We Like Messiness
It is at times like this I run the of risk repeating myself, and on a site where the archives are readily accessible and indeed searchable that can be called out at any time. But say what you like about the ACR system, at the point when things at the business end of the charts are starting to get a little tired and tedious it can come along and shake everything up just when it is needed.
The new year hegemony which has seen the top songs of 2025 so far repeat themselves week in week out is shattered for good. And at just the right moment for exciting things to start happening.
Immune from all this though is Lola Young, sitting supreme at the top of the pile as Messy enjoys a fourth straight week at No.1. Ignoring Christmas songs this is the longest run at the top of the charts by a British act since Sprinter by Dave and Central Cee and the longest running No.1 hit by a completely solo British female performer since Adele spent a total of eight weeks at the top with Easy On Me in 2021/2022. Plus of course it means that solo female performers have been No.1 for 22 of the last 25 weeks.
Not Liking Us
There are surprises in the rest of this week's Top 10. Some expected, some perhaps less so. Continuing a curious theme of American entertainment events having a disproportionate impact over here the No.2 single of the week is Not Like Us from Kendrick Lamar as it makes a flying leap from No.27. The track has been propelled there thanks to his performance at the half time interval in last Sunday's Super Bowl American football match, a performance which will have been seen live by only a dedicated few (it took place at 1am after all) but by thousands more afterwards via online clips.
The track that - lest we forget - is an extended rant at Drake for his well-referenced alleged personal proclivities and skirts on the edge of legality in many of its lyrics. It is no bloody good, at least to these ears, containing little in the way of musical innovation or appeal beyond the rapper's personal flow. But it is still now easily his biggest UK hit to date, eclipsing the No.4 peak scaled by album cut Squabble Up back in December.
As you might expect Not Like Us isn't the only Lamar track to make waves this week. The other two are, by a curious coincidence, tracks that feature SZA on co-vocals. Luther rockets back to No.10 after languishing at No.34 last week, the cut having first made No.5 the week of the album release. One place behind at No.11 is All The Stars, a much older cut re-entering the chart from scratch for the first time since its original 2018 chart run which saw it too peak at No.5.
Almost needless to say Kendrick Lamar's album does business too, the increased streams propelling GMX back to No.3.
Cuts Like A Sista
Here's the fun bit though, the SZA connection helps Kendrick Lamar to the supposedly impossible feat of having four Top 40 singles, the reversed credits meaning she is the primary artist on 30 For 30 which duly rockets to No.39 after seven weeks waiting in the wings. SZA herself takes this to the next level. Her presence on the two Lamar tracks along with 30 For 30, BMF (No.51) and the debuting Open Arms (No.74 with Travis Scott in tow) means she boasts five hits in the era when you are only supposed to have three.
A full week of sales and streams pushes Lady Gaga's Abracadabra up the charts as expected, but not quite enough people are under its spell just yet - so it contents itself with a rise to No.3 and was in truth never in contention to top the charts. At least not for now.
Giddy Up
Also completing a rather fascinating comeback arc is Chapell Roan's Pink Pony Club. A track she first released to little fanfare almost five years ago, it found its way onto her 2023 album The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess and embarked on a chart run of its own last autumn off the back of the wide-ranging success of Good Luck Babe and Hot To Go. It initially peaked at No.13 at the end of October before falling away, losing its chart placing to the festive tsunami but returning to become a Top 20 fixture in the new year. But now the track takes on a new life, surging to No.4 to become Ms Roan's third Top 5 hit single. Pink Pony Club's chart debut was delayed for a while as for several weeks it ranked as her fourth biggest hit single, and so blocked from charting by Red Wine Supernova. Said track also makes a reappearance of its own this week, returning at No.32, one place below the peak it first scaled last year.
But you know what, the barking mad stuff doesn’t stop here. Exactly a year to the week that it made the Top 10 for the first time former No.1 single Beautiful Things by Benson Boone is back in contention, rising with a bullet from 33 all the way back to No.6. As you might expect that isn’t quite as organic as it looks, an ACR reset behind this surge as it returns to the Top 10 for the first time since it was forcibly ejected by those same rules last May.
Far From It
So all that and we still haven't talked about the highest new entry of the week. Said song is Ordinary, the third and far and away the biggest hit so far from online influencer turned musical superstar Alex Warren. This has been coming for some time, Carry You Home hit its No.23 peak at the start of January after having been a chart hit since last summer, while follow up Burning Down was unlucky not to progress beyond No.35. Third time around he makes a flying start with a No.7 hit, and if you are starting to play the game of just what could replace Messy at No.1 when the time comes, this mutli-layered choral ballad of fragile beauty might well be a contender.
Are we done with the Top 10 yet? No friends, we are not. Also rising to an exciting new peak is the still fascinating and extraordinary but annoyingly short Denial Is A River by Doechii. This could so easily have been one of those quirky chart entries by female rap stars flagged up by James but which never catches fire (I'm still not over Big Energy failing on these shores) but no, this one has turned into something lovely and enormous. More songs by messed up women having back and forth conversations with their inner therapist please.
I Wonder If I Take Her Home
Brand new at No.13 is Born Again from the potentially quite mouthwatering combination of Lisa (from Blackpink, if we are giving her her proper title), Doja Cat and RAYE. Superstar combinations such as these have a nasty habit of being somehow less than the sum of their constituent parts, but this is one of those tracks that avoids that particular pitfall. Born Again is instead a suitably lavish future disco track replete with the catchiest slap-bass you have heard so far this decade. An epic record in the truest sense of the word, my only fear is that this first week is a fan-led one off and it won't have the legs it needs to become a proper long running hit record. We've seen this happen so many times before. After numerous false starts (five successive chart singles that failed to reach the Top 40) Lisa finally has a solo hit record to her name. Rose raised the bar for androgynous-looking female K-Pop clones it seems.
One final curiosity to note on the singles chart this week is the 41-38 climb for Like Him, the long-simmering track by Tyler The Creator with a guest appearance by Lola Young. This is effectively the fourth time the single has entered the Top 40, having done so twice in November and again at the start of the year when it reappeared after Christmas. Admittedly it has only been away a week, moving 36-41-38 in the last three. But they all count. And in all this time the track has never climbed higher than No.30.
Calm Down
We have kind of saved some of the best until last, as Taylor Swift this week demonstrates she is able to do extraordinary things without lifting a finger. Her Lover (Live From Paris) record is a series of cuts that began life as individual streaming tracks in 2020 before being compiled into a strictly limited edition vinyl release in 2023. Released for Valentine's Day that year it charted here briefly, reaching a hugely impressive No.90. This week Swift re-released the collection in a slightly more widely available physical form, once more as a Valentine's Day commemoration. Shifting a massive 46,000 copies - every single one of them on vinyl - the album flies to No.1 to help her top the charts for the 13th time to set a new record as a solo woman. And on the all-time list only The Beatles and Robbie Williams have had more.
The last person to top the albums chart without a single stream to their name was, guess what, Taylor Swift herself - the release of Reputation coming during that curious period when she was boycotting all DSPs meaning the album hit No.1 in November 2017 on pure sales (physical and digital) alone. The last album to reach No.1 with no digital element of any kind was arguably This New Day by Embrace which topped the charts in April 2006 in the last week before digital downloiads counted towards the albums listing.
