Content Warning
Look, I won't make any bones about it. This week is largely (but not entirely) about Taylor Swift.
The biggest musical superstar on the planet takes care to do things that are both unconventional and do things you aren't supposed to do anymore. The unconventional? Well, we'll get to that in a moment. The thing you aren't supposed to do is formally issue several singles from an already-released album. If an album cut is going to be a hit, it will do so in the weeks following an album's release. And if you are savvy enough, you will have a video waiting in the wings to capitalise on that moment. Releasing multiple singles dates back from the purchasing era, when each promoted track became a product in itself.
But there are exceptions, and to return to a theme from last week, that's how Billie Eilish's Wildflower became America's song of the year for 2025 despite being a huge hit in 2024. Because it didn't become a "single" until a year ago.
And so it is that Opalite, Track 3 on Taylor Swift's already enormous The Life Of A Showgirl album, a cut so enormously popular that it made No.2 in the week of the albums' release and spent eight weeks in the Top 10 prior to Christmas, this week became the album's second official "single".
We judge this by dint of the fact that last week she finally released the track's much-anticipated video. The promotional cut for Opalite (her boyfriend's favourite shade we are told) is like all the best Swift videos one that takes time to tell a story, is rammed with visual easter eggs and features some rather surprising and apparently random cameos. And it is the cameos that got everyone talking the most. Cillian Murphy, who never cameos in anything. Tron: Ares stars Greta Lee and Jodie Turner-Smith. A show-stealing Lewis Capaldi. Irish actor Domnhall Gleeson. And.. Graham Norton(!).
In a credits-rolling coda the video clip reveals that they aren't as random as they might appear. Every one of them the people whom she shared the sofa with on the aforementioned Graham Norton's BBC1 chat show last October. A throwaway comment from Gleeson about wanting to star in a video inspired her to include every single person present that night. And that's why this was the most-watched video of the week.
Mind you, even the watching of the video made headlines in its own right. Everything debuts on YouTube, right? Well, not the Opalite video, which for the first 48 hours was limited to Spotify, Apple Music and any other DSP that now includes video clips. It was widely speculated this was a pointed move, since the end of last year YouTube has withheld its data from Billboard for Hot 100 compilation purposes (a change which has notably skewed the US charts away from urban music of late) - the row all down to the ratio Billboard applies to paid versus freemium streams when calculating chart units. YouTube and Google want it to be 1:2 to align with the British way of doing things, but Billboard don't. Hence the sulk. By ensuring that the vast majority of eyeballs in the days following the video's release were via services that DO contribute to the US charts, Taylor Swift ensured as few as possible were wasted.
So in a sense it should not come as a shock that the track is this week's No.1 on the Official UK Singles charts. Opalite accelerates 15-1 to become no less than the second single this year to climb to the top of the charts from outside the Top 10. It is the American star's sixth No.1 single, and for an artist who notoriously hasn't topped the charts quite as often as you might expect she has now done so in each of the last five years. Notably, this also marks the first time in her career she has seen two cuts from the same album both reach the top of the charts.
The chart sale of Opalite is more than enough to beat the competition but oddly far from spectacular, as she posts 47,000 sales to the 42,000 of second place Raindance. But the fun thing is that this was very nearly an upset. On the final two sales flashes of the week the Dave and Tems single actually had a narrow lead. It was only the intervention of Swift's label finding 5,000 CDs and 5,000 vinyl singles down the back of the sofa on Thursday which sneaked her into the lead. But then that's the other thing Taylor Swift does very well. Playing the chart game like a pro. Although she didn’t have any tricks left to stop The Fate Of Ophelia crashing to ACR and thus collapsing 5-17.
Yap Yap Yap Yap Rabbit Rabbit
Once upon a time the Super Bowl half time show was a bit naff. So much so that in 1992 everyone in the USA switched over to deliberately scheduled counter-programming on another network. Hence the booking the following year of Michael Jackson to do the annual seven-minute performance, kicking off a long-standing tradition of superstar performers, all of whom would run through a medley of their greatest hits (Beyonce once even startling with an unbilled Destiny's Child reunion) to send the crowd home happy. But then last year Kendrick Lamar was booked for the show. He upended tradition by promoting his latest music, sending his album and its tracks stratospheric both at home in America and over here too - hence Not Like Us enjoying a spell at No.1 in the immediate aftermath.
So to follow suit, 2026 Super Bowl half time performer Bad Bunny did the same last weekend. He was an eyebrow-raising choice, for although he is far and away the biggest streaming star in America, the Puerto-Rican singer and rapper performs mainly in his native Spanish. And until now that has limited his audience somewhat. Britain has never truly 'got' him before, his biggest hit MIA from 2018 owes much of its No.13 chart peak to the presence of Drake on co-vocals.
Suddenly Super Bowl LX has changed all that. The three tracks from his most recent album Debí Tirar Más Fotos which invaded the charts just over a year ago all make quite sensational chart returns. Its effective title track DtMF (a No.26 hit first time around) skyrockets to a quite unexpected No.4. Hard on its heels are NUEVAYoL (No.58 first time around, No.15 today) and Baile Inolvidable (No.72 then, No.20 today). Meanwhile the parent album surges to No.2, having initially charted at No.13 on first release. Will this all turn him into the kind of giant he is across the pond? No, let's no kid ourselves. This is an enjoyable but fully understandable one-off. But he has well and truly put the lid on the era of greatest hits performances at the Superb Owl. And the NFL is the most American thing possible. Yet it is this that finally helped the Puerto Rican superstar to bridge the gap to a British crossover.
