Ah, well that didn’t last long.

1. HUNTR/X, EJAE, Audrey Nuna, Rei Ami & the KPop Demon Hunter Cast – “Golden”

Second week, after being interrupted by Chappell Roan’s “The Subway” last week. That track drops to number 2, but it really isn’t a close race – “Golden” has a 35% lead, mostly due to “The Subway” dropping off. “Golden” also has more than double the points of “Ordinary”, which means it would have been number one even without that track being downweighted.

(more…)

Gosh, we’re really shuffling through the number ones now.

1. Chappell Roan – “The Subway”

A new entry at number 1, which isn’t that common these days. Lewis Capaldi did it with “Survive” a month ago, but that was mostly thanks to physical sales in the first week. “The Subway” is here on digital sales and its streaming alone would have made it number 1 – even if “Ordinary” wasn’t on downweighting.

(more…)

Just one week for Justin Bieber, then.

1. HUNTR/X, EJAE, Audrey Nuna, Rei Ami & The KPop Demon Hunters Cast – “Golden”

Climbing to number 1 in its fifth week on the top 40, and with two other soundtrack songs not so far behind – “Your Idol” is at 10 and “Soda Pop” at 11, though both of those are Saja Boys tracks. As I’ve explained before, the convoluted chart credit is actually listing the same people three times: the fictional band, the real singers (on this track, mostly EJAE), and a generic cast credit because that’s how the overall album is credited.

“Golden” really is very good – it works as a regular pop song, but fits the plot requirement of being unreasonably difficult to sing. This thing requires a two and a half octave range, and the top end is really high.

(more…)

A number 1 we actually weren’t expecting!

1. Justin Bieber – “Daisies”

This entered at number 4 last week, and had only made it to number 2 by the midweeks. It winds up with around a 10% lead over MK.

Justin Bieber’s first hit was back in 2010, and this is his eighth number one. Three of them came from his 2015 album “Purpose”: “What do you Mean”, “Sorry” and “Love Yourself”. The others are guest vocals on other people’s tracks: “Cold Water” by Major Lazer in 2016, “I’m the One” by DJ Khaled in 2017 (to be fair, he’s the top billed actual artist on that track), the English-language remix of “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee in 2017, and “I Don’t Care” by Ed Sheeran in 2019. So it’s been six years since his last number 1, and a decade since he had one purely under his own power.

(more…)

This would be a quiet week if it wasn’t for Justin Bieber.

1.  MK featuring Chrystal – “Dior”

Two weeks. Here’s some chart trivia I skipped over last week: MK’s first credited top 40 hit was “Always” in February 1995. Since he didn’t have an artist credit on the Storm Queen track that he remixed – which is fair enough, because it really was just a conventional remix – he had a wait of 30 years and 6 months from his first chart entry to his first number 1.

There are only three artists with longer gaps than that, and they all had slightly freak circumstances. The all time record holder is Tony Christie at 34 years, but that’s on the strength of the charity reissue of his back catalogue track “Show Me The Way to Amarillo”. Number 2 is Ozzy Osbourne, if you measure from Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” in 1970, rather than his own first solo credit in 1980. Oh, and the number 1 was his duet with daughter Kelly.

(more…)

If nothing else, we seem to be back to normal turnover at the top of the chart.

1. MK featuring Chrystal – “Dior”

I still don’t much like this record – I don’t think it functions as a song and it feels like a track with some sort of mental block that prevents it moving on and resolving. It makes my skin crawl, to be honest. But hey, it’s not “Ordinary” by Alex Warren, so let’s be grateful for what we have.

It’s Chrystal’s second hit, after “The Days” reached number 4. MK’s track record is more interesting, since he’s been around for years – he’s 52, for god’s sake – and this is his first number one. Officially, anyway. His first releases were in 1989, and his first credited hit on the top 40 was in 2014. Until now, his biggest hits were “17” (2017) and “Asking” (2023), both of which got to number 7.

(more…)

At last, could we be resuming normal turnover?

1. Lewis Capaldi – “Survive” 

Another new number 1! We last heard from Lewis Capaldi in January 2024, when “Strangers” reached number 37. But that was a single that he barely promoted, having withdrawn from live shows on mental health grounds after summer 2023, when he had an episode of Tourette’s syndrome during his set at the Glastonbury Festival. He promoted this single with a surprise set at the 2025 Festival. That clearly made a big difference, since he released a covers EP last month that seems to have gone mostly unnoticed.

(more…)

Right, for real this time.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Manchild” 

At long last, the chart rules deem Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” to be far enough past its peak to boot it down the charts. The downweighting rule – “accelerated chart ratio”, if you prefer the official name – is a singularly blunt instrument, and “Ordinary” lands at this week’s number 9. It would otherwise still be number 1 by a healthy margin.

More by default than anything else, “Manchild” returns to number 1 for a second week, but it’s less than 10% ahead of the number 2 single and falling, so it may not be there long. That number 2 single is “Dior” by MK featuring Chrystal, which… nope, still hate it. It’s MK’s biggest hit, though – his previous peak was 7. We used to have to asterisk that with the fact that his real biggest hit was his remix of “Push the Feeling On” by the Nightcrawlers in 1994, but that peaked at 3.

4. Fred Again, Skepta & PlaqueBoyMax – “Victory Lap”

That’s a Fred again.. track? Really? I would not have guessed that. It’s his biggest hit since “Adore U” reached number 4 in 2023. Astonishingly, it’s only Skepta’s second top 10 hit – the other was a guest verse on Wiley’s “Can You Hear Me”, which reached number 3 in 2012.

(more…)

Oh, come on.

1. Alex Warren – “Ordinary” 

Alex Warren returns to number one for a thirteenth week, beating Sabrina Carpenter into second place by a comfortable 10% margin. There’s a big gap between those two and the number 3 single, but… no, more Alex Warren. Fortunately, next week he will finally get hit with the downweighting rule, and that will get rid of him for good. From the number 1 spot, anyway.

We have to go a long way down to find any new entries:

30. J-Hope featuring GloRilla – “Killin’ It Girl”

This is another BTS single, nicely timed to fit with the band returning from military service. J-Hope has been out for a few months already. It’s only his second solo top 40 appearance – the other was a single with J Cole that reached number 37 in 2023. God, the vocal processing on this is annoying.

(more…)

We’re saved!

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Manchild”

This is the lead single from her upcoming album “Man’s Best Friend”, and it finally liberates us from Alex Warren’s “Ordinary”, which had been number 1 since March. The margin is less than 5% but I’ll take it. “Manchild” is a perfectly good Sabrina Carpenter single in the vein established by the previous album (and it helps if you stick with it to the middle eight, which acknowledges that if she’s running into this many incompetents, the issue might actually be with her taste in men).

It’s her fourth number one, following last year’s triumvirate of “Espresso”, “Please Please Please” and “Taste”.

(more…)