Reined In By Worry
I won't lie, I've been staring at this blank screen for about ten minutes now.
I mean, what do you say? Where on earth do you begin? Or indeed where on earth does it end?
The No.1 single on the Official UK Singles chart this week is… you guessed it, Rein Me In by Sam Fender and Olivia Dean. It is the track's fourth week consecutively, and most notably of all (for now) its seventeenth in total. The No.1 journey of Rein Me In began back in February. It had already spent most of the summer of 2025 dancing around the edge of the Top 10, spent the autumn and the first part of this year well inside it, but never actually making it to the top of the charts. It won the BRIT Award for Song Of The Year/Best British Single of 2025 while at the top of the charts. And as of this week it eases past the 35-year record of Everything I Do (I Do It For You) by Bryan Adams as the longest-running No.1 single of what you might regard as the modern rock and roll era. As everyone is so fond of repeating, the only single in chart history to spend longer at the top is a certain 1950s single from Frankie Laine. But we'll hold off talking about that, as it seems almost certain that Rein Me In will match it next time around.
Why is that? Because, quite incredibly, in a week when the market itself actually falls ever so slightly, and even despite its age and saturation point, Rein Me In increases its streaming consumption by almost 10% - a side effect you suspect of the renewed mainstream attention it received just because it is equalling chart longevity records. Not for the first time resetting its ACR clock after it had previously ticked twice which ensures it has at least another three weeks at or near the top of the market. The song with the most charmed of charmed lives is here to torment us just a little while longer.
No Scotland
"By the time we next meet, England will either have seen their tournament run come to an end or will be in the World Cup final for the first time in 60 years." Those were my words seven days ago. Seven days which have seen England ooze past Norway in the quarter-finals and then come badly unstuck midweek against an Argentina side who refused to lay down and die, even when trailing with five minutes to go.
But all of this meant that this was the week that World Cup fever kicked into the very top gear in Britain, and while this is a regrettably brief and almost instantly reversed peak, it does mean this is one of those weeks when the singles chart reflects a very specific national obsession.
Leading the way is the side's unofficial anthem, Wonderwall by Oasis. You could have been forgiven for idly wondering if there was a chance - any chance - that it might actually have done the unthinkable and competed a 30 year odyssey to the very top of the charts. In the event it fell some way short and even an England win on Wednesday would not, for reasons that I'll explain shortly, have quite propelled it there this time.
Instead the vintage classic rests this week at No.2, matching the peak it first scaled way back in November 1995. Working out whether it is the greatest song Noel Gallagher ever wrote is at least a five-pint argument. But it has always been justifiably one of the most famous. And perhaps now forevermore is inextricably a football anthem.
Taking a flying leap to No.3 is the song that until this year was always synonymous with England football success. Three Lions by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds was actually recorded for the Euro 96 tournament, coining both the concept of "It's Coming Home" as well as "30 Years Of Hurt" - a pain which has since doubled in size. It was No.1 twice during that original chart run 30 years ago, barging its way back to the summit as England fought their way to a semi-final defeat only to make a sensational return to the top six years ago after England once more battled their way to the semi finals of a major competition. In between there had also been a re-recorded 1998 version for that year's World Cup which had also topped the charts. After briefly threatening to become the standard version, the remake has taken a back seat since although its streams still count towards the chart position of the original.
So would it or Wonderwall have ended up at No.1 had England become world champions? For now we will never know, but the vintage anthem is No.3 this week, its highest chart placing since that 2018 rebound, and just 200 chart sales behind the Oasis song.
Where On Earth Are You From?
Furthering its status as the first official FIFA anthem in years that isn't just a tiny bit rubbish, Dai Dai from Shakira and Burna Boy shimmys to a new peak of No.5. It is, perhaps astoundingly, Shakira's first Top 10 single for almost 17 years, her biggest hit since She Wolf peaked at No.4 in October 2009. Burna Boy hasn't quite had to wait that long, but this too is his first Top 10 hit since a No.4 track - Last Last from May 2022.
A handful of other football-connected classics escape ACR this week and so make chart re-debuts. Rocketing back in at No.20 is the evergreen Vindaloo by Fat Les, originally a No.2 hit at the time of the World Cup in 1998 and which has made occasional tournament-coinciding chart returns on occasions since. However this is easily its best chart performance since that original release. The video for the song (a parody of Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve) is notable for briefly featuring a then-teenage Lily Allen (Dad Keith wrote and performed Vindaloo) as part of the crowd scene. She would take a more prominent role alongside her father on Who Invented Fish And Chips, the Fat Les offering for the 2002 World Cup which alas failed to find anything resembling an audience.
