We have a new podcast episode, just one post down!  Or if you prefer, there’s this…

1.  Stormzy – “Vossi Bop”

Two weeks, with over 10 million streams once again.  “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X is still hanging in at 2 with very respectable numbers; it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that it might retake number one.

4.  Lewis Capaldi – “Hold Me While You Wait”

So Lewis Capaldi is having a good year.  His breakthrough single “Someone You Loved”, which entered the top 40 back in January and spent seven weeks at number one, is still hanging around at 3.  His first top 40 hit “Grace”, which has been hanging around for roughly the same amount of time without ever getting past number 21, is sitting at 25.  Apparently his previous single would finally have made the top 40 this week too, but for the three-song cap.

“Hold Me While You Wait” is another ballad which plays to the strengths of Capaldi’s voice.  Curiously, it’s been released with “Someone You Loved” as a B-side, which seems redundant except as a means of steering streams to the other single.

9.  Shawn Mendes – “If I Can’t Have You”

The lead single from his next album debuts as his sixth top ten hit.  It’s surprisingly good, in a slightly over-polished sort of way – I don’t exactly buy the sentiment, but it sure is catchy.

15.  Logic featuring Eminem – “Homicide”

This is only Logic’s second hit as a lead artist, the other being “1-800-273-8255”, which reached the top ten a couple of years ago.  Obviously, collaborating with the bigger name is going to help, but it’s not as if Eminem guest appearances are a commercial sure thing.  Still, this is in similar territory to Eminem’s last two singles, “Killshot” (13) and “Venom” (16).  If you’ve heard much of Eminem’s recent output, you won’t be in the least surprised to hear that this is a record of two men rapping quickly and bemoaning the fact that the kids don’t do that any more.  The bit tagged on to the end of the video, after the song proper, comes from an Instagram post last year; it’s comedian Chris D’Elia parodying Eminem’s lyrics.

18.  Hardy Caprio & Digdat – “Guten Tag”

UK rap time.  This is Hardy Caprio’s third and biggest hit, Digdat’s first.  You know the routine by now; the German bit is because they like German cars.  Doesn’t particularly stand out to me.

Nothing much happening in the 20s, and “Sixteen” by Ellie Goulding climbs 36-31.

34.  Bugzy Malone – “M.E.N. II”

He’s a rapper from Manchester whose previous appearances have been on the album chart (where he’s placed four albums in the top ten).  “M.E.N. II” is a sequel to his 2015 song “M.E.N.” which was apparently some sort of response to an article about him in the Manchester Evening News.  This one is more in the familiar “looking back on how far I’ve come” vein.

Over on the album chart, “Hurts 2B Human” by Pink gets a second week at number one, which I didn’t expect.

2.  Vampire Weekend – “Father of the Bride”

Vampire Weekend’s fourth album is their highest placing – marginally, since the previous two both reached number 3.  The single’s good, though the piano part can’t help reminding me of Happy Mondays.

4.  Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes – “End of Suffering”

Their third album, and again, their highest placing by a small margin (the previous one got to 7).  Carter was previously the frontman for Gallows and Pure Love.

14.  The Wildhearts – “Renaissance Men”

This week’s entry in the “are they still going” file is the first Wildhearts album in 10 years; they split after the last album, but they’ve been touring sporadically in reunion tours for quite a while now.  The Wildhearts’ commercial peak was in the mid nineties, when they had a top ten album, and made one of the most gloriously boring music videos ever.  The single above is a surprisingly aggressive (and interesting) record for a band of their age.

12.  Lucy Spraggan – “Today was a Good Day”

Starting off as the token quirky songwriter one in the 2012 series of X Factor, Lucy Spraggan dropped out of the show through illness, but has turned out to be one of the show’s more enduring alumni; this is her fifth album, all of which have placed at 22 or higher.

25.  Amon Amarth – “Berserker”

This is Amon Amarth’s 11th studio album, but only the second to chart; it beats the number 25 peak of 2016’s “Jomsviking”.  With album titles like that, and a band name which is taken from Tolkein (it’s the Sindarin name for Mount Doom), you may not be shocked to learn that they’re a melodic death metal band.  Tracks on this album include “Fafner’s Gold”, “Mjölner, Hammer of Thor”, “Valkyria” and – hold on, let me double check this – yes, “The Berserker at Stamford Bridge”.

31.  Ten Tonnes – “Ten Tonnes”

The debut album by George Ezra’s young brother.  You can see the family resemblance, in more ways than one, but it is distinct from big brother’s music – though it’s nothing groundbreaking.