It.  Will.  Not.  Die.

1.  Drake featuring WizKid & Kyla – “One Dance” 

The eternal number one just won’t go away.  Kungs’ “This Girl” spent four weeks at number 2, but this week it drops to number 5.  So Drake sees off another challenger.  And that’s fourteen weeks – matching the combined total of “Bohemian Rhapsody” across both its runs.  One more week and it ties with “Love Is All Around”.  Sales and streams are both dropping, so it has to stop some time…

2.  The Chainsmokers featuring Daya – “Don’t Let Me Down”

There is at least some sign of the logjam of long-running hits starting to clear in the rest of the top 10.  So here’s the next challenger – surely this one must stand a chance of making number 1?  “Don’t Let Me Down” came out in April, finally registered in the top 40 in June, and really started gathering pace over the last couple of weeks.  It moved 7-2 this week.

3.  Jonas Blue featuring JP Cooper – “Perfect Strangers”

This would have been number 1 on a pure sales chart.  Even on a combination of sales and streams, it’s up thirteen, making it the highest climber two weeks running.  So both of these records have some genuine momentum.

4.  Calum Scott – “Dancing on My Own” 

Up from 10 to 4.  After literally months hovering around number 40, this one really took off after he signed to a major label which started putting some promotional weight behind it.  So if you wondered whether there’s still a benefit to being signed to a record label in 2016, here’s the counter argument.

10.  Kent Jones – “Don’t Mind” 

Feels like a throwback to me – certainly looks like one in the video – but this has now gone 39-26-12-10, so it’s connecting.

13.  Shawn Mendes – “Treat You Better”

Up from 20 – a solid climb three weeks running, so it’s on its way to the top 10 as well.  And it now has a proper video.  The song is a routine “you deserve better than him and I shall pine from afar” affair; the video takes it very literally, and ends on a domestic violence hotline number.

23.  Olly Murs – “You Don’t Know Love”

The maddeningly inoffensive Olly Murs may not be the most memorable man in pop, but he still ranks as one of X Factor‘s bigger successes – this is the lead single from his fifth album, and while he hasn’t made the top 10 since 2014, or had a number 1 since 2012, last year’s single “Kiss Me” did hang around forever.   Okay, after that they tried him as the host for the last series of X Factor, and although I didn’t watch it, the consensus seemed pretty clear that he was appallingly out of his depth.  But he’s been quietly replaced, so that can be brushed under the carpet as a mis-step that doesn’t have to be spoken about further.  As a singer, he’s settled into a respectable B-list career.  As usual, the song itself is polished but bland.

28.  MØ – “Final Song”

You may remember MØ as the guest singer on “Lean On” by Major Lazer & DJ Snake, which got to number 2 last year.  “MØ” is a play on her initials (Marie Ørsted) and the Danish word for “maiden”.  This is her debut solo hit in the UK, but she’s had sporadic hits in her native Denmark going back to 2013.  MNEK has a co-writing and production credit on this one.  It’s really rather good, with an off-kilter arrangement on a great chorus.  Deserves to go further.

30.  Charlie Puth featuring Selena Gomez – “We Don’t Talk Any More”

Charlie Puth technically had two number ones  last year, but both were in collaboration with much better known acts – Wiz Khalifa on “See You Again” and Meghan Trainor on “Marvin Gaye”.  Officially “Marvin Gaye” was actually his single and Trainor was the guest, but the follow-up “One Call Away” got to number 26, so it’s back to the guest stars.  No video for this yet, so its promotion as a single is just gearing up.  But in some weird timing…

35.  Selena Gomez – “Kill ‘Em With Kindness”

… Selena Gomez has a single of her own to promote.  Lyrically, it’s pretty bad – a sub-Eurovision rise-about-the-haters schtick with lines like “The world can be a nasty place”, “Your lies are bullets, your mouth’s a gun” and the mystifying “Put out the fire before igniting / Next time you’re fighting”.  But once it gets away from the verses,the electropop production gives it a sort of gently amused detachment instead of the strident defiance that songs like this usually go for.  The video reinforces that, mainly by completely ignoring the supposed theme of the song and just pointing a camera at Selena Gomez in something between a straight performance video and a magazine photo shoot.  The whole package actually works well… as long as you let the verse lyrics gently wash over you.

On the album chart:

• “Ellipsis” by Biffy Clyro at 1, because reasonably established rock bands still sell in album format.  It’s their seventh studio album and their second number 1, following 2013’s “Opposites”.  Single: “Wolves of Winter”.  The video certainly wrings everything it can from its limited animation budget – it opens with a wolf being pursued by a dinosaur and ends with the destruction of the Death Star.
• “Wildflower” by the Avalanches at 10.  The absurdly long-delayed follow-up to 2001’s “Since I Left You”.  Single: “Frankie Sinatra”.  If you’d rather listen to the original that they plundered for samples, it’s “Bobby Sox Idol” by Wilmoth Houdini.
• “Nothing’s Real” by Shura at 13.  Shura is another of those singers championed by certain pop circles who can’t seem to actually have hits.  Mind you, that was was the case for Charlie XCX for a long time, and she got there in the end.  Single: “What’s It Gonna Be?”
• “Cheetah” by Aphex Twin at 14.  It’s an EP, really, but it technically it meets the criteria for the album chart.  The lead track is  “CIRKLON3 [Колхозная mix]” and it actually has an official video – directed by 12-year-old Ryan Wyer, but official for all that.  (This seems to be genuine – he has an entire YouTube channel which includes a bunch of Aphex Twin fan videos along fairly similar lines.)
• “Perspective” by Lawson at 23.  From the “are they still going?” file.  The move to streaming has not been kind to bands like Lawson.  The first single “Roads”, over a year ago now, made it to number 11; another three have since failed to make the top 100.
• “Blank Face LP” by Schoolboy Q at 36.  Follow-up to 2014’s “Oxymoron”, which got to 23.  This made the top 5 in New Zealand.  Single: “Groovy Tony”.