Also arriving seemingly randomly, but then again not, is Hey Jude by The Beatles. Sung (and streamed) in celebration of Real Madrid and England star Jude Bellingham and so as a result a new entry at No.24. Far and away the oldest single on the charts this week, the anthemic ballad topped the charts for two weeks in September 1968 and then returned for another run to No.12 when part of a slew of Beatles reissues in 1976. You will note that this latter chart run is listed separately on the Official Charts archive, as the re-released physical single is considered an entirely separate product to the original, to whose chart history modern-day streams are assigned.
It Gets Sweeter
Still with football, after making the Top 40 four weeks ago, Shakira's 2010 official FIFA anthem Waka Waka (This Time For Africa) surges to No.26, its best showing since it first peaked at No.21 exactly 16 years ago this week. Quite why this has enjoyed a halo shine from Dai Dai is a bit of a puzzle, although despite its historically limp UK chart performance it has remained a draw globally ever since - reportedly one of YouTube's 20 most watched videos of all time and with 15 million downloads one of the biggest physical tracks.
Finally there is a song I mentioned last week, Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond which was originally a No.8 hit in 1971. Nothing to do with football but now a stadium favourite and which has received many an airing post-England victories. That too is back at No.35, 15 places below its 21st century best of No.20.
That the football songs will all vanish mostly from sight next is more or less a given. But it is a curious fact that England's elimination on Wednesday evening will have had no impact on the chart prospects of Wonderwall et al. That's simply because it is vanishingly rare that the DSPs report their Thursday data in enough time for it to be included in the chart, meaning the numbers are extrapolated from those posted during the rest of the week. The chart algorithms will have had no way of knowing that streams for the songs will have been dramatically lower on Thursday (or indeed if they had surged even higher had the result been different) and so the calculations for that day will have come out the same regardless of the match result.
Free At Last
Back to more modern work, and nestled in between all the football anthems in the Top 5 is a club track I've had a soft spot for for months. Largely because it has indeed been charting for months. Now 19 weeks old and still with no ACR relegation in sight, Talk To You by ANOTR and 54 Ultra finally catches fire properly and surges 14-4 to make the Top 10 for the very first time. All things being equal it should go higher next time out. Meanwhile the other big club hit of the moment, Free Your Mind by Prospa and Cloonee also breezes to a new peak of No.7 after a fortnight lodged at No.10.
Displaced from their high spots, at least for the moment, are Stupid Song by Olivia Rodrigo and Choosin' Texas by Ella Langley. Both can be forgiven for being disgruntled at this as the calculated chart units are both up around 1,000 on last week's numbers. It is just that others arrived to displace them. Normal service should resume next week.
Speaking of Olivia Rodrigo though, last week's No.9 hit Drop Dead is nowhere to be seen, relegated to ACR along with Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. It now has the double indignity of being starred-out, with album cut Honeybee taking over as her third-biggest track of the week, finally debuting at No.30 after two months of being disqualified.
Need You More Than Ever
It was a case of vocal cord nodules that gave Bonnie Tyler her most celebrated asset. Her retelling of the story has differed over the years as to whether it was the operation itself, or a consequence of her accidentally screaming while in recovery, but either way it left her with a distinct vocal rasp which meant you instantly knew it was her. Her passing this week prompted a wave of tributes, a re-evaluation of her older material and the inevitable chart return of arguably her most famous work. Total Eclipse Of The Heart was a No.1 single in 1983, written and produced by the late Jim Steinman after she personally sought him out to give her career the shot in the arm she was looking for. A beloved classic ever since, it is the song that would forever define her (even though it is utterly incorrect to say, as one outlet did, that she "shot to fame" with the track). It re-enters this week at No.29 for its highest chart position since that original chart-topping run. Although is it too outrageous to say that for sheer over the top Steinman absurdness, her 1985 follow-up Holding Out For A Hero is the more magnificent song?
The combination of football themed classics and posthumous comebacks means this is another of those charts with an almost staggering number of back catalogue hits on the table. Counting an "oldie" as a song over 10 years old, the Top 40 alone plays host to no fewer than 11 this week - 12 if we sneakily count the 9 year old Sign Of The Times.
Out Of Your Rocking Chair
But if we are talking vintage acts rather than vintage recordings, what better place to look than the albums chart. Topping the pile this week in some style are the Rolling Stones as their 25th studio album Foreign Tongues oozes easily to the top, albeit with a sale considerably down on the opening-week gambits of their last two new albums Blue & Lonesome and Hackney Diamonds. Already the record holders as the oldest band ever to have a No.1 album, they extend that slightly by becoming the first with an average age of more than 80. You're not the only one with mixed emotions.
