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.

Gun-for-hire Clementine Douglas gets a second top 10 hit; the first was “Asking”, which reached number 7 in 2023. She’s had four top 40 hits now, but never as the lead artist. She’s also on Sonny Fodera’s “Tell Me”, which climbs to a new peak of 23 this week

30. The Weeknd & Playboi Carti – “Timeless”

This has already had 21 weeks in the top 40 either side of Christmas, peaking at number 7. It left the top 40 in March, but it’s back now because of a remix with Doechii from the special edition of the album. Officially, however, that’s just an additional alternate version counting towards the overall total, and so she doesn’t get a chart credit for it.

31. Sleep Token – “Even In Arcadia”
33. Sleep Token – “Caramel”
38. Sleep Token – “Look to Windward”

The album “Even in Arcadia” is out this week, and enters as their first number 1. Their first album didn’t chart; the second reached number 39; the third reached number 3 in 2023. This time round, we’ve seen them place a string of prog-ish tracks in the singles top 40, albeit generally as one-week presences. Judging from the midweeks, these three will be the same.

“Caramel” is a re-entry, after reaching number 10 last month. The other two are new entries and neither of them are singles by any stretch of the imagination. The title track “Even in Arcadia” is a slow-paced ballad which doesn’t do much for me at all. “Look to Windward” is over 7 minutes long and more to my taste. Mainly, though, Sleep Token are just a welcome inclusion in terms of shaking up the chart.

35. Ely Oaks & LAVINIA – “Borderline”

Chipmunk dance music, entering one place above Oaks’ previous single “Running Around”. That track peaked at 28, but it’s been around for two months. Lavinia Hope gets her first top 40 hit with fairly extremely processed vocals, but she’s worked with Oaks on several previous singles (they’re both based in Berlin). The midweeks have this dropping straight out again after one week.

This week’s climbersL:

• “Undressed” by Sombr climbs 6-5.
• “Back to Friends” by Sombr climbs 15-12.
• “Shake it to the Max (Fly)” by Moliy & Silent Addy climbs 26-15.
• “Sorry I’m Here for Someone Else” by Benson Boone climbs 24-20.
• “Tell Me” by Sonny Fodera & Clementine Douglas climbs 27-23.
• “Hairdresser” by Skye Newman climbs 30-29.

The six tracks leaving the top 40 are:

• “Anxiety” by Doechii, which had nine weeks in the top 10 before getting hit by downweighting and dropping straight out of the top 40. There have to be subtler ways of running this rule.
• “Die with a Smile” by Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars peaked at 2 and, aside from a couple of weeks over Christmas, it’s been with us since August.
• “Good Luck Babe” by Chappell Roan peaked at number 2 last year and, although it dropped out for four weeks over Christmas, it’s otherwise been with us for over a year.
• “The Way I Love You” by Jorja Smith was a new entry at 39 last week.
• “Twilight Zone” by Ariana Grande, which entered at 5 and lasted six weeks.
• “Headphones On” by Addison Rae, which entered at 24 and lasted three weeks.

On the album chart:

1. Sleep Token – “Even in Arcadia”

We’ve covered that above. There are a lot of physical copies in its total, but to be fair, unlike many fanbase records that make number 1 on the album chart, it would still have come extremely close to reaching number 1 on its streams alone

3. PinkPantheress – “Fancy That”

Includes the single “Tonight”, which scraped the top 40. This is officially a mixtape rather than a second album proper, and since it’s only 20 minutes long, that’s probably reasonable. It is her highest album chart position by quite some way – her previous mixtape and album reached 20 and 28.

5. The Kooks – “Never / Know”

That’s their highest position on the album chart since 2008, when their second album reached number 1. Their previous album reached number 9, so it’s not a massive outlier. The single above is rather pleasant.

18. Arcade Fire – “Pink Elephant”

The last four Arcade Fire albums all reached number 1, so this is a major downgrade. There have been sexual misconduct allegations against the lead singer since the last album came out (which he’s denied), which may account for some of that – although the album itself has also had mixed reviews.

25. The Weeknd – “Hurry Up Tomorrow”

That’s the special edition of the album that I mentioned above. The original version of the album reached number 1 earlier in the year.

26. The Amazons – “21st Century Fiction”

Despite the video above, they’re from Berkshire. The Amazons also hold the dubious distinction of releasing the first chart-eligible album on NFT back in 2022. Are NFTs still a thing? Anyway, it did wonders for their career, because that album and its two predecessors all made the top 10, and this record reaches number 26.