Another month, and turnover isn’t exactly picking up.  “One Dance” by Drake remains at number 1 for the whole month, a total of six weeks.  That’s the longest run at number 1 since “Uptown Funk” at the start of 2015, and the longest uninterrupted run at number 1 since “Bleeding Love” in 2007.  The next record in sight is “Umbrella”, which managed 10 weeks earlier that year.

Of course, this is not a direct comparison because of the shift to streaming data.  “One Dance” still doesn’t have a video – which, incidentally, may work in its favour under UK chart rules, because only audio streaming services count towards the chart, and presumably a bunch of people who would otherwise be watching “One Dance” on YouTube are listening to it on Spotify instead.  More to the point, it hasn’t been the top selling single for several weeks.  It’s staying at number 1 because people are continuing to listen to it.  And if the charts had always been based on sustained popularity rather than first week sales, one suspects we’d have had a lot more epic-running number ones over the last twenty years or so.

But May did have some activity further down the chart.  The 6 May chart, for example, actually managed  a new entry at what now constitutes the dizzying height of number 2!  It’s “This is What You Came For” by Calvin Harris & Rihanna, which doesn’t have a proper video yet either.

I’m minded to say that’s not the best use of Rihanna, because the cut-up makes her pretty much unrecognisable.  On the other hand, it’s nice to see Harris diversifying beyond the epic synth riffs.  It’s (presumably) the second single from his next album, the first being “How Deep is Your Love”, which also got to number 2 last year.  At any rate, not much enters in the top ten these days, and it moved 2-2-3-3, so he ought to be happy enough with this.  Further down the May 6 chart, there wasn’t much – a couple of re-entries of records hovering around the bottom end of the chart, the surprisingly acceptable “Close” by Nick Jonas featuring Tove Lo (39-32-31-25), and “Daddy Lessons” by Beyonce, which marginally missed the top 40 during the first week of “Lemonade” sales, scraping a week at 40.

The 13 May chart was much busier.  The highest new entry was at number 3 for “Can’t Stop The Feeling!” by Justin Timberlake, which has moved 3-2-2 and has a reasonable shot of getting to number 1 in June.  It’s from the soundtrack of the Trolls film, which sounds like an astonishingly bad idea, but I guess they got two movies out of the Smurfs.  It’s a disco funk number which teeters on the verge of being completely generic but has the enthusiasm to carry it off.  It’s his biggest hit since “Mirrors” got to number 1 in 2013.  And it’s also the track that he promoted as the interval act at the Eurovision Song Contest.  This year, Eurovision made precisely zero impact on the top 40, for the obvious reason: some people buy those tracks as impulse buys after the contest, but their sustained appeal – and therefore their streaming – is virtually zilch in this country.

Further down, 13 May was an unusually busy week by 2016 standards.  “Too Good” by Drake featuring Rihanna, which is being cherrypicked from the Drake album and just missed the top 40 the week before, has moved 23-8-6.   “Boys & Girls” by will.i.am featuring Pia Mia, the first single from his upcoming album, is mercifully not a cover of the Blur single, though the chorus is pretty much the same idea.  It peaked at 21 in its second week.  There’s a passing sample in there from “Break This Heartbreak” by Kylie Minogue, an infinitely better track from an EP that sneaked out in 2014.

“Sex” by Cheat Codes & Kris Kross Amsterdam, entered at 35 and has climbed to 20.  It’s actually a semi-cover of Salt N’ Pepa’s “Let’s Talk About Sex” (number 2, 25 years ago).  Note for video directors: literal depictions of masturbation euphemisms have been done before, okay?  “Controlla” by Drake, another cherrypicked track from his album, entered at 39 and has climbed to 18.  And getting a week at number 40 was “Paradise” by Benny Benassi & Chris Brown, a bog standard Europop track.  These two had a previous collaboration, “Beautiful People”, which got to number 4 in 2011.

On 20 May, “Panda” by Desiigner finally reached the top 10 after a 27-25-15-12-7 climb and hey, it finally got a video!

The highest new entry was “One For All” by the Stone Roses at number 17, their first single in 20 years (unless you count the endless reissues of “Fools Gold”) and… well, they were good in the 90s, weren’t they?  It’s a bit of a lightweight jingle, frankly, and it crashed straight out of the top 100 in week two, which is about what it deserved.  The Stone Roses biggest UK hit was “Love Spreads”, which got to number 2 in 1994, though that was more on the strength of anticipation than its actual merits.

Number 26 was “New Girl” by Reggie & Bollie, who were the runners-up in last year’s X Factor.  It’s a perfectly acceptable Afro-pop track which is being used in an advert, but it fell in its second week.  Number 29 was “Flesh & Blood” by the Invictus Games Choir & Gareth Malone, another charity release from Britain’s best beloved television choirmaster.  The Invictus Games are a Paralympics-style event for injured servicemen, if you’re not aware.  The song was written by the choir and Malone, and there is of course a documentary to go with it. Again, the shift to streaming data has done immense damage to the chart prospects of records like this, because the emotional pull of buying the record of a gesture of allegiance simply doesn’t translate into people listening to a track over a sustained period.  On a pure sales chart, it would have been number 4 (and the Stone Roses would have been at 5).  And at 33, climbing to 12 in its second week was “I Hate U I Love U” by gnash featuring Olivia O’Brien, a ballad duet which was number 1 in Australia.

The May 27 chart is another quiet one, with the highest new entry coming at 21 for “Cry” by Sigma featuring Take That, or at least, the three remaining members of Take That.

Sigma are basically the Tesco Value equivalent of Rudimental, and this single reflects that – there’s a potentially okay song in there but a thuddingly unimaginative production makes it sound like a thousand other records.  Other new entries come for “This Girl” by Kungs vs Cookin’ on 3 Burners at 29, which is a dance remix of a seven-year old Australian jazz track.  (The singer, Kylie Auldist, got a featured artist credit on the original, but apparently doesn’t qualify after the remix.  Okay, then.)   And there’s “One More Time” by Craig David at 30, which is exactly what you’d expect.

Next month, probably more Drake.