Oh god, it’s going to be here forever.

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

Twenty weeks. Last week, it set an all time record for the longest run at number one; the publicity from that has resulted in a sales boost, and so once again it’s off the hook for potential downweighting for another few weeks. It continues to have 20% lead over the number 2 single, and it simply can’t be stopped.

It’s maybe worth mentioning that while this sort of rein is unheard of on the singles chart, it’s not so exceptional where the album chart is concerned. Adele’s “21” had 23 weeks as the album number 1, and the South Pacific soundtrack was number 1 for the entirety of 1959.

4. Ariana Grande – “Petal”
15. Ariana Grande – “Kiss Me”

Along with “Hate That I Made You Love Me”, which rebounds to number 3, these are the maximum three tracks from her eighth album “Petal”, which enters the album chart as her sixth consecutive number one.

Alongside the album launch, Grande has announced a “step back” from public appearances, and pulled out of a musical that she was due to appear in next year. “Petal” is itself a song about the stresses of fame, insisting that “This is not a cry for help” and “I am not a victim”. The video consists of her being auditioned by unsympathetic industry execs who she eventually kills with a chainsaw. However, the YouTube comments are mostly people expressing concern for her health and it’s hard to look at, say, 2:23 and disagree. If you can set that aside, the song itself is a decent track, though not an obvious single with its off-kilter loping.

“Kiss Me” is the opening track, and in some ways a more natural single, but the production choices are curious – it sounds awfully muffled to me.

27. Tame Impala – “Loser”

Originally released last September as the second single from his current album, this didn’t chart at the time. It’s back now because it’s in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. This makes it Tame Impala’s third top 40 hit in the last 12 months, something no one would have predicated a year ago – particularly in a context where it seems to be ever harder for new music to break into the top 40.

32. Adéla – “Ain’t In LA”

Debut hit for Adéla Jergová, whose previous claim to fame was not making it into Katseye. This is really good, though. It’s one of those cases where someone who moved to LA in pursuit of fame releases a track putting over her unglamorous hometown – or rather, unglamorous hometowns in general, at least in the lyrics. The video, however, is more specifically about Bratislava, a town more usually mentioned in the west as a punchline.

While there’s a degree of generic “you go girl” in there, she seems to have a genuine fascination with eastern Europe’s outsider relationship to American culture. This is the third single from her upcoming album – the first two did nothing in the UK, but they’re pretty good too.

 

37. Luke Combs – “Where The Wild Things Are”

This is a 2023 single which hasn’t charted before; it’s here because he’s touring at the moment. It’s his third UK top 40 single, though one of those was a guest appearance on a Post Malone track and the other was his cover of “Fast Car” – so this is his first hit with one of his own songs.

His 2023 album “This One’s For You” also climbs into the album top 40 for the first time, at number 32.

This week’s climbers:

• “Great Expectation” by Sienna Spiro climbs 15-10.
• “On 2Nite” by Silva Bumpa climbs 17-13.
• “Self-Aware” by Temper City climbs 27-26 – continuing to make glacially slow progress in its 14th week on the top 40.
• “Sue Me” by Audrey Hobert climbs 40-33.
• “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield climbs 39-36.

The five tracks leaving the top 40 are:

• “Orbiter” by Noah Kahan, which had two weeks and peaked at number 36.
• “Honeybee” by Olivia Rodrigo, which lasted three weeks and peaked at number 30.
• “Camera” by Charli XCX, after a single week at number 22.
• “Don’t Stop Believin'” by Journey, after a three week run peaking at 27.
• “On The Floor” by Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull, which hung around in the 30s for six weeks but appears to have now fallen back onto downweighting.

As for the album chart, there are just the two new entries this week – Ariana Grande and Luke Combs – and we’ve covered them already.