Decimus Maximus
There is, let's not sugar-coat this, a sense of grim inevitability about it all. Ordinary by Alex Warren fulfils its destiny and spends a tenth consecutive week at the top of the Official UK Singles chart. Something that was once vanishingly rare (in the first 40 years of chart history it was achieved by just three singles) has inevitably become easier to achieve in the streaming era, but when a record manages to reach double figures at No.1 it is still particularly notable.
Ordinary is the fifth record of the 2020s to date to pull off the trick, following in the legendary footsteps of Bad Habits by Ed Sheeran (2021), As It Was by Harry Styles (2022), Flowers by Miley Cyrus and Sprinter by Dave and Central Cee (both 2023). All of them of course had to sidestep the awkward matter of avoiding ACR during the course of that run, something that Alex Warren has now managed to achieve twice. The consumption of Ordinary dips once more this week, but this is still only the first tick of a renewed ACR clock that the single successfully reset last week. With the track still way ahead of the rest of the market there is no reason not to assume it is still sticking around for the next fortnight. Meaning a No.1 run extending to 12 consecutive weeks, something no single has managed since 2017 when Ed Sheeran's Shape Of You lasted 13 straight weeks in an era prior to ACR rules.
So commiserations once more to Ravyn Lenae and Love Me Not, No.2 yet again for the third week in succession. But the official figures have her on 36,947 units compared to the 63,651 of Alex Warren. Or just under 27,000 behind. Perhaps if people could just stop getting married for a week or two.
Doubling Up
We are truly in the era of the twofer when it comes to big hit records. Acts in the Top 20 with two hits to their name include the aforementioned Mr Warren (Carry You Home returns to the Top 10 after seven weeks away), Sombr (who reaches a new peak of No.4 with Undressed as Back To Friends stalls at No.12), and Benson Boone (the unkillable Beautiful Things and Mystical Magical both dipping). They are however this week joined by the rapidly catching fire Skye Newman. As her existing hit Hairdresser edges its way to a new peak of No.16 it is joined on the chart by new release Family Matters which leapfrogs it spectacularly as the highest new entry of the week at No.8. The new single is perhaps best summed up as "Hairdresser only just as good" which pretty much ensures it is a quite exotically brilliant pop record and well worth three and a half minutes of your time. "Where are all the new artists"? Is a constant cry from music journalists. Well, there are several of them in the Top 10 right now. You just have to be paying attention.
Also new to the Top 20 and on the move again after stalling last week is Party 4 U by Charli XCX. That single leaps to No.19, aided you suspect by the release of a hastily slapped together video which means it finally has some proper visuals.
L-O-L-A Lola
It is one thing to break through and be discovered, another to consolidate that and follow it up. Having hit No.1 at the start of the year with Messy and been granted the privilege of a Brit Awards performance slot, Lola Young had to deal with the slightly awkward optics of an older single Conceited (first released in 2023 as the first single from her album This Wasn't Meant For You Anyway) arriving for a brief chart wander and a No.63 peak just over a month ago. But that was really just a side distraction. She's now ready to move on to new material and does so with the release of One Thing which duly lands her a second Top 40 hit single as it arrives at No.25. It is a another raw, uncensored lyric from a lady who isn't afraid to say what she really things on record and although perhaps less of a head-turner than its chart-topping predecessor it is still a sign that she has plenty to offer. Never judge a record on Week 1 any more. But let's hope this one has a 2, 3 and 4 at the very least.
Vote For The Music
It was the Eurovision Song Contest last weekend, and as is now traditional the biggest and best of the entrants make their chart bow for what inevitably turns out to be a brief moment in the sun. For the first time in many years however none of them make the Top 30. The charge is led by the United Kingdom entry, What The Hell Just Happened by Remember Monday improves on the No.95 it made when first announced as our selection to blast its way to No.31. Just behind at No.34 is Baller by Abor & Tynner (Germany, who came 15th) and they are joined by Espresso Macchiato by Tommy Cash at No.40 (Estonia, 3rd place), Bara Bada Batsu by KAJ at No.48 (Sweden, 4th place) and inevitably the winning Austrian entry Wasted Love by JJ which lands at a curiously lowly No.53. By strange coincidence both he and the aforementioned Remember Monday are former Voice UK contestants - the girls in 2019 and JJ a year later.
Y'All
Top of the albums chart this week is the still uncancellable Morgan Wallen who might have only made No.40 last time out with One Thing At A Time but who now more than makes up for it. Widely expected to top charts across the western world, I'm The Problem does so here in some style with a sale of almost 20,000. Singles-wise however the American country star is slightly flakier. His No.2 hit a year ago I Had Some Help is such an outlier you start to wonder just how organic it was, nothing he has released since has come even close to that kind of chart success. The biggest hit from the album this week is the Tate McRae duet What I Want which lands at No.32. It is joined by Just In Case which sneaks in at No.75, while the album's title track which reached No.44 back in February crawls back onto the Top 100 at a lowly No.79. Meanwhile in America What I Want and Just In Case are expected to debut at 1 and 2 at the start of next week - with the rest of the album's 30-odd tracks joining them somewhere on the chart. It just a question of which way round they go.
