So, I’ve been out of town, which is why I haven’t got around to reviewing the Uncanny arc that finished last week.  I’ll get to it in the next couple of days.  But first, let’s see what’s happened in the chart while I was away…

Oh.

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

Another challenger is seen off, as the Chainsmokers’ “Don’t Let Me Down” falls back to number 3 this week, and Drake’s seemingly eternal run at the top drones on.  We’re getting to crunch time, because this matches the fifteen week run of Wet Wet Wet’s “Love Is All Around” in 1994, and one more week will match the all-time record for the longest single stay at number one, set by Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” in 1991.

For the Official Charts Company, this hasn’t been entirely good news, because if anything it’s generating news coverage about how streaming has broken the charts.  Which isn’t really true.  The singles chart has two main functions.  One is to measure popularity, and the point of a sales chart was supposed to be that sales were a proxy for popularity; if streaming has driven out the records that only charted on first-day fanbase sales, and clogged up the chart with records that people keep listening to for weeks on end, then that’s very likely a better measure of real-world popularity than we had before.  Granted, the other main function is to promote music – that’s why the industry pays for this thing – and it’s not looking so good from that standpoint.  But that’s not really our problem.

And even within the streaming era, “One Dance” is an outlier.  If it hadn’t been around, there would have been a decent turnover of number one singles.  Its fifteen weeks at number one have seen six different number two singles.  That’s the same as “Love Is All Around” had – if you’re interested, the songs in question were “Come On You Reds” by Manchester United FC, “Baby I Love Your Way” by Big Mountain, “I Swear” by All-4-One, “Crazy For You” by Let Loose, “Compliments on Your Kiss” by Red Dragon (me neither), and “Confide In Me” by Kylie Minogue.

It may look as though nothing is happening, but in fact “One Dance” is tailing off, and other records are closing in.  Interestingly, Drake’s record company chose this week to knock the price down to 59p on iTunes.  That did indeed boost download sales, by around 4,000 compared to the previous week – and without those 4,000 copies, it would have dropped to number 2.

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

Swapping places with the Chainsmokers to match the peak of Blue’s previous single “Fast Car”.  There’s also now an acoustic version of this, which is predictably more of a showcase for the guest singer.

9.  Shawn Mendes – “Treat You Better”

This has been a slow burner – it’s moved 31-45-38-29-20-13-9.  It now gives Mendes a second top ten hit to follow last year’s number one “Stitches”.

19.  MØ – “Final Song”

Oh good, I like this one.  Climbing 28-19, which suggests it’s got a good chance of going further.

24.  Bastille – “Good Grief”

This entered at number 25 a month previously and has been hanging around the lower 20s ever since.  This marks a fresh peak for the single, though only very marginally.

25.  Katy Perry – “Rise”

This is the theme tune to NBC’s coverage of the 2016 Olympics.  It’s exactly what you’re expecting – a strident plod about triumphantly overcoming adversity.  It features lines like “Don’t be surprised / I will still rise”.  And it rhymes “survive” with “thrive”.  It’s her first single since 2014 (and that one was taken from a 2013 album), so a debut at number 25 might seem a bit limp, but on a pure sales chart, it would have been number 5.  Its overall position is hobbled by lack of streams, which is partly due to the fact that it’s presently an Apple Music exclusive.  Streams usually take more time to get momentum, and when you combine that with being limited on a single platform (even though the track is freely available on YouTube), the result is that “Rise” winds up on the streaming chart at … oh, she doesn’t.  She’s not on it at all.

And number 5 in sales plus virtually nothing in streams equals number 25.

28.  5 Seconds of Summer – “Girls Talk Boys”

Here’s a similar case – this would have been number 12 on sales, but it’s only number 60 on streams.  In case you somehow failed to pick up on it from the video, this is from the soundtrack of Ghostbusters.  5 Seconds of Summer are a bit of a fanbase act, which doesn’t generally fare well on the chart in the streaming era, but it’s enough for them to keep placing hits at this level.  They usually disappear after a week.  As usual with 5SoS, the song’s okay, but it’s unlikely to make any headway outside their usual audience.

29.  Christine & The Queens – “Tilted”

Well, that’s a pleasant surprise.  This has now moved 40-42-40-29, suddenly becoming the highest climber in its fourth week out.  The video above is actually the French-language original “Christine” – there is an official video for “Tilted”, but it’s the same video, except re-edited it to avoid all the points where the lip-synching would be visibly wrong.  And it’s done reasonably well, but still, you’re better off watching it in French.

35.  M.O. – “Who Do You Think Of”

“So what’s the video budget…?  Ah.  Well, I’ve got a mate who has access to a launderette…”  Launching a new girl band in the streaming era is not easy, but then M.O. aren’t strictly a new girl band.  This is their first full scale release since signing to Polydor, but they’ve been around for a few years releasing material independently.  Prior to that, two of them (Annie Ashcroft and Nadine Samuels) were in a girl band called Duchess that never went anywhere, while the other (Frankee Connolly) was a member of Mini Viva, the Xenomania vehicle that managed a single top 10 hit in 2010.  So they’re seriously persistent.

38.  Snakehips featuring Zayn – “Cruel”

Snakehips are the production duo who had a number 5 hit last year with “All My Friends”.  Even allowing for the fact that there’s no video yet, it’s a surprisingly low entry for a track with One Direction’s Zayn Malik on it.

The album chart seems to have taken the week off.

• “Love & Hate” by Michael Kiwanuka at 1.  He’s a soul singer who was heavily tipped in 2012 and got to number 4 with his debut album “Home Again”.  This is the follow-up.  Single: “Black Man In A White World”.  The video’s very good.
• “Youth Authority” by Good Charlotte at 13.  This is their sixth album, though their self-titled debut from 2000 didn’t chart in this country.  They re-formed last year; their previous album “Cardiology” failed to make the top 40, so absence makes the heart, and all that.  Single: “Makeshift Love”.
• “Loud Hailer” by Jeff Beck at 27.  His eleventh solo album, the first in six years.  Single: “Live in the Dark”.