Sorry, you want me to listen to how many Drake tracks?

1. Sam Fender & Olivia Dean – “Rein Me In” 

Twelve weeks. It needs one more to match Alex Warren’s “Ordinary”. If it gets past that marker, then the next target is Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” from 2017. As it happens, it’s not on course to be number 1 in the Sunday “first look” chart, but that’s because a new release by Olivia Rodrigo has a marginal lead over it; my guess is that “Rein Me In” will sustain itself better. It is dropping, but it still has a comfortable lead.

2. Drake – “Janice STFU”
3. Drake – “National Treasures”
6. Drake – “Make Them Cry”

These are the maximum three tracks from “Iceman”, which enters the album chart as his seventh number 1. Drake also released two surprise albums at the same time – “Maid of Honour”, which enters at 6, and “Habibti”, which is number 7. This seems rather like Drake’s try-hard way of proving he’s still a big deal, and to some extent he succeeds – he has three tracks in the top 10, and he would have placed another 34 tracks above the official number 75.

On the other hand, triple albums rarely suggest rigorous quality control, and the reviews for these albums have been mixed. “Iceman” alone is over an hour long. “Maid of Honour” seems to have the best reviews of the three, but that’s relative. As for the three charting tracks, “Janice STFU” and “National Treasures” have videos, while “Make Them Cry’ is simply the opening track.

I wish I could say that I had an informed opinion on any of these three tracks, but frankly, I wrote off Drake years ago as someone I couldn’t care less about, and who had absolutely nothing to say to me. My mind simply slides off his music and refuses to engage with it. I experience him as irrelevance in sonic form.

18. Gracie Abrams – “Hit the Wall”

This is the lead single from her third album “Daughter From Hell”. It’s an odd choice of lead single – it’s one of those tracks that feels like it’s building to a chorus that never comes. After a few listens I quite like it, but it still feels more like an album track.

21. Dara – “Bangaranga”

This is the winner of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, which was boycotted by several countries over Israel’s participation. Certainly the now annual spectacle of the pro-Israel telephone vote placing them second no matter what they enter has done nothing for the show’s entertainment value. However, Dara won both the public and jury vote and won by a landslide. It’s a fun track, with some odd changes of speed.

She’s an established national star in Bulgaria, where she’s been having hits since reaching the final of their version of X Factor in 2015, but this is her first track to pick up traction even in neighbouring countries. Bulgaria have never won the contest before, and in fact, this seems to be the first UK hit single by any Bulgarian artist.

Otherwise, it doesn’t seem to have been a great year for Eurovision, with nothing else even making the top 200.

This week’s climbers:

• “Earrings” by Malcolm Todd climbs 21-20.
• “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5 climbs 27-26. The other Michael Jackson tracks got shunted down the chart by Drake, but they did actually grow in streams.
• “Boston” by Stella Lefty climbs 35-27.

There are five new entries plus two re-entries – “Golden” by HUNTR/X at 39, and “Nice to Each Other” by Olivia Dean at 40. The seven tracks leaving the top 40 are:

• “Baby Steps” by Olivia Dean, which had three weeks and peaked at 30. It vanishes from the top 75 because it’s starred out under the three-song rule after dropping below “Nice to Each Other”, but that also means it would have left the top 40 anyway.
• “Stateside” by PinkPantheress, after a 20-week run that peaked at number 3. Her current single “Girl Like Me” is down at number 77 (though it’s climbing, and “Stateside” also took a while to break through).
• “Daisies” by Justin Bieber had a five week run as a re-entry, peaking at number 5.
• “White Keys” by Dominic Fike had 11 weeks in the top 40 and peaked at number 7
• “Fine Place to Die” by Alex Warren entered at 20 and only lasted two weeks. He still has “Fever Dream” at 11 and the apparently immortal “Ordinary” at number 25.
• “(When You Gonna) Give It Up To Me” by Sean Paul featuring Keyshia Cole lasted thirteen weeks in the top 40, despite never getting above number 24.
• “Rock Music” by Charli XCX had a single week at number 36 and crashes straight out of the top 100. Not a great start for the new album campaign. The second single, “SS26” is out this week, so we’ll see if it can do better.

On the album chart:

1. Drake – “Iceman”
6. Drake – “Maid of Honour”
7. Drake – “Habibti” 

We’ve already covered these. Not many people fancied going up against one scheduled Drake album, let alone three of them, but we do have…

35. Freya Skye – “Stardust” 

Chart debut. This is a 15-minute EP; Skye is a 16-year-old singer/actress whose main previous claim to fame was representing the UK in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2022. The track above got some traction in America where it made the lower reaches of the top 100. The EP was actually released in February but got a vinyl release this week.

39. The Karma Effect – “Cruel Intentions”

They sound exactly the way you’d expect from that thumbnail. It’s their third album; its predcessor was their chart debut and made the top 20.