Olivia Dean finally gets her week at number one.

1. Olivia Dean – “Man I Need”
9. Olivia Dean – “So Easy (To Fall In Love)”

This has had a long wait for “Golden” to run out of steam – it entered at number 8 in August, and then spent the next five weeks waiting at number 2 while its figures kept growing. After marginally missing out last week, it wins handily this week, with a margin of over 15%. The release of her second album “The Art of Loving” obviously helps – it enters the album chart at number 1. Its predecessor reached number 4 in 2023 but didn’t stick around for a second week. Then again, its total sales are a fraction of “Art of Loving”‘s first week numbers, so I expect this one to show more staying power.

The release week single “So Easy (To Fall in Love)” enters at 7, and she also has “Nice to Each Other” climbing to 4 this week. For all that, she’s probably going to get steamrollered by Taylor Swift next week, so it’s nice that her patience is rewarded first.

6. Tate McRae – “Tit for Tat” 

Apparently this is an answer record to The Kid Laroi’s “A Cold Play”, following their break-up in July. Since his track has done absolutely nothing in the UK it’s reasonable to assume that the back story isn’t a major factor in her chart position. After all, this is her fourth top 10 hit of the year, and in 2025, she ranks as by far the bigger star of the two. It’s actually not a bad track.

17. Sabrina Carpenter – “House Tour” 

This is just an artefact of the three-song rule. “Tears” and “When Did You Get Hot” are at 10 and 11 this week, but “Manchild” drops below this track and gets DQd as a result.

32. Myles Smith – “Stay (If You Wanna Dance)”

I don’t think the overpolished production on this does the song any favours. It’s the follow-up to “Gold”, which also peaked at 32.

33. oskar med k – “Make Me Feel” 

Debut hit. He’s a producer from Bergen, and his name is simply “Oskar with a K” in Norwegian. I rather like this – it’s not doing anything ground breaking, but it knows what works. It’s been climbing from the lower reaches for a few weeks now, which suggests it’s got a good chance of going further.

34. Doja Cat – “Gorgeous” 

This is another release-week single – her album “Vie” enters at number 5. That matches the position of 2023’s “Scarlet”, though she made it to number 3 with the album before that, in 2021. The single’s growing on me – it might wind up doing better than “Jealous Type”, which entered at 13 but dropped rather quickly. It re-enters this week at 30.

This week’s other climbers:

• “Where is my Husband!” by Raye climbs 4-3.
• “Nice to Each Other” by Olivia Dean climbs 8-4.
• “Folded” by Kehlani climbs 30-23, and overtakes 2019’s “Nights Like This” as her highest chart place.
• “Escapism” by Raye featuring 070 Shake climbs 37-24, which is weird.
• “Sugar on my Tongue” by Tyler, The Creator climbs 29-27.

There are six new entries this week, plus the re-entry for Doja Cat, and another re-entry for “Dior” by MK at 40. The tracks leaving the top 40 this week:

• “Manchild” by Sabrina Carpenter was a number 1, and gets disqualified under the three song rule after a 16-week run.
• “Dive” by Olivia Dean peaked at number 17 after a five week run, but also gets disqualified under the three song rule.
• “Which One” by Drake & Central Cee entered at 4 and hung around for 9 weeks.
• “Yellow”, “Sparks” and “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay peaked between 17 and 20 and had been clogging up the top 40 for over a month.
• “Takedown” and “Strategy” by Twice both had a respectable run on the back of K-Pop Demon Hunters, reaching 24 and 32 respectively.

On the album chart, we’ve covered “The Art of Loving” by Olivia Dean at number 1. Sabrina Carpenter’s “Man’s Best Friend” is number 2 – it’ll be beaten to number 1 by new releases in individual weeks, but it’ll be at the top of the chart forever.

3. Perrie – “Perrie” 

Another Little Mix solo album. There have been four singles from this – only the first one, “Forget About Us”, made the singles top 40, and that was over a year ago. Jade’s album made number 3 two weeks ago and dropped out of the top 40 after two weeks.

4. Robert Plant – “Saving Grace”

This is his twelfth studio album, confusingly named after his backing band. His previous album reached number 5, and top five placings remain standard for him. It’s a covers album, basically, though with some unusual choices – the song above is an album track by Low from twenty years ago. (He’s covered two other tracks from the same album in the past, so he really likes “The Great Destroyer”, it seems.)

5. Doja Cat – “Vie” 

We’ve covered this already.

26. Geese – “Getting Killed” 

New York indie. It’s their fourth album, but the first to chart. And yes, that’s really the official video – it switches to a proper recording of the song about 90 seconds in.

31. Mariah Carey – “Here For It All” 

This is her sixteenth studio album, after a seven year gap. You’d think Mariah Carey would be the sort of artist who’d still shift albums to an ageing MOR audience, but apparently not – the 2018 album only got to number 40. The studio album before that was 2014’s “Me. I Am Mariah – The Elusive Chanteuse”, which got to number 14, and releasing albums with titles like that was probably a misstep. The track above seems to be leaning into jazz/R&B, which is not a bad angle for her at thispoint.

35. Genesis – “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”

Anniversary-ish reissue of their sixth album, which reached number 10 in, um, 1974. Well, close enough.

36. Zara Larsson – “Midnight Sun”

This is her sixth studio album, though the first wasn’t released in the UK at the time. It’s the first time she’s missed the top 20 (and failed to produce any hit singles) since she started having hits in the UK in 2014, so this is a pretty dire position. Still, it went to number 1 in Sweden.