In which KPop Demon Hunters continues to be the main story.

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

Three weeks total, and growing – it has a commanding lead over “No Broke Boys” at number 2, so it could be here for a while. Thanks to a quirk of chart rules, there are now five tracks from the soundtrack album in the top 40, with “Soda Pop” at 3, “Your Idol” at 6, and two tracks by Twice which aren’t caught by the three-song rule because they aren’t exclusive to the soundtrack. We’ll come to them. With Blackpink at number 22 and Rosé at 37, that’s seven tracks on the chart this week by South Korean artists – well, six and a half, depending on how you feel about Bruno Mars.

8. Olivia Dean – “Man I Need”
38. Olivia Dean – “Lady Lady”

Well,certainly a good week for Olivia Dean. She also has “Nice to Each Other” rebounding to a new peak of number 9, and has a featuring credit on Sam Fender’s “Rein Me In” at number 11 (which doesn’t count towards her three songs). Normally this sort of thing means that the album is out but… no, her second album isn’t out to September. It’s just that the pre-release singles have really got some momentum behind them.

“Man I Need” feels a bit 80s Whitney Houston to me, but it’s an immediate hit – and has the spillover effect of reviving “Lady Lady”, a better song for my money, but one that sputtered to number 55 on release.

34. Gunna & Burna Boy – “WGFT”

This is an album track from Gunna’s album “The Last Wun”, which made number 9 last week. It’s climbing from last week’s number 60, so it seems to have momentum. It is, shall we say, something of a headache for radio edits, despite being rather chilled.

35. Twice – “Strategy”

So, the three-song rule applies to the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack album as a whole – but only to those songs that are exclusive to the album. That’s why Twice’s somewhat redundant cover of “Takedown” entered last week, and now climbs to 31. But the album also includes “Strategy”, an actual Twice single that was first released last year and has a rather better case for escaping the 3-song cap.

This week’s climbers:

• “No Broke Boys” by Disco Lines & Tinashe climbs 3-2. There’s finally a video for this version, even if it might be described as “low effort”.
• “Soda Pop” by Saja Boys climbs 6-3.
• “Your Idol” by Saja Boys climbs 7-6.
• “Nice to Each Other” by Olivia Dean climbs 14-9.
• “12 to 12” by Sombr climbs 17-14.
• “High on Me” by Rossi & Jazzy climbs 19-18.
• “Dealer” by Lola Young climbs 31-27.
• “Sparks” by Coldplay climbs 30-38. Yes, that’s a new peak.
• “Takedown” by Twice climbs 35-31.

There are four new entries, and the records making way for them are:

• “Good Luck Babe” by Chappell Roan, which re-entered at 38 last week.
• “Mystical Magical” by Benson Boone, which re-entered at 40 last week.
• “Bloodline” by Alex Warren featuring Jelly Roll, which entered at 9, never climbed any higher, but managed to hang around for 12 weels.
• “Cops & Robbers” by Sammy Virji & Skepta was a re-entry at 36 (its all time peak) last week.

On the album chart:

1. Tom Grennan – “Everywhere I Went, Led Me to Where I Didn’t Want to Be”

His fourth album and his third consecutive number 1. Grennan seems to have transitioned to the album market. His last album, 2023’s “What Ifs & Maybes”, contained six top 40 hits – granted, one of them was with KSI and another was with Joel Corry, but that still leaves 4. In contrast, none of the singles from this album – and there have been six – made it above number 78. Which surprises me, since there’s nothing wrong with the track above, in terms of doing the sort of thing Tom Grennan does. It’s all the more curious because he did get a Christmas single to number 3 last year, but then that’s a very different market.

In album terms, he’s doing just fine – this has nearly twice as many points as the number 2 album. Admittedly, it does so mostly on first week physical sales, which account for 90% of its points. “What Ifs & Maybes” lasted 10 weeks in the top 40, but I don’t see this matching that.

2. Conan Gray – “Wishbone”

Another fourth album. His chart positions continue to improve: 30, 8, 4 and now 2. What he’s yet to achieve is a second week in the album top 40 (in fact, only one of his albums has managed a second week in the top 100), but still, he’s moving in the right direction.

8. As December Falls – “Everything’s On Fire But I’m Fine”

And another fourth album, although As December Falls’ first two albums missed the top 100 entirely. Their third album got to number 11 (and vanished after one week), and this is their first appearance in the top 10. There are multiple vinyl variants contributing to its position.

13. Alison Goldfrapp – “Flux” 

Her second solo album – “Goldfrapp” was a duo of herself and Will Gregory. This is the first time she’s missed the top 10 under either identity since Goldfrapp’s second album “Black Cherry” in 2003, but number 13 is still eminently respectable.

23. Niall Horan – “Heartbreak Weather” 

Fifth anniversary deluxe reissue. Normally you reissue the album after six months and call is a special edition, or you wait for a decade, but… okay, five years. It was a number 1 album on release in the distant past of 2020 and, to be fair, hung around in the top 40 for three weeks.

25. Jordan Davis – “Learn the Hard Way”

Country. It’s his third album and the first to chart in the UK.

29. OneRepublic – “The Collection”

It’s a greatest hits collection. I struggle a bit with where greatest hits albums fit in a streaming era – if you’re enough of a fan to want to own their work physically, don’t you already own this stuff? Anyway, “Counting Stars” was their only UK number 1 single.

31. Black Honey – “Soak”

Their fourth album, all of which have made the top 40. But the last two reached the top 10, so this is a big drop off.