A veritable barrage of new entries this week… between numbers 30 and 40.

1.  Post Malone featuring 21 Savage – “Rockstar”

First up, “Rockstar” gets its fourth week at number one.  As for the other two Post Malone singles, “I Fall Apart” is a non-mover at 19, and “Congratulations” falls back to 29.  “Silence” by Marshemello featuring Khalid climbs 9-3, and “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran moves 11-7 – re-entering the top 10, but still short of its number 4 peak when it was released in advance of the album.  “Finders Keepers” by Mabel featuring Kojo Funds moves 10-8.  And our highest new entry is…

15.  Taylor Swift – “Gorgeous”

This is a promotional single from her upcoming album “Reputation”.  Given that the lead single was a fairly transparent piece of brand-building and not much of a song, it’s a relief to say that this turns out to be a rather endearing piece of retro synthpop.  It’s a bit Erasure-ish, actually.  Well, the verses, at any rate.

Niall Horan’s “Too Much To Ask” climbs 36-27 on the release of the parent album, and thus lands one place above his bandmate…

28.  Liam Payne – “Bedroom Floor”

Combining two categories which have both featured heavily on the UK singles chart in 2017: tropical house, and middling hits by the second-tier members of One Direction.  This is Payne’s second solo hit, following “Strip That Down”, which made number 3 in June.  But there’s nothing here that seems like an obvious candidate to cross over beyond his core audience.

30.  Krept & Konan featuring Stormzy – “Ask Flipz”

The rappers have two mixtape albums out this week, both landing in the top 10.  Their previous album release, “The Long Way Home”, reached number 2 in 2015, and produced a number 3 hit single, “Freak of the Week”.  Officially, that remains their only “album”, and their other five album-length releases are all to be classified as “mixtapes”.  Quite what the difference is is debatable, but this track certainly isn’t angling for radio playlists in the same way that “Freak” was; it’s closer to straight grime, even if it has the high-profile guest.

36.  M.K. – “17”

That’s veteran house producer Mark Kinchen, who’s had two previous hit singles: “Piece of Me”, which scraped number 37 last year, and “Always”, which got to number 12 way back in 1995.  His best known track is still his remix of “Push the Feeling On” by the Nightcrawlers, which got to number 3 in 1995 – it was used as the lead version in promoting the single, and it bears virtually no resemblance to the original mix.

37.  Anne-Marie – “Heavy”

The belated follow-up to “Ciao Adios”, which reached the top 10 in April.  Perhaps that single was pushed out to try and keep momentum after her guest vocal on Clean Bandit’s “Rockabye”, and they didn’t have the album ready to follow up.  We’re still waiting for it, incidentally.

39.  Portgual.  The Man – “Feel It Still”

They’re an indie band from Portland, and this is their first appearance on either the singles or albums chart.  The track is being used in adverts – it’s a catchy little throwback – and it’s been floating around outside the top 40 since the end of August, but now it finally scrapes its way into the main chart.  If it sounds familiar for other reasons, don’t worry, they’re paying royalties to the writers of “Please Mr Postman”.  The original 1961 version by the Marvelettes didn’t chart in the UK, but it did make number 2 in 1975 for the Carpenters.

Oh, and yes, the band are very clear that their name has a period in it.  Their attempts to explain this are not desperately illuminating – something to do with Portugal being the actual band name and “The Man” being an explanation that it’s just one man, even though they’re actually a five-piece band.  I’d have thought pretty much any other punctuation mark would convey that idea more effectively, if you really wanted to make it at all, but then I’m not an artist.

40.  N.F. – “Let You Down”

Nate Feuerstein is an unusual case – a rapper who used to be more than averagely keen to talk about his religion, but never regarded himself as “Christian rap”.  Despite that, he signed to Capitol’s Christian imprint, which would normally be a one-way ticket to the worship ghetto.  Instead, his records have become increasingly secular and he’s started to make his way back to a broader audience.  This track is entirely secular, and it’s had moderate success internationally; the parent album made number one on the Billboard chart.  This could actually go further.

On the album chart:

• “Listen Without Prejudice – Vol 1” by George Michael is reissued and goes to number 1, as it did on release in 1990. Greatest hits album “Twenty Five” also re-enters at 21, and “Older” is at 35.  Surprisingly, the only top ten hit from the album was “Praying for Time”; “Freedom 90” only got to number 28.
• “Flicker” by Niall Horan is 3.  You see what he did there?  It’s like when comics don’t have any characters called Clint.  Except for Hawkeye.  Anyway, we’ve mentioned the single already.
• “7 Days” and “7 Nights” by Krept & Konan are 6 and 8 respectively, and we’ve covered one of their singles.  The previous album “The Long Way Home” got to number 2, but it’s a busy week and they did split the vote to some degree.
• “Glasshouse” by Jessie Ware is 7.  That’s her third top ten album.  Single: “Alone”.
• A re-issue of “The Queen is Dead” by The Smiths is 10, because everyone loves Morrissey!  It made number 2 on its first release in 1986.  The biggest hit single from the album was “The Boy With The Thorn In His Side”, which made number 23.
• “Timeliness Classics” by Daryl Hall & John Oates is 12.  Self-explanatory, really.  Their biggest hit singles both came in 1982, when “Maneater” got to number 6, and “I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)” reached 8.
• “The Sin & The Sentence” by Trivium is 18.  That’s their fifth top 20 album, and if you need to be told the genre of a band called Trivium who makes albums called “The Sin & The Sentence”, here’s the single: “The Heart From Your Hate”.
• “Super Slimey” by Future & Young Thug at 23.  Collaborative mixtape, though the critical consensus seems to be that the better tracks are the ones that they don’t collaborate on.  Sample track: “Patek Water”.
• “Christmas” by Michael Buble is back at 30, because some people are stocking up on presents for granny already.  Time to wheel out the video for “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” again, I guess.
• “Yes” by Pet Shop Boys re-enters at 37 on a re-mastering.  It reached number 4 on release in 2009, and it was their last album to produce any hit singles, with the lead single being “Love etc”.