Hey, activity!

1. LF System – “Afraid to Feel”

Not here, admittedly. That’s four weeks. It’s way past its peak so in theory it’s vulnerable to challengers. Speaking of which…

2. Central Cee – “Doja”

Mmm. Well, that’s… not for me. More of a fragment than an actual song (it’s 1:37), it’s still Central Cee’s highest placed single to date. His previous peak was number 4, with last year’s “Obsessed With You”. The sample is from “Let Me Blow Your Mind” by Eve featuring Gwen Stefani, which is now over 20 years old (it got to number 4 in 2001). It’s (presumably) the first single from his next album, even though the previous one only came out in February.

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If we keep doing this then something’s going to happen eventually, right?

1. LF System – “Afraid to Feel”

That’s three weeks. The top three is static, with “As It Was” by Harry Styles – the number one before last, mind you – still hanging around at 2. Number 3 is George Ezra’s “Green Green Grass”, which is at least on the way up.

25. Steve Lacy – “Bad Habit”

This week’s highest new entry comes with one of the cheapest videos I’ve seen in quite a while, and it takes some effort these days to make a conspicuously cheap video. It’s the first UK hit for Steve Lacy, though he’s the guitarist in the Internet, who got their last album to the dizzy heights of number 39. There’s a parent solo album out this week, but it misses the top 40. Quite good, this.

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Once again, if it wasn’t for Stranger Things, there’d be basically nothing to say about this week’s singles chart.

1. LF System – “Afraid To Feel”

That’s a second week at number one, and it’s still growing. It’s not exactly bedevilled with challengers, either. So for our highest new entry, we have to go all the way down to…

22. Metallica – “Master of Puppets”

This is here because it was used in Stranger Things, and while it doesn’t exactly have the commercial crossover appeal of Kate Bush, it’s still an unexpected presence in the top 40. As with “Running Up That Hill”, it’s being treated as equivalent to a new release for chart purposes. It’s the title track from their 1986 album, and while it was released as a single at the time, it didn’t chart in the UK. They didn’t have their first hit single until the following year, and the parent album only got to number 41. Its successor, 1988’s “And Justice For All”, got to 4.

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I called last week’s singles chart the least interesting of the year. Little did I know.

1. LF System – “Afraid To Feel”

But first, the new number one. This is in its fifth week on top 40, and belatedly has a proper video – kind of. It’s one of the cheapest videos I can remember seeing at the top end of the singles chart in quite a few years and I assume it was a bit of a rush job.

Edinburgh’s LF System add themselves to the one-hit wonder list with what’s effectively a remix of Silk’s “I Can’t Stop (Turning You On)” – I’m still not entirely clear whether the commercial release uses a sample or a re-creation, but either way, it’s a record that makes obvious sense as the highlight of a DJ set. And the tempo changes certainly make it stand out. Presumably we can look forward to attempts to re-promote some of LF System’s other singles, such as “Dancing Cliché”.

So, for this week’s highest new entry, we go all the way down to…. [reads through list]… oh, there aren’t any. At all.

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Brace yourself for the least interesting singles chart of the year.

1. Kate Bush – “Running Up That Hill”

A third week. It’s not on course for a fourth (not least because its manual reset to be treated as a new release lapses after three consecutive weeks of declining sales, and that’s going to happen next week).

For our highest new entry we have to go all the way down to…

30. Drake – “Sticky”

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In which a couple of surprise releases avoid a completely dead week.

1. Kate Bush – “Running Up That Hill”

Two weeks. It’s actually slightly up from last week, but I suspect that’s driven partly by the publicity from it actually making number one last week.

7. Drake featuring 21 Savage – “Jimmy Cooks”
8. Drake – “Massive”
10. Drake – “Falling Back”

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Well, no one saw this coming a few weeks ago.

1. Kate Bush – “Running Up That Hill”

Climbing to number one in its third week on chart, though it would have been there last week if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s an archive record whose streams are given lower weighting than new releases. Harry Styles’ “As It Was”, which drops to number 2 this week, is on its eleventh week of release and may have been hit by the downweighting rule this week too – but for once, that would just restore a level playing field. (EDIT: In fact, the chart compilers allowed Kate Bush’s label to invoke the “exceptional cases” rule and have the track treated as a new release – but Harry Styles’ sales haven’t been falling long enough for him to get hit by downweighting, so both tracks still remain on a level playing field.)

This is Kate Bush’s second UK number one, the first being her debut “Wuthering Heights” in 1978. “Running Up That Hill” reached number 3 on its initial release in 1985. This allows the chart company to claim a string of unlikely records for her. It’s the longest ever gap between number 1 singles by the same artist, at 44 years – the previous record is 42, held by Tom Jones. Mind you, he did it with two original records. But then again, the second one was a guest appearance on a Comic Relief single (“Barry Islands in the Stream” by Vanessa Jenkins & Bryn West featuring Tom Jones and Robin Gibb, from 2009). The record for the longest gap between number ones going purely by new releases for an active artist is held by Kylie Minogue, who had no number one hits between “Tears on my Pillow” in 1990, and “Spinning Around” in 2000, even though she kept having hits throughout.

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Ten weeks, then, but with a big asterisk.

1. Harry Styles – “As It Was”

The big asterisk is that number 2 is “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush, which turns out not to be a one-week fluke based on Stranger Things, but is actually sticking around and climbing. Number 2 is its all time chart peak – it reached number 3 on release in 1985. But… “Running Up That Hill” is back catalogue, which means it’s on permanent downweighting, even though it’s functionally a new entry and hasn’t been on the top 40 since 2012 (when it was reissued to tie in with the London Olympics). And if its streams were being counted on the same basis as a new release, it would be Kate Bush’s second number one right now. The first was “Wuthering Heights”, her debut hit from 1978. Her final top 40 hit was “King of the Mountain” in 2005. If she had managed a second number one – and there’s a good chance she still could – then that would have been quite something.

13. LF System – “Afraid to Feel”

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If nothing else, here’s an eclectic set of new entries. But first!

1. Harry Styles – “As It Was”

Nine weeks. It’s still another two weeks away from matching “Bad Habits” by Ed Sheeran from last year. The parent album drops to 2 this week, which is perfectly good, since the record that knocked it off is likely to be a one-week wonder.

8. Kate Bush – “Running Up That Hill”

Well, this wasn’t in the script. “Running Up That Hill” has been used in Stranger Things; I don’t watch the show, but it evidently made an impact in order to go viral on this scale. “Running Up That Hill” was a number 3 hit on release in 1985; it was also re-issued in 2012 after being used in the closing ceremony of the London Olympics, and it got to number 6. That’s the last time Kate Bush was in the singles chart. Re-releases aside, her final hit single was “King of the Mountain” from 2005, which got to number 4.

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Well, if there was any doubt that Harry Styles was an A-lister, this should answer it.

1. Harry Styles – “As It Was”
2. Harry Styles – “Late Night Talking”
3. Harry Styles – “Music for a Sushi Restaurant”

That, of course, is the maximum number of singles from the same lead artist permitted under chart rules, introduced a few years back to put a stop to the phenomenon where major album releases swamped the top 20. The parent album “Harry’s House” is of course number 1 on the album chart; that’s his second number 1. His 2017 self-titled debut did spent a week at number 1, and hung around the top 10 for three weeks, but it was out of the top 40 after 15 weeks – a decent size hit but not Ed Sheeran territory. Its follow up “Fine Line”, from 2019, is another matter – although it entered at 3 and never got above number 2, it spent 62 weeks in the top 10, and 126 in the top 40.

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