The Weekly Olivia Bulletin
Yes I know, but it really is not physically possible to go a week without noting something interesting that Olivia Dean has done. The Art Of Loving is the album which denies Bad Bunny a hop to the top of its own chart, this for its second week in a row at the top and seventh in total. That now makes it the second longest-running No1. album of the decade - still short of the 11 week total of The Tortured Poets Department by one Swift, Taylor.
Her biggest single this week is unusually not one of the cuts from the album, but instead her co-starring duet with Sam Fender on Reign Me In. Now 35 weeks into its chart career it ascends once more to No.5, reclaiming the peak rung it has already sat at twice - once back in November and once on the pre-Christmas chart. The continuing appeal of this hit continues to elude me given its over five minute length, lack of discernable hook and the fact that despite Olivia Dean's presence being the reason for its extended appeal she doesn't actually pop up on vocals until two minutes in. But hear me out: the fate of next week's No.1 hit is somewhat up in the air. Opalite may not be able to sustain its momentum, Raindance and Where Is My Husband are falling to ACR and Bad Bunny is a clear one week wonder. So who does that leave…?
The lady herself still has three singles in the Top 10 for now. So Easy (To Fall In Love) holds firm at No.6, while after a two weeks absence Man I Need returns to the fray at No.8 as it celebrates six months on release. And since you ask, yes. Technically it should be No.1 out of reach of even Opalite as it remains far and away the most streamed track of the moment. But it is stuck on ACR. And it will only be the archives of myself and Alan Jones in Music Week which are the historical record of just how big this single actually has been since the start of the year.
We Love You Vicky
Rounding off the Top 10 is PinkPantheress' Stateside which rises three places to No.10 to give the beguiling British star only her second ever Top 10 hit (following Boy's A Liar three years ago). Once more we acknowledge the uncredited influence of Zara Larsson's vocals on the remix which has helped it to reach this new peak fully nine months after the original solo mix charted for the first time.
Happy Pills
The highest new entry of the week is, you may be delighted to learn, a completely brand new single. Sombr's hits to date have all aligned with the vibe of his name, but not brand new release Homewrecker whose jauntiness hits you between the eyes right from the opening bars. It seems he's become tired of being intense and decided to become a proper pop star. And that means this opening No.14 chart gambit may well be the first of a long and productive chart run. Or perhaps even a trip to the Top 3 in very short order.
Vroom
Also new at No.27 - and properly new as well, making it something of a lower-end novelty - Drive Safe which combines the talents of Myles Smith and Niall Horan. The Top 100 thus has three former One Direction performers each with a hit single. Harry Styles' Aperture is about to fall off spectacularly with a 4-12 dive in only its third week on release, while at No.91 Zayn Malik is back with new single Die For Me, a track to be taken from his own forthcoming fifth solo album. What he lacks as a chart star these days is made up for by the loyalty of the Zquad, his arena tour this summer selling out tickets as fast as they went on sale.
History Lesson
The inspiration for me to start writing these words for the benefit of the internet lies in a posting to Usenet (ask your parents) in October 1992 in which someone reacted to a listing of the then-current UK charts in rec.music.misc by wondering what on earth a seven-year-old Simple Minds track was doing back in the Top 10. And it occurred to me that the person who could explain this where required could prove himself quite useful. And so a legend was born.
I bring this up only because the remainder of this week's new arrivals (of which there are refreshingly plenty) are largely older releases and in many cases previous hits whose returning chart presence would otherwise provoke a reaction of "wtf is that doing there"?
So let's begin. "New" at No.25 with a 40 place leap is Tame Impala's Dracula. No.21 back in October, this revival is thanks to a jump on - Jennie of Blackpink (to give her her full name) the guest singer in this case. Back on the chart at No.29 is Yukon from Justin Bieber, the No.12 hit from August last year going viral again after he performed the song at the Grammy awards.
Babydoll from Dominic Fike is a throwaway novelty, it barely lasts 100 seconds. He first released it in 2018, saw it chart for the first time in 2023 when it reached No.63, and now gets to watch it make the Top 40 for the very first time after a second burst of virality propels it to No.30. This at the expense of his most recent single White Keys which is belatedly climbing the chart and sits at No.63 this time around.
Club Footed
So this wasn't all about Taylor Swift after all, and there are still two new arrivals in the Top 40 to speak of. New at No.37 is Release The Pressure, an out of the blue collaboration between Calvin Harris and space-rock veterans Kasabian. Harris tracks are these days either huge smash hits or indifferent one week wonders, there is no in between at all. Last year he had his first Top 3 smash hit in three years with Desire, only to follow it up last September with No.34 hit Ocean. This new single makes a similarly small start, but at the very least it has handed his collaborators their first Top 40 hit of any kind since Eez-eh reached No.22 way way back in 2014. Which kind of makes the whole thing worthwhile.
There is also a Top 40 debut for Bella Kay, a Californian singer-songwriter who has moved from Tik Tok video creations to a genuine rising star buzz. Her previous single The Sick reached No.72 in August last year. iloveitiloveitiloveit (to give the song its full title) has now moved 93-63-39 as Britain slowly discovers they love it, and her, as well.
Some things though you have to take slowly. Ella Langley's Choosin' Texas last week emerged victorious in a hard-fought battle to top the Hot 100 in America, in the process denying none other than Olivia Dean her chance to top the American charts. Meanwhile in Britain her single continues to edge up slowly, rising three places to No.35. Choosin' wisely perhaps?
