2019 with “Must Be”, but he hasn’t made the top 10 since then. His only other top 10 hit was in 2017, when “Did You See” managed a week at 9. This is the second single from his upcoming album, following “It’s Crazy”, which could only manage number 15. Drake’s name is likely hurting here, even though his actual contribution is on autopilot. But the record itself is also one of J Hus’s more commercial tracks.

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So, “Miracle” doesn’t hold on for a ninth week at number 1. Instead…

1. Dave & Central Cee – “Sprinter”
14. Dave & Central Cee – “Trojan Horse”
17. Dave & Central Cee – “UK Rap”

For once, this isn’t three tracks from an album. “Sprinter” was released as a regular single and dutifully sails to number 1 with 13.4 million streams in its first week. The other two tracks are from a surprise follow-up EP, “Split Decision”. “Sprinter” appears on the EP too, but the remaining track, “Our 25th Birthday”, gets disqualified by the three-song rule. As that title might suggest, even though Dave has been having hits for longer, they’re the same age – their birthdays are one day apart, and the EP was timed for that.

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Ah, so this is going to be around forever, then.

1. Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding – “Miracle”

That’s eight weeks, so it ties with “One Kiss” as Calvin Harris’s longest-reigning number one. Goulding broke her record a few weeks back. It’s been on the chart for a total of 12 weeks now. “Daylight” by David Kushner is a non-mover at 2 – it’s now spent a total of five weeks stuck behind “Miracle”. Perhaps more surprisingly, number 3 is “Calm Down” by Rema, which has been in the top 10 for 24 weeks now, and has been on the top 40 since September. I haven’t mentioned it in a while because it reached number 4 for the first time back in March – and thus hasn’t achieved a new peak since, until now – but it’s huge.

12. Taylor Swift – “Karma”
18. Taylor Swift – “Hits Different”
24. Taylor Swift featuring Lana Del Rey – “Snow on the Beach”

Taylor Swift is so big that she can get three tracks into the top 40 on the release of the deluxe edition of an album from six months ago. Who does that?

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Apparently it’s late-career hit week on the singles chart. But first…

1. Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding – “Miracle”

That’s week seven. One more week for it to match “One Kiss” as Calvin Harris’s longest-running number one. “Daylight” by David Kushner returns to number 2 for a fourth week, after getting pushed down to 3 last time.

9. Lana Del Rey – “Say Yes to Heaven”

Lana Del Rey did have hit singles right at the start of her career – “Video Games” made number 9 in 2011, and “Born To Die” did the same the following year. In fact, that’s as high as she’s ever got with a regular single. Technically she has three higher placed singles to her credit – the 2013 remix of “Summertime Sadness”, which reached number 4; her inexplicable collaboration with Ariana Grande and Miley Cyrus on “Don’t Call Me Angel (Charlie’s Angels)”, which got to number 2 in 2019; and her guest appearance on Taylor Swift’s “Snow on the Beach”, which reached number 4 last year. But she hasn’t had a top 40 hit with one her own records since “Lust For Life”, which scraped the bottom of the chart in 2017.

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