Skeng
A little consistency is what we sometimes all crave, and after two slightly frantic weeks a bit of consistency is what the doctor ordered and indeed what we have been gifted. Which is a suitably oblique way of saying that Chase & Status and Stormzy remain comfortably No.1 for a second week with Backbone, the track apparently settling in for a long-ish run as chart-topping Britrap hits are often liable to do.
This does of course mean more frustration for the two hits immediately below, both Chappel Roan's Good Luck Babe and Billie Eilish's Birds Of A Feather which are busy doing the chart do-si-do and swap places once again, Roan now occupying the runner's-up slot for a second time after a fortnight away. Good Luck Babe has now been a Top 3 hit for five weeks and a Top 10 single for four more. Yet regrettably I don't think its destiny is to ever make it to No.1. Her one consolation though is to break into the Top 10 for a second time as halo hit Hot To Go finally makes the grade with a two-place climb to No.10.
Billie Eilish of course is no stranger to simultaneous Top 10 hits, having pulled off the trick on a couple of occasions this year. She still occupies 2/5 of the Top 5, Birds Of A Feather is No.3 with former No.1 Guess having clearly now found its natural level and a non-mover at No.4. Oh yes, and the continuing presence of Guess (no, I'm bored of typing it in capitals) means that Charli XCX also remains in the two-hit club with Apple easing down a place to No.9.
That surely has to be some kind of a first. Three different women each with two simultaneous Top 10 hits to their name – even if in total they all only occupy five rungs of the ladder.
The exit of Myles Smith's Stargazing (relegated to ACR) means room for others to move up the ladder a little. Kisses from Bl3ss x Camrinwatsin further establishes itself as the club hit of the summer with a move to a new peak of No.5, while just behind our evergreen old friend Austin by Dasha edges back up to No.6 as it celebrates 20 straight weeks as a Top 10 single and six months in total on the singles chart. For those still keeping track, after resetting its ACR clock yet again last week, the single is now in its first week of decline – so it is not going anywhere for at least the next fortnight either.
Out Of The Shadows
The highest new entry of the week is all at once a meeting of superstars and an odd anachronism, a partnership that is more than a decade out of time. If Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars had teamed up for a single in say, 2011 or 2012, when both stars were at the height of their powers and popular appeal then the resultant collaboration would surely have been the biggest thing going. In 2024 it runs the real risk of being little more than a fun curiosity. Although happily the track itself is so good it is so much more than that.
Lady Gaga has been absent from the charts for over a year and a half (Bloody Mary was her last hit, peaking at No.22 in the first weeks of 2023) while the one massive Bruno Mars hasn't had a hit single since he participated in the Silk Sonic project with Anderson .Paak back in 2021. But credit where it is due, both of them are back with a bang. Die With A Smile may see the pair dressed up for a hoedown in the video but the the song itself is a glorious MOR throwback (Boston meets Journey) that is destined to become the soundtrack to a thousand wine bar gatherings from now until Christmas. The single slams in at No.7 and right at this moment I cannot tell you whether this is simply a first week peak based on strong sales or the start of an extended chart run. Die With A Smile truly sounds like nothing else around it right now, but whether that is a blessing or a curse is genuinely impossible to call. The single is Bruno Mars' in truth, he takes the lead vocal and it was recorded for his new album. Yet it is Gaga who gets lead billing.
Keep Dreaming
While we are here, let's note that the other single to exit the Top 10 this week is Jade's Angel Of My Dreams but with the release this week of yet another new version (the Jax Jones "Y2J" remix), are you going to bet against it being back in seven days' time?
New to the Top 20 is Hanumankind and Kalmi's Big Dawgs, up to No.15 after just three weeks around. Top 10 soon or glass ceiling? Let fate decide. Glass ceiling appears to be the fate of Adam Port's Move – that is No.11 for the second week in a row.
No.1 Y'All
Nothing entertains me more than the big headline-grabbing story of the early midweek flashes failing to materialise into reality, and we saw such an event this week. Talk of The Script ending up with the No.1 album of the week was indeed awkwardly premature. They instead are No.2 on the Official UK Albums chart with new album Satellites, the top slot instead taken by Post Malone's country project F-1 Trillion which duly becomes his third chart-topping single. The reason for this late surge up the table is of course down to its accumulated streaming tally, and as you would expect the release of the album has had a beneficial effect on its existing singles. It means the Luke Combs-featuring Guy For That charges back up the table to No.25, thus besting its original No.26 peak, while former Top 3 single I Had Some Help (with Morgan Wallen in tow) is back up to No.29. Finally Pour Me A Drink (with Blake Shelton in tow) charges back to No.39, five places shy of the peak it scaled when released as a teaser earlier this month.
To wrap things up we do have one more Top 40 new entry, as after a month of threatening Sailor Song from Gigi Perez finally makes the grade with a climb to No.35.
