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 But that was a single that he barely promoted, having withdrawn from live shows on mental health grounds after summer 2023, when he had an episode of Tourette’s syndrome during his set at the Glastonbury Festival.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.

On paper, it has a comfortable lead over the number 2 single – “Dior” by MK featuring Chrystal – but there’s a big asterisk there. More than a third of its points – and over 98% of its lead – comes from the collectible CDs that were offered for pre-order on its website. They were meant to be shipping next week, but that got rushed forward to this week, so that they’d count towards this week’s chart. As it turns out, he would just have made it to number one anyway, but it would have been a lead of 1%. Anyway, the physical sales are a one-week wonder, so he’ll have a fight on his hands to manage a second week. It’s possible, but it’ll take legitimate organic growth.

The single itself is a Lewis Capaldi song in the established model, but obviously his personal history lends it more weight than it would have in the hands of an X Factor contestant. While it’s about as subtle as a brick to the face, I’m in the mood to run with it.

Nobody else in Britain is up for releasing a single against Lewis Capaldi, but Netflix has its own ideas.

31. HUNTR/X, Ejae, Audrey Nuna & Rei Ami – “Golden”
40. HUNTR/X, Ejae, Audrey Nuna & Rei Ami – “How It’s Done”

Actually, hold on, let’s cover this next one at the same time…

34. Saja Boys, Andrew Choi, Neckwav, Danny Chung, Kevin Woo & samUIL Lee – “Your Idol”

These three tracks all come from the soundtrack of KPop Demon Hunters, a Netflix release. I’m not sure Netflix did anything to actually promote this in the UK beyond sticking it in people’s recommendations and hoping. I remember seeing it but assuming it was a modern Jem and the Holograms and moving on. In fact, it’s a theatrical standard release from the studio that did the Spider-Verse films, and while the soundtrack doesn’t have any big KPop artists on it, it does have legit KPop songwriters and producers. It seems to have taken off through genuine word of mouth. In fact, for that purpose, it may well have been better off on Netflix than it would have been with a cinematic release – films don’t get the chance to build word of mouth before being written off as flops, and a lot of the reaction to the film seems to come from people just watching it out of curiosity.

The credits are a bit weird. HUNTR/X (it’s pronounced “Huntrix”) and the Saja Boys don’t exist – they’re the girl group who are the main characters, and the boy band who serve as the villains. The other names are real – they’re the actual vocalists. The biggest name as a performer is Kevin Woo, now in his early 30s, but a member of the boy band U-KISS in his youth. However, Ejae is more significant here. She spent 10 years in the Kpop system without ever actually making it to a launched band, then turned to songwriting with rather more success. She’s one of the main songwriters for the album, and the lead singer on “Golden” here.

They’re all good tracks which could well climb further on their merits. “Golden” is, I suspect, the sort of record Jason Loo is hearing in his head when he’s writing Dazzler. Despite a bit of plot set-up in the first verse, it’s an actual pop song that functions independently of the parent film, and could actually climb to be a legitimate hit. It’s a clever piece of writing, too – part of the plot hinges on the fact that only one character can hit the high notes in “Golden”, but rather than do the obvious thing of a plaintive ballad, they’ve written a Eurovision-style pop song that just keeps going higher – in a way that doesn’t overshadow the song. “How It’s Done” could be described as a Blackpink pastiche, except for the fact that it really is a Teddy Park production.

And the Saja Boys track seems to have had the remit to do a demonic boyband record that will pass for normal unless you’re paying close attention – which means it takes the standard boy band tropes and dials them up just slightly into creepily possessive. (The video above is the edited version from the movie itself, by the way – the soundtrack version is a full length song.)

37. Alex Warren & Rosé – “On My Mind”

Look, even Alex Warren needs KPop input this week. This enters one place ahead of “APT”, which still hasn’t left the top 40 after 37 weeks. That’s proved to be an outlier for Rosé, though, with the follow-up “Toxic to the End” limping to number 72. I’d rather hear Rosé doing something more interesting, but it’s an okay single. It’s promoting the upcoming special edition of his album.

This week’s climbers:

• “Nice to Each Other” by Olivia Dean climbs 18-15, two weeks after it peaked at 16.
• “Illegal” by Pinkpantheress climbs 36-22. That’s her highest position since “Nice to Meet You” got a week at number 20 in 2023; her only single to do any better than that was “Boy’s A Liar”, which reached number 2 at the start of that year.
• “No Broke Boys” by Disco Lines & Tinashe climbs 26-23.
• “High on Me” by Rossi & Jazzu climbs 33-28.

Lorde’s “What Was That” is a re-entry at 35 (on the back of the release of the parent album), so there are five records leaving the top 40:

• “The Days” by Chrystal, which peaked at 4 and had 30 weeks on the chart.
• “Birds of a Feather” by Billie Eilish, which has been around for over a year, give or take a month’s gap over Christmas. It peaked at 2 last July.
• “Cops & Robbers” by Sammy Virji & Skepta, after a single week at 39.
• “We Never Dated” by Sombr, which only gets a single week at 37.
• “Hairdresser” by Skye Newman, with a 9-week run and a peak of 15.
• “Tell Me” by Sonny Fodera & Clementine Douglas, which only got to 23 but lasted 15 weeks in the top 40.

On the album chart:

1. Lorde – “Virgin”

Includes the single “What Was That”, which just missed the top 10. It’s her first number 1 album, but all her previous albums have made the top 5.

2. Bruce Springsteen – “Tracks II: The Lost Albums”

This is a box set of previously unreleased albums recorded between 1983 and 2018. Seven of them. It’s enormous.

5. Rod Stewart – “Ultimate Hits”

30-track retrospective timed for his 80th birthday. Sadly, it doesn’t include his 1974 number 12 single “You Can Make Me Dance Sing or Anything (Even Take The Dog For a Walk, Mend A Fuse, Fold Away The Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings)”.

40. Barbra Streisand – “The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume 2”

It’s a collection of duet covers, with contributors including Mariah Carey, Ariana Grande, Sting, Paul McCartney, Laufey and Hozier. Hozier actually sounds surprisingly at home here.