And the first new number one of 2018 is…

1.  Eminem…

Hold on, seriously?

1.  Eminem featuring Ed Sheeran…

Oh, right.

1.  Eminem featuring Ed Sheeran – “River”

So Ed Sheeran replaces himself at number one.  This song has been hanging around the top three ever since Christmas, when it charted as an album track from “Revival”.  It’s now being upgraded to an official single, though it still doesn’t have a video.  It’s Sheeran’s fifth number one, following “Sing” (2014), “Thinking Out Loud” (2014) and last year’s juggernauts “Shape of You” and “Perfect”, and given his domination of the charts in the last year or so, it’s not surprising to see this one follow suit.

That said, it is more of an Eminem track than an Ed Sheeran song, with Sheeran basically filling the Dido role from “Stan”.  And I admit, I didn’t think the post-imperial Eminem had another number one left in him.  This is his ninth number one, following “The Real Slim Shady”, “Stan” (both 2000), “Without Me”, “Lose Yourself” (both 2002), “Just Lose It” (2004), “Like Toy Soldiers” (2005, and probably the height of him getting a week at number one on brand name alone), “Smack That” (an Akon single where he guested in 2006), and “The Monster” (2013).  So he’s now got number one hits over an 18 year time span, but concentrated very heavily towards the earlier years.  But there’s life in the old format yet, it seems.

There’s a ton of climbers on this week’s chart, as the 2017 old guard start to slip away and other stuff moves up to fill the gaps. Let’s do the new entries first, and come back to the boring list later.

26.  Sigrid – “Strangers”

Oh, now this is good.  Sigrid Raabe is from Norway and she has the dubious honour of topping the BBC’s “Sound of 2018” list of artists to watch – which has a patchy track record when it comes to predicting commercial success.  If you’ve seen Justice League, and my commiserations, then that’s her version of “Everybody Knows” playing at the start, but “Strangers” is nothing like that at all.  It’s a crisp electropop track, which is in the school of Robyn for more than just geographical reasons.

34.  Jorja Smith featuring Stormzy – “Let Me Down”

This is Jorja Smith’s debut hit as lead artist, though she did guest on one of those Drake album tracks that flooded the charts shortly before the rules were changed to stop that sort of thing happening.  (Specifically, “Get It Together”, and it got to number 24.  She was on the Artists for Grenfell single too.)  She won the Brit Critics Choice Award last year, and this is indeed a really good, haunting track, though I’m not sold on it needing Stormzy.  We’re having a good week here.

38.  Troye Sivan – “My My My”

Back to more typical 2018 pop with this, which is not the chart debut for Australian singer Troye Sivan (whose main claim to fame for our purposes is that he played the young Logan in X-Men Origins: Wolverine).  He also had a single week at number 40 last year, singing on a Martin Garrix track, “There For You”.  This track is decent enough, I guess, and stands a reasonable shot of going further.  The video’s not kidding about that photosensitive epilepsy warning, by the way.  It’s a bit of a grind even for the epilepsy-free.

40.  Camila Cabello – “She Loves Control”

The parent album “Camila” is out this week, and enters at number 2.  This is the random album track that did well enough to join “Never Be The Same” and “Havana” on the singles chart.  It’s not being pushed as a single, but it does have a production credit for Skrillex (alongside her regular producers, and it’s fair to say his presence is not very noticeable).  I’m guessing he dialled up the hook a bit, which was probably a good call.  We can probably expect to see this one back as a proper single in due course.

And now, the long, boring list of climbers.

• “Barking” by Ramz moves 4-2.
• “I Miss You” by Clean Bandit featuring Julia Michaels moves 5-4, and after a very slow start twelve weeks ago, it’s looking like a respectable entry in their chart record after all.
• “Finesse” by Bruno Mars & Cardi B climbs 7-5 in its second week.
• “Never Be The Same” by Camila Cabello climbs 29-7 in its third week, to become her second solo top ten hit.
• “Tip Toe” by Jason DeRulo featuring French Montana climbs 12-8.
• “Breathe” by Jax Jones featuring Ina Wroldsen moves 14-12, overtaking the number 13 peak of “Instruction”.
• “This Is Me” by Keala Settle & The Greatest Showman Ensemble climbs 16-13.  It now has what is described as an “official lyric video”, but appears to be just the footage from the film with the words flashing up.
• “IDGAF” by Dua Lipa is the highest climber, jumping from 38 to 14 in its second week, even though it’s been available as an album track for months.
• “Decline” by Raye featuring Mr Eazi moves 22-15.
• “My Lover” by Not3s moves 18-17.
• “Rewrite the Stars” by Zac Efron & Zendaya jumps 26-19.
• “Feel it Still” by Portugal. The Man climbs 32-25, somehow managing to break the top 30 for the first time in its 25th week on the top 100.
• “Bad” by Steel Banglez featuring Yungen, Mostack, Mr Eazi & Not3s climbs 37-33.

Over on the album chart, the Greatest Showman soundtrack album remains at 1, and that Camila album is 2.  I’m going to start doing the videos for the album chart from time to time, because even though the album format seems to be in decline, the chart throws up a much more random grab-bag than the singles top 40.  So further down…

16.  “Stars – The Best of The Cranberries, 1992-2002”

Obviously, this is the result of Dolores O’Riordan’s sudden death on Monday, which sends people to the greatest hits album.  This is actually a new peak for the collection, which reached number 20 on its release in 2002, and dropped out of the chart in two weeks.  It was probably the wrong time for a Cranberries collection, as the album “Wake Up And Smell The Coffee” had bombed the previous year.  Three Cranberries tracks are predictably floating around just outside the top 40, and they’re the ones you’d expect – “Zombie”, “Linger” and “Dreams”.

19.  Black Veil Brides – “Vale”

Wake up, sheeple!  You know, I think if you’re positioning CNN as the fear-based news network in 2018, you may have your tropes set to autopilot.  Anyway, this is about where Black Veil Brides albums tend to wind up.

27.  Leo Sayer – “The Gold Collection”

Told you the album chart was more diverse.  Leo Sayer has had multiple greatest hits collections before, but this is a 3 CD box set for the collectors.  He had two number one singles – “When I Need You” and “Thunder In My Heart”, which unexpectedly spent two weeks at the top in 2006 after being remixed by Meck.  The version above is the original, which reached number 22 in 1977.

28.  The Skids – “Burning Cities”

Yes, those Skids – the ones who did “Into the Valley” in 1979.  They split up in 1981 but this is their first studio album since a version of the band re-formed for touring purposes a few years back; this line up actually features two members of Big Country.

32.  Shame – “Songs of Praise”

From late 70s post punk to 2018 indie guitars.  It’s their debut album and the reviews have been very good.

35.  Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – “Wrong Creatures”

They’re still going, but being just inside the albums top 40 seems to be about their level these days.  They still sound much the same, though.

40.  Joe Satriani – “What Happens Next”

This is Joe Satriani in straightforward instrumental rock mode.  He had a bit of a fallow period a decade or so back, commercially speaking at least, when he was releasing albums with names like “Is There Love In Space”, “Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards” and “Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterions”, but this is what gets him into the album chart.  It’s what people who want a Joe Satriani album want from a Joe Satriani album.