Oh god…

1. Alex Warren – “Ordinary” 

Twelve weeks. The chart company is getting very excitable about how this compares to American artists of the past, but it’s not very meaningful, because they were working in the sales era, and so their runs at number one weren’t measuring continued listening.

At this point we need to get into the tedious details of the downweighting rule. I normally summarise it here as meaning that a record gets downweighted if it’s been out for ten weeks and it’s more than three weeks past its peak. It’s a bit subtler than that: it’s three weeks in which the change in consumption from week-to-week is consistently below the market average. Alex Warren has benefitted from this, because he has had three consecutive weeks where consumption went down, but in some of them the whole market was down, so he was still above average. The result is that he is still not in any imminent danger of being downweighted.

If he makes a thirteenth week – and by all appearances he will because he still has nearly double the consumption of the number 2 single – then that will match the run of “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran in 2017, which is before the downweighting rule was introduced, and so isn’t directly comparable. God help us all.

6. Tate McRae – “Just Keep Watching”

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It never ends.

1. Alex Warren – “Ordinary”
9. Alex Warren featuring Jelly Roll – “Bloodline”

“Ordinary” has now been number one for 11 weeks. And it’s still way ahead of Chappell Roan at number 2, so it’s really a question of when it gets hit by downweighting. Unfortunately, it outperformed the market this week, so it’s several weeks off that happening. An 11 week run matches Ed Sheeran’s “Bad Habits” from 2021. To find a longer number 1 than that, we’re going back to “Shape of You”, which was number 1 for 13 weeks in early 2017.

Meanwhile, the highest new entry this week is from… Alex Warren. It’s Mumford & Sons stuff, with a guest verse by a very obviously autotuned Jelly Roll, making his first appearance in the singles or albums top 40. It’s Perfectly Competent.

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He’s going to be here forever, isn’t he?

1. Alex Warren – “Ordinary”

That’s ten weeks. In itself, ten weeks isn’t so unusual for a major hit We had a 9-week number 1 from Sabrina Carpenter last year, and 2023 saw two tracks spend ten weeks at number 1 – “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus and “Sprinter” by Dave and Central Cee. In 2022, Harry Styles did it with “As It Was”. But “Ordinary” is still nearly 70% ahead of Ravyn Lenae at number 2. If it makes eleven weeks – which seems likely – then to match that, you have to go back to “Bad Habits” by Ed Sheeran in 2021.

8. Skye Newman – “Family Matters”

Oh, this is quite good, isn’t it? Skye Newman’s first hit “Hairdresser” entered at number 30 two weeks ago, and it seems to get some spillover attention from this hit – it climbs 29-16 this week, giving her two tracks in the top 20.

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Huh, I nearly forgot about this one.

1. Alex Warren – “Ordinary” 

Nine weeks, and still no sign of anything getting close to him. What’s more, streams ticked up slightly this week, so he’s out of danger from the downweighting rule for another few weeks. Nine weeks matches Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste” from last year. His next target is Dave and Central Cee’s “Sprinter”, which had a ten week run in 2023. Barring a miracle, he will make that. The top 4 are all non-movers.

8. Calvin Harris & Clementine Douglas – “Blessings”

This is the second single from Calvin Harris’s next album (presumably), and his highest position since 2023 when “Desire” reached number 6 with Sam Smith on vocals. It’s a fairly run-of-the-mill dance record, to be honest. But then the first single from the album went for country-pop and had Harris himself singing, and it missed the top 40 entirely. It’s quite a good vocal, too. Maybe airplay still matters more for artists like Calvin Harris than you might think, and releasing a single called “Smoke the Pain Away” was ill-advised in terms of daytime radio.

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Another very quiet week with no real threat of a change at the top. I know, I’m really building this up.

1. Alex Warren – “Ordinary”

Eight weeks. He still needs one more week to match Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste” from last year. It’s down a bit, but still has a massive 74% lead over the number 2 single, which is now Ravyn Lenae.

17. Ed Sheeran – “Old Phone”

This is the second single from his upcoming album, making a rather muted debut. It’s been overshadowed by the first single “Azizam”, which is spending its fifth week in the top 5 – albeit without getting above number 3. Obviously, the strategy here is to lead with a pop song and follow up with an acoustic track to cover the bases.

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A decent range of new entries this week…

1. Alex Warren – “Ordinary”

Seven weeks. And its streams are up this week (a bit). This is the longest run at number 1 since “Stick Season” last year, though “Stick Season” is obviously the more interesting record. It still has a massive lead over the number 2 single “Pink Pony Club” – a margin of over 80%.

11. Lorde – “What Was That”

This is the lead single from her upcoming album, and she’s electropop now. It works, though. Lorde is not a consistent presence in the singles chart – she can usually get a lead single into the top 40 but the follow-ups tend not to. Number 11 is high for her, though – she hasn’t been this high since her debut, “Royals”, reached number 1 in 2013. The flashmob performance in Washington Square Park at the end of the video is apparently legit – those are actual fans turning up for the shoot.

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Basically a dead week on both the singles and albums charts, but let’s run through them anyway.

1. Alex Warren – “Ordinary”

That’s six weeks. It’s now two weeks past its peak but retains a massive lead over “Pink Pony Club” at number 2, and the top 3 is static, with “Azizam” at 3.

25. Addison Rae – “Headphones On”

A second top 40 hit to follow “Diet Pepsi”, which reached number 10 last year. Two other singles have missed the top 40 since then, but this charts immediately in its first week out. The Lana Del Rey influence is less pronounced on this one, which is a rather dreamy dance track.

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Coming up – a new answer to a chart trivia question!

1. Alex Warren – “Ordinary”

Five weeks. It’s down slightly from last week, but only marginally – it’s still beating the number 2 single by 78%. Now, what wonders does the music industry have in store for us this week?

21. Jack Black – “Steve’s Lava Chicken”

Yes, that’s the whole thing. The video has been padded out with the entire scene, but the audio track on streaming services is 34 seconds long. And three of those are silent. There is also an “extended version”, which runs to 65 seconds and is unlikely to be of any interest to anyone at all.

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Well, I was expecting a new number one, but…

1. Alex Warren – “Ordinary”

Four weeks, and still growing (slightly). It has a massive lead – beating the number 2 and 3 singles combined. Which is all the more surprising, since…

3. Ed Sheeran – “Azizam”

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Six new entries, three artists…

1. Alex Warren – “Ordinary”

Three weeks, and continuing to grow – it had more than double the points of the number 2 single, “Pink Pony Club”. Meanwhile, “Carry You Home” climbs 10-9 (which is a new peak), and “Burning Down” is still at 24. “Ordinary” is finally making some headway in his home country, reaching the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, but it’s been a number 1 in much of Europe.

5. Ariana Grande – “Twilight Zone”
19. Ariana Grande – “Dandelion”
26. Ariana Grande – “Intro (End of the World)”

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