Ah, controversy.

1. Joel Corry featuring MNEK – “Head & Heart”

Three weeks, and it heads up a static top three. It’s still growing, so it could be here for a while.

4. Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion – “WAP”

Not a song about the early days of wireless internet, but a bold new contender for the coveted title of Most Futile Radio Edit. Mind you, apparently YouTube rejected the “explicit” version and accepted this one, so it must have ticked some sort of box, despite its frankly token effort at disguising the repeated sample from Frank Ski’s “Whores in This House”. And that was the least of the radio editor’s problems.

I gather “WAP” has been somewhat controversial in the US, though to be honest, viewed from the UK, it’s one of those cases where the editorials about the controversy seem a thousand times more visible than any actual controversy. Still, it’s worth noting that records like this still register as transgressive in 2020, when the direct male equivalent would play as a genre standard. That’s context for you.

This is Cardi B’s highest place to date – her previous best was “Finesse” with Bruno Mars, which reached number 5 in 2018. Megan Thee Stallion has only had a couple of previous hits, but one of them was higher – “Savage” got to number 3.

“Mood Swings” by Pop Smoke featuring Lil Tjay climbs 16-8, to become Pop Smoke’s highest placing single (beating out “The Woo” from earlier this year by one place). “Dancing in the Moonlight” by Jubel featuring Neimy climbs 12-11. And “Heaven on my Mind” by Becky Hill & Sigala climbs 17-14.

18. Bugzy Malone – “M.E.N. III”

This is very good. The third track in Bugzy Malone’s “M.E.N.” series, this time dealing with his near fatal car crash. Broadly, the M.E.N. tracks give his account of things that got media attention; it stands for “Manchester Evening News”. “M.E.N. II” got to number 34 in 2019. This is his highest chart position so far – his previous best was number 20 for “Kilos” a year back, and that had Aitch on it.

“Holiday” by Little Mix climbs 30-19, so they can relax a bit. “Fake Friends” by PS1 featuring Alex Hosking climbs 28-22.

23. Juice WRLD & The Weeknd – “Smile”

Since the assumption is that nobody buys physical albums any more, you can get away with editing albums after they’re released. So this is another single from Juice WRLD’s posthumous album “Legends Never Die”. It wasn’t on the album until this week. But it is now. It’s not even tacked onto the end as a bonus track – it’s in the middle of the album.

Number 29 is “Looking for Me” by Paul Woolford & Diplo featuring Kareen Lomax, climbing from 35.

31. D-Block Europe – “We Won”

That’s nice for you.

This is D-Block Europe’s fifth top 40 single of the year, so they’re certainly consistent.

“What’s Love Got to Do With It” by Kygo & Tina Turner climbs 38-32.

34. Jason Derulo – “Take You Dancing”

The follow-up to “Savage Love”, already (and that track’s still at number 2).

39. Dua Lipa – “Hallucinate”

The fourth single from “Future Nostalgia” has been surprisingly slow to get going – this video has been out for a month. It finally makes it to number 39, and since it’s climbing from 48, there’s at least some momentum there. Mind you, she seems to have just released a video for a single remix of “Levitate”, so maybe she’s about to tread on the promotion of this single just as it was getting going.

On the album chart, “Folklore” by Taylor Swift gets an expected third week at number one.

2. Glass Animals – “Dreamland”

First album number 92, second album number 23, third album number 2. Not a bad trajectory. I assume the video above is a lockdown-era affair.

4. Deep Purple – “Whoosh”

Their 21st studio album, and quite well received too. Their previous album “Infinite” also made the top 10, but number 4 is their highest position for a studio album since “Burn” in 1974.

And the only other new entry on this week’s album chart is way down at 35 – “Map of the Soul – 7 – The Journey” by BTS. The single “On” reached number 21 in March.