Four number 1s in as many weeks? It’s like the old days.

1. Sam Smith & Kim Petras – “Unholy”

Now this was close. They were behind in the midweeks and wound up taking it by about a 2% margin. Still, it’s another new number one, shoving David Guetta back down to number 2.

Sam Smith’s chart career started with guest vocals for the likes of Disclosure and Naughty Boy, but over time it was the ballads that tended to be the big hits. This is a big swerve back in a much more camp and theatrical direction, and it clearly works. To put that in context, it’s Sam Smith’s eighth number one hit, but the others came between 2013 and 2018. The 2020 album “Love Goes” was not especially successful by their standards, failing to get any singles into the top 10 and only going gold where its predecessor had gone double platinum. A good time for a rethink, then.

German singer Kim Petras makes her first appearance in the singles chart here and thus goes straight onto the one hit wonders list. She’s been around a few years releasing records of assorted degrees of kitsch, some of which have attracted a degree of controversy due to her willingness to work with Dr Luke after the allegations directed at him by Kesha (though she’s hardly the only artist to do that).

She’s trans, and given that the Official Charts Company is normally happy to announce that something is the first number one released by a female soloist born on a Thursday, it’s curious that they haven’t made more of that fact. I can’t think of any other openly trans acts who have had number one hits in the UK – Dana International’s “Diva” only got to number 11 – but for whatever reason the OCC seem reluctant to say that in terms. Hence, here’s Metro Weekly describing her as “either the first or one of the first openly transgender musicians to hit No. 1 in the UK”. It seems odd that nobody appears to know for sure, particularly if we’re limiting ourselves to people who were openly trans at the time of their number one.

12. Stormzy – “Mel Made Me Do It”

Clocking in at over seven minutes, you’d think this would be one aimed at the hardcore audience. Didn’t stop them bringing in some truly unlikely celebrity guests for the video, though, which is so long that YouTube shows you adverts during it. “Mel” is his stylist, Melissa Holdbrook-Akposoe.

23. D-Block Europe – “4 The Win”
30. D-Block Europe featuring Burna Boy – “She’s Not Anyone”
39. D-Block Europe – “Conor McGregor”

The maximum three track from their new album “Lap 5”, which enters the album chart at number 2 – matching the 2020 peak of “The Blue Print – Us vs Them”. They’ve never had a number 1 album, but it’s their sixth top ten album since 2019. What they lack in range they certainly make up for in output. “4 The Win” is the official single, and sounds exactly as you’d expect. “She’s Not Anyone” is more of an Afrobeat track, as you might expect with the guest, and does deviate from the formula. And Conor McGregor is… a name, I guess?

This week’s climbers:

• “Under the Influence” by Chris Brown climbs 8-7.
• “Big City Life” by Luude & Mattafix climbs 9-8.
• “Bad Habit” by Steve Lacy climbs 11-9, entering the top 10 in its 11th week on the top 40.
• “Psycho” by Anne-Marie & Aitch climbs 16-13 in its second week.
• “Cuff It” by Beyoncé climbs 20-14, matching the peak of its first week back in August.
• “For My Hand” by Burna Boy featuring Ed Sheeran climbs 21-20. This has been making painfully slow progress – it’s taken 12 weeks to get here, the last few running 25-25-24-24-22-21-20.
• “2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)” by Lizzo climbs 28-21.
• “Calm Down” by Rema climbs 32-25.

There are also a couple of minor re-entries at the very bottom of the chart – “Words” by Alesso & Zara Larsson at 36, and “Atlantis” by Seafret at 38. That makes a total of seven singles leaving the top 40:

• “Break My Soul” by Beyoncé, which reached number 2 and spent 9 weeks in the top 10.
• “Shut Down” by Blackpink after a week at 24.
• “LA Leakers Freestye” by Central Cee after a week at 40.
• “No Excuses” by Bru-C, which has clearly been hit by the downweighting rule, since it plunges straight out of the top 20; it peaked at 14.
• “Pink Venom” by Blackpink, which briefly revisited the top 40 last week.
• “Mary on a Cross” by Ghost, which managed four weeks peaking at number 28 – not bad at all for an archive EP track that wasn’t even being promoted.
• “Hot In It” by Tiesto & Charli XCX, which spent 11 weeks on the top 40 without ever making it past 24.

On the album chart:

1. 5 Second of Summer – “5SOS5”

One of the more unlikely bands to make the transition to the album market, but they undoubtedly have done – aside from a live album in 2014, all of their albums have placed within the top 3, and this is their third number 1.

Number 2 is D-Block Europe, and we covered that.

3. Sports Team – “Gulp”

Arch indie guitars. Only one space short of their 2020 debut “Deep Down Happy”.

5. Mark Owen – “Land of Dreams”

It’s been nearly a decade since Take That’s Mark Owen released a solo album. During Take That’s wilderness years, his 1996 album “Green Man” produced a few hit singles but could only get to number 33. A 2003 follow-up failed to make the top 40, and 2013’s “The Art of Doing Nothing” got to 29. So this is… way better than any of those. He’s fifty this year and he was always a decent enough songwriter; it’s time he got to have a reasonably successful album in his own name.

10. Editors – “EBM”

Veteran guitars. This is their lowest placing studio album, but it maintains a clean sweep of top 10 studio albums dating back to 2005. (“Studio” because their greatest hits collection only got to 28.)

27. Beth Orton – “Weather Alive”

She’ll be pleased with that. Her 2006 and 2012 albums both landed around here, but 2016’s “Kidsticks’ crashed out at 40. This is more like it.

36. Alice in Chains – “Dirt”

30th anniversary reissue. “Dirt” didn’t actually make the top 40 on its original release, despite producing four top 40 hit singles, so this is actually a new entry.

38. Kid Kapichi – “Here’s What You Could Have Won”

Punk band from Hastings; it’s their first time in the top 40.