Ed Sheeran has an album out, but fortunately we’ve heard most of the hits already.

1. Adele – “Easy On Me”

Three weeks. That matches the run of “Hello”.

4. Ed Sheeran – “Overpass Graffiti”

This is the release-week single from his album “=”, which naturally becomes his fifth number one. All of his albums since 2011 have reached number 1 – that’s “+”, “÷”, “x” and “No 6 Collaborations Project”. The two previous singles, “Shivers” and “Bad Habits”, rebound to 2 and 3 respectively, so no doubt if we didn’t have the three-song rule, he’d be swamping the charts. I’m slightly surprised that the final single didn’t get a number one, but I guess it’s diluted somewhat by the release of a whole album of material.

18. D-Block Europe – “No Competition”

Well, you know what you’re getting with D-Block Europe. It’s the same every time and either you want to hear it again or you don’t.

20. Switch OTR featuring A1 & J1 – “Coming For You”

Switch OTR’s first hit; A1 and J1 get their follow-up to their debut hit “Latest Trends”, which reached number 2 earlier in the year. The melody is an acknowledged lift from Avici’s “The Nights”.

23. Joel Corry featuring Mabel – “I Wish”

Joel Corry seems to like casting himself in his videos as creepy, plastic and insincere which is… a choice. I mean, it clearly is a choice, and he’s quite good at it, too, but it’s a curious angle given the sort of music he makes.

All of his singles to date have been top 10; quite a few have climbed from mid-table, though, so number 23 in week one is fine.

33. Neiked, Mae Muller & Polo G – “Better Days”

Neiked is Swedish producer Victor Rådström and/or a collective of the same name that he founded. His/their only previous UK hit was “Sexual”, which got to number 5 in 2016. Since then, he’s evidently been listening a lot to Doja Cat. Mae Muller is English, she’s been releasing music for several years, but this is the first time she’s charted. Polo G’s biggest UK hit was “Rapstar”, which reached number 3 in April, but he’s struggled to follow it up.

38. Ray Parker Jr – “Ghostbusters”

Well, that’s… certainly a video from an earlier generation.

This week’s chart period includes Hallowe’en, and so we have a few tracks down at the bottom end of the chart which make the cut thanks to being absolutely hammered on streaming on one day. “Monster Mash” just misses the cut at number 41, and Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” is at 47.

“Ghostbusters” was a number 2 hit on release in 1984; it was held off number 1 for three weeks by Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called To Say I Love You”, which is fair enough, I guess. It hasn’t been in the top 40 since its original run. Parker did have another UK hit single – “I Don’t Think That Man Should Sleep Alone” reached number 13 in 1987. He did better in America, where he had several respectable hit singles both before and after doing the Ghostbusters theme.

39. Justin Bieber – “Ghost”

The sixth single from his current album, hence the rather muted debut. It’s surprisingly decent, actually. Should probably have been released as a single earlier in the promotional cycle (but might have been open to being misread as a Covid-19 song, a reading that the video makes sure to shut down hard).

40. Michael Jackson – “Thriller”

Well, obviously. Despite its iconic status, “Thriller” only got to number 10 in 1983, though it did spent nine weeks in the top 20. It only got to 4 in the USA. It did reach number 1 in France, Spain, Belgium and Portugal, though.

This week’s climbers are few and modest:

• “Meet Me At Our Spot” by the Anxiety (Willow & Tyler Cole) climbs 12-10. (Meanwhile, Willow’s current single “Grow” is nowhere to be seen…)
• “Tell Me Something Good” by Ewan McVicar climbs 21-15. Apparently, the reason this doesn’t have an artist credit for Rufus and Chaka Khan is that the commercially released version uses an uncredited re-creation instead of the original vocal.
• “Drive” by Clean Bandit & Topic featuring Wes Nelson continues its ludicrously slow clamber up the chart – 40-33-33-36-34-36-35-37-38-28-27-26.
• “Alone With You” by Arz climbs 28-27.

On the album chart, we’ve covered Ed Sheeran at number 1.

2. Richard Ashcroft – “Acoustic Hymns – vol 1”

Exactly what you’re thinking – Richard Ashcroft does acoustic covers of tracks from his solo and Verve back catalogue. He’s released six solo albums since 2000, all of which have placed in the top 4.

5. The Spice Girls – “Spice”

25th anniversary reissue. It’s the first album, the one with “Wannabe” on it, but also their 1996 Christmas number one.

6. The War on Drugs – “I Don’t Live Here Anymore”

Their fifth album, their second to make the top 10. Its predecessor got to number 3. I confess to finding The War on Drugs rather less interesting than you might hope from a band called The War on Drugs.

13. Joe Bonamassa – “Time Clocks”

Certainly the best type of clock, in my experience.

This is his sixteenth top 40 album, dating back to 2007 (though there’s several live albums in there). Number 13’s on the low side for one of his studio albums – they tend to make the top 10.

14. Mastodon – “Hushed and Grim”

That is not hushed.

Mastodon’s last four albums have all made the top 20, so this is par for the course.

18. Motörhead – “Everything Louder Forever – The Very Best Of Motörhead”

One of those cases where it apparently is a “best of” rather than a “greatest hits”. Motörhead’s biggest UK hit single was the “St Valentine’s Day Massacre” EP they did with Girlschool, which got to number 5 in 1981. But  the lead track from that isn’t on the album. Nor is the live version of “Motörhead” which reached number 6 later that year. Nor is “Golden Years”, which reached number 8 in 1980. It does include “Ace of Spades” (number 13 on reissue in 2016) but that’s too obvious. Let’s go with “Overkill”, their debut top 40 hit, which reached number 39 in 1979 and is on the album. It’s… well, let’s say you can see the line of creative descent to “Ace of Spades” clearly enough.

24. Pink Floyd – “A Momentary Lapse of Reason”

This reached number 3 on released in 1987, when it was their first release after Roger Waters left. So 34 fabulous years, then.

26. Tori Amos – “Ocean to Ocean”

Apparently Tori Amos doesn’t do music videos any more. Her previous two albums both made the teens, so this is on the low side, but let’s not overstate that – the album before those two got to 36.

35. Andrew Lloyd Webber – “Symphonic Suites”

This is a tie-in to a UK orchestra tour, heavily pushed as a post-Covid return to live performance.