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.

So far as the rest of the KPop Demon Hunters tracks are concerned, “Soda Pop” is a non-mover at 6 and “Your Idol” climbs to 7. “How It’s Done” would also have made the top 10 if it wasn’t for the three song rule. For soundtrack albums, that rule is applied as if the artist was “cast of X”. With a caveat, which we’ll come to.

18. Ed Sheeran – “A Little More”

Another single trailing the upcoming album. This was at number 10 in the midweeks, so it’s tailed off substantially in the back end of the week. The video is meant to be a sequel to the video for “Lego House” back in 2011, which also featured Rupert Grint as Ed Sheeran’s stalker.

Ed Sheeran shouldn’t be too bothered by this – the track is simply being overshadowed by “Sapphire”, which is still in the top 10, after 10 weeks on release.

34. Oasis – “Cigarettes & Alcohol”

The Oasis tour continues and the back catalogue continues to hold up. “Don’t Look Back in Anger” is at 21 this week. For some reason “Cigarettes and Alcohol” re-enters at 34 – it’s not just swapping places with the third placed track, since that’s “Live Forever” down at number 67. “Cigarettes & Alcohol” reached number 7 on release in 1994. I always thought it was one of their better songs, perhaps because it’s actually about something.

35. Twice – “Takedown”

This song features twice on the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack album – once in the actual soundtrack version by HUNTR/X, and once in a cover by genuine KPop act Twice, who make their chart debut here. The two versions are basically the same aside from the vocals.

So why isn’t the Twice version caught by the three-song rule? Because it’s not exclusive to the soundtrack album – it’s also on the deluxe edition of Twice’s album “This Is For”, so it’s treated for chart purposes as a Twice track that happens to also appear on a compilation album, with all streams counting towards its chart position. Does this make any sense? Not really, but apparently that’s how it works.

37. Denon Reed & Cru2 – “Let Him Go”

Bassline revivalism. Denon Reed is a DJ from Birmingham, and this is his debut hit. I’m not entirely sure what Cru2 is and what it’s contributing here – it seems to be mostly an events company that Reed has an interest in, and it doesn’t get an artist credit on his YouTube (though its logo does appear in the video). On the other hand, there have been a few records released which credited Cru2 and not Reed, so who knows.

This week’s climbers:

• “No Broke Boys” by Disco Lines & Tinashe climbs 5-3.
• “Your Idol” by the Saja Boys etc etc climbs 8-7.
• “Yukon” by Justin Bieber climbs 24-12 (“Daisies” is still at 5).
• “12 to 12” by Sombr climbs 19-17.
• “Sparks” by Coldplay climbs 36-30.
• “Dealer” by Lola Young climbs 33-31.
• “Cops & Robbers” by Sammy Virji & Skepta, which has had two previous one-week runs at 39, re-enters at 36.

There are a bunch of other re-entries at the bottom end from records hovering around 40: “Good Luck Babe” by Chappell Roan at 38, “Show Me Love” by WizTheMC & bees & honey at 39 and “Mystical Magical” by Benson Boone at 40. The eight tracks leaving the top 40 are:

• “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath, after three weeks and a peak at 20.
• “Family Matters” by Skye Newman, with a 12-week run and a peak at 5.
• “Nice to Meet You” by Myles Smith, which has been around since last November with a couple of interruptions; it peaked at number 6 on a previous run but its current run got as high as 8 and lasted another 23 weeks.
• “Live Forever” by Oasis, which had a five-week run peaking at 19.
• “Slide Away” by Oasis, which re-entered at 31 last week and gets disqualified by dropping below “Live Forever”, meaning that it would have left the top 40 anyway.
• “One Thing” by Lola Young, which peaked at 18 and lasted 12 weeks.
• “Say My Name” by Morgan Seatree, which only got to 25 but hung around for 18 weeks on the top 40.
• “The Glen” by Levi Heron, which was a re-entry at 40 last week.

On the album chart:

1. Oasis – “Time Flies – 1994-2009”

Their greatest hits album gets a third non-consecutive week at number 1. One of the other weeks was last month. The other was in June 2010. “What’s the Story Morning Glory” is at 3 and “Definitely Maybe” is at 7. There’s also a Fleetwood Mac compilation at number 6. The album format is really healthy!

2. MGK – “Lost Americana”

Includes the single “Cliché”, which got to 31. His last two albums, under the Machine Gun Kelly name, reached 3 and 2.

4. The Royston Club – “Songs for the Spine”

Welsh indie. This is their second album – the first one reached number 16 in 2023, but dropped straight out of the top 100 after one week.

9. Gunna – “The Last Wun”

His sixth album. The last four also made the top 10.

10. Craig David – “Commitment”

His ninth studio album. The last three also made the top 10, but the positions have been drifting down and the previous one only lasted a week.

12. Ethel Cain – “Willoughby Tucker I’ll Always Love You”

Second album (well, disregarding an ambient side project). The first one, “Preacher’s Daughter”, was released in 2022 but didn’t chart until earlier this year, when a reissue scored a week at number 10.

16. Halestorm – “Everest” 

US rock. It’s their sixth album; the last three made the top 10, so there’s a drop off here.

17. Babymetal – “Metal Forth” 

And finally, a new Babymetal album full of collaborations with guest stars. The track above has Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine.

According to Babymetal, this is their fourth album, despite the minor technicality that it’s their fifth. Their position is that 2023’s “The Other One” doesn’t count because it’s a concept album, though quite how that stops it counting as an album I don’t really follow. Mind you, fans do seem to have taken it as some sort of side project, since it only got to number 32, while this album returns to the chart positions of the two albums before that.