Aperture-A-P-Ture
My writer's urge to contextualise every single artist who happens to enter the charts has hit something of a stumbling block. Does the world really need a reintroduction to Harry Styles? The former X Factor auditionee, the One Direction star, the manufactured boy band's de facto frontman, and the one whose solo career was deliberately and carefully give the superstar rub only for him to arguably take three solo albums to reach that status.
OK, perhaps that will suffice.
Harry Styles is back, after what is let's face it a rather leisurely four-year gap since his last album Harry's House. Taken from his forthcoming new album Kiss All The Time, Disco Occasionally, Aperture is its lead single. And it is unsurprisingly an instant and almost automatic No.1 single.
It's only his third solo No.1 hit, following in the footsteps of flawed 2007 debut Sign Of The Times and 2022 epic As It Was which enjoyed a 10 week stay after also debuting there upon release. The British star of course also had four No.1 hits as a member of the aforementioned X Factor-created boyband plus one further when One Direction were co-credited on the X Factor Finalists 2011 charity cover of Wishing On A Star. Like Abba before them many years ago the group have still never officially split even though it has now been ten years since they made a record together.
But truly the most notable thing about Aperture is the way it sounds. Perhaps as befitting an artist of his status he is entitled to take risks, and this is one that pays off in spades. Aperture is different in every way it is possible to be, a grimy lo-fi dub track graced with a buzzing, distorted bassline but also a genuine classy aura. Styles breathes and hollers his way through a song laced with deep meaning and on a record that is trend-defyingly long. In an era when you are considered to have nailed the production when you come in under three minutes, Aperture takes a leisurely five minutes and then some to build to its breathless climax. It is telling a musical story that simply cannot be told by a conventional-length song and to its credit does not even try. I'm still digging into this one and so am happy to be proven wrong (comments below if I am), but I've a feeling the last No.1 single to clock in at well over five minutes was Sign Of The Times by… Harry Styles!
Not everyone loves it though, one Harry-worshipping friend of mine complained "too much noise happening, sorry" when asked for her opinion.
Like the whole of the Harry's House album it is co-written and produced by Kid Harpoon, aka British performer Tom Hull. The man who can be viewed as the Guy Chambers to Styles' Robbie Williams and who really deserves as much of the credit for the track as its notional performer.
This track is either going to hang around the charts all year or will find itself overtaken by what we presume will be one of the more conventionally sounding offerings from the new album. But for now it is a diverting and truly notable No.1 single. And most importantly the first 2026 release to make it there. For that reason alone we should be grateful. It's chart sale of over 70,000 units is the biggest for any contemporary single since The Fate Of Ophelia made it into six figures at the tail end of last year. But it also means that just for a change Man I Need isn't the de facto No.1 hit, Olivia Dean's track would only be No.2 with just over 51,000 sales were she not on ACR.
It seems almost obligatory for every comeback artist to enjoy a halo hit or two drawn from their catalogue. Just as Bruno Mars did a couple of weeks ago, Harry Styles also sees the aforementioned As It Was return for another chart wander, the former No.1 hit re-emerging at No.28.
Whatever It Is I Say
Harry Styles barges his way to the top of a chart that would otherwise be largely static, with just a handful of exceptions every other track in the Top 15 simply shifts down a place. As of right now we are in one of those situations where the British public know what they like and are content to sit on it.
That means any disruption is welcome. The week's other big new entry is Opening Night from Arctic Monkeys, one which lands at a creditable No.16. It is a charity record, the opening offering from the forthcoming Help(2) album organised by the War Child charity. The project is a nod to the 30th anniversary of the celebrated first War Child album, one which featured a number of tracks all recorded on the same day (Monday 4th September 1995) and released together five days later. The new album doesn’t have quite that sense of ambition, but all its tracks were recorded in the same sessions at Abbey Road last November. The Arctic Monkeys have had a long-standing association with War Child, their 2020 live album Live At The Royal Album Hall saw all its revenues diverted to the cause.
Small Green Gun
In an otherwise quiet week there's just one other new Top 40 arrival of note, What You Saying from Lil Uzi Vert arriving at No.27 after a three week journey up from the chart depths. It is his first Top 40 hit as lead or solo artist since Just Wanna Rock reached No.30 in 2022 and his biggest chart hit of any kind since XO TOUR Llif3 took a leisurely journey to No.25 during a 34 week chart run back in 2017.
Wand Erections
"How Did I Get Here" asks Louis Tomlinson on the title of his new album. The "here" in question is the No.1 position, giving this week's charts a unique bookend as two different former members of the same chart-topping group each top the two different charts. It could not be more of a study in contrasts though, with Tomlinson's album largely devoid of singles of any kind (its lead single Lemonade crept to No.89 back in November) and arguably propelled there solely by fan power. Although he has not had a Top 40 single since 2017 this is now his second solo No.1 album, following 2022 release Faith In The Future which topped the charts during a vanishingly short chart run in November of that year.
