Well, this just isn’t going anywhere, is it?”

1. Carolina Gaitan, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero & Stephanie Beatriz – “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”

There are still three Encanto songs in the top 10, with “Surface Pressure” climbing to 3, and “The Family Madrigal” hanging in there at 9.

5. ArrDee & Aitch – “War”

That matches the peak of ArrDee’s last single “Flowers”, and two of his other 2021 singles peaked at 6. He’s certainly consistent. Aitch gets his first hit of the year, and returns to the top 10 for the first time since spring 2020. It’s not bad at all, but I’ve heard better Aitch singles.

18. Liam Gallagher – “Everything’s Electric”

The lead single from his new album. He performed it on the Brit Awards, which will help – but there’s no sign of anything else that was promoted on that show, and its midweek scheduling means it didn’t have much chance to have an impact. Liam Gallagher can usually get the first single from an album into the high 20s, so number 18 isn’t that out of the ordinary for him.

Technically it’s his highest placing solo single, but only if you take a very strict definition of “solo”. He got to number 14 in 2002 as the guest vocalist on “Scorpio Rising” by Death in Vegas. And in 1999, he and Steve Cradock of Ocean Colour Scene got to number 6 with a cover version of the Jam’s “Carnation”, released as a double A-side with a Buffalo Tom track from the same Jam covers album.

24. Tate McRae – “She’s All I Wanna Be”

Tate McRae has released several singles since 2020’s “You Broke Me First”, but this one finally gets her back in the top 40. It sounds nothing like her previous hit; we’re in guitar pop territory here. The video quite naturally takes advantage of her dancing background.

31. Nicki Minaj & Lil Baby – “Do We Have A Problem”

The actual song starts about three and a half minutes in.

Nicki Minaj had a top 5 hit last year as a guest on Jesy Nelson’s solo debut (which dropped out of the top 20 within two weeks). This is the first single she’s released as lead artist since 2020; she took some time off after the birth of her son. It’s not the most commercial thing she’s released and giving it a nine minute video feels bloated.

37. Juice WRLD – “Cigarettes”

Juice WRLD is what you might call a posthumously prolific artist, but this is an unusual one, since it’s been floating around as a leaked track since 2018. Since it’s a perfectly decent track that’s in wide circulation anyway, you can see why the estate thought they might as well stick it on streaming services.

38. Em Beihold – “Numb Little Bug”

Em Beihold is a Californian songwriter and this seems to be another track brought to us by TikTok – though in this case it’s a new release. A bit cutesy, but it’s not bad.

40. Jax Jones featuring MNEK – “Where Did You Go”

I like the retro lyric video. The ITV Chart Show used to be full of this sort of thing. Anyway, Jax Jones has now had a hit in every calendar year since 2016 (and one in 2014 too). MNEK remains one of those serial collaborators who can’t seem to have hits on his own.

This week’s climbers:

• “Surface Pressure” by Jessica Darrow climbs 4-3.
• “Make Me Feel Good” by Belters Only featuring Jazzy climbs 9-8.
• “Packs and Potions” by Hazey climbs 15-11.
• “Enemy” by Imagine Dragons X JID climbs 18-17; it first reached 18 five weeks ago and it’s been hovering around there ever since.
• “Ghost” by Justin Bieber climbs 21-19.
• “The Motto” by Tiesto & Ava Max climbs 26-22
• “Sweet Talker” by Years & Years and Galantis climbs 28-26. This has taken forever to get going – it came out before Christmas and it entered the top 40 at number 36 five weeks ago – but it seems to be building momentum now.
• “Pushin P” by Gunna, Future & Young Thug climbs 30-28.
• “Anyone for You” by George Ezra climbs 32-30.

The seven tracks that drop out of the top 40:

• “Stay” by Kid Laroi & Justin Bieber … again. It’s been flitting in and out of the bottom end of the chart for a few weeks now.
• “Flowers (Say My Name)” by ArrDee, which drops from 14 to 44 – I assume it hit the downweighting rule this week. It peaked at 5.
• “Do It To It” by Acraze featuring Cherish, last week’s number 40. It managed 12 weeks in the top 40, peaking at 9.
• “Retail Therapy” by Central Cee, which peaked at its debut position of 21 but still managed four weeks.
•  “Make You Smile” by D-Block Europe featuring AJ Tracey, dropping from 19 to 53. This has almost certainly been hit by the downweighting rule, since it’s ten weeks out – the first week the rule can hit.
• “I Drink Wine” by Adele, dropping from 39 to 75. It peaked at 4 in its first week and spent 9 weeks in the top 40.
• “My Universe” by Coldplay & BTS, dropping from 35 all the way to 89. Again, that sort of drop is almost certainly due to being far enough past its peak to trigger the downweighting rule.

Over on the album chart…

1. Bastille – “Give Me the Future”

Their fourth album and their third number one (2019’s “Doom Days” only got to 4).

3. Black Country, New Road – “Ants From Up There”

Their 2021 debut “For the First Time” was nominated for the Mercury and got to number 4; this does marginally better. Frontman Isaac Wood left the group just before the album’s release, citing mental health problems. The rest of the group are continuing under the same name, but apparently don’t intend to play material from the first two albums live.

5. The Divine Comedy – “Charmed Life – The Best Of”

Career retrospective, obviously. Their last album, from 2019, still got to number 5. (I say “their” – the Divine Comedy is basically Neil Hannon and whoever’s currently in his live band.) Their biggest hit single was 1999’s “National Express”, which got to number 8, but let’s go with “Certainty of Chance”, which missed the top 40 in 1998.

“National Express” is on the album, by the way, but there are some interesting omissions – it doesn’t have “The Frog Princess”, or 1999’s “Pop Singer’s Fear of the Pollen Count”, or (perhaps more understandably) their techno version of “I’ve Been to a Marvellous Party”, all of which were top 20 hits.

6. Mitski – “Laurel Hell”

Hmm. This is Mitski’s sixth studio album, but the first one to chart at all in the UK – making it all the more odd that it lands at number 6. She’s a Japanese-American songwriter.

8. Korn – “Requiem”

That’s their highest placed album since 2002, but only very slightly – their previous two albums both landed at 9. And finally…

17. Saxon – “Carpe Diem”

Now that’s an Old Rockers video. Bless ’em. Their last regular studio album, 2018’s “Thunderbolt”, got to number 29, so it’s not hugely surprising for them to chart. (Last year’s “Inspirations” missed the top 40, but it was a covers album.) Number 17, though, is enough to be their highest-placed album since “Power and the Glory” in 1983. Of course, as I say all the time, legacy acts tend to have audiences who still like the album format.