We’re still marooned in the doldrums.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Taste”

Two weeks – and again, it heads up an all-Sabrina top three, with “Please Please Please” at number 2 and “Espresso” at number 3. The album “Short N’ Sweet” drops to 2.

31. Coldplay – “We Pray”

Your highest new entry, climbing from number 44. I realise there’s a bunch of “featuring” credits on the video, but the official chart credit is just for Coldplay. This is the second single from their current album “Moon Music”. It’s an odd track – it’s one of the more interesting Coldplay tracks I’ve heard in a while, but Chris Martin’s voice somehow makes it sound like Maroon 5. Still, two top 40 hits from an album at this point in their career is a good result.

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I’m starting to think that the state of the singles chart might be less than healthy.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Taste”

Yeah, that opening caption isn’t kidding about the violence. It’s cartoon violence but it does merit a parental warning when it comes from a mainstream pop act. Anyway, Sabrina Carpenter’s album “Short N’ Sweet” is out this week and enters at number 1. To put in context what a good year this has been for her career, this is her sixth studio album and her first to even make the albums top 40. Granted, some of those records were made for Disney, but 2022’s “Emails I Can’t Send” was on Island, and it only got to number 41.

A surge of interest in the previous singles is strong enough to cancel the downweighting rule (I think you need to increase sales/streams by something like 25% week on week), and so “Please Please Please” is at number 2 and “Espresso” is at number 3. Clean sweeps of the top 3 have happened before, but rarely, since in practice it wasn’t possible until the digital age. Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran and Harry Styles have all done it.

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I remember the days when there were more than two new entries a week on the singles chart…

1. Chase & Status and Stormzy – “Backbone”

Two weeks, though the gap is closing. Number 2 is “Good Luck Babe” by Chappell Roan, which has been at that position before, three weeks ago. “Hot to Go” also climbs 12-10 to become her second top 10 hit. And let’s take a moment to acknowledge that “Austin” by Dasha is spending its twentieth week in the top 10; it’s currently at number 6, and it peaked at 5.

7. Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars – “Die With A Smile”

Although Lady Gaga’s name comes first in the credit, this really feels more like a Bruno Mars song to me – it’s a soft rock ballad which is a little too interested in faithfully recreating the past to quite work for me as a song, but only because the strings seem a bit too visible for my liking. If you don’t mind that, then it’s a good single.

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We don’t get many one-week number ones these days, but “Guess” by Charli XCX featuring Billie Eilish turns out to be one of them. It’s only the second of the year – the other was “Fortnight” by Taylor Swift. “Guess” drops straight to number 4 in its second week, and gets overtaken by Billie Eilish’s album track “Birds of a Feather”. But that only climbs to 2.

1. Chase & Status and Stormzy – “Backbone”

Chase & Status released their first single in 2005, and had their first hit single in 2009. They had a long fallow period in chart terms between 2014 and 2022, but had a real resurgence last year when they had top ten hits with “Disconnect” and “Baddadan”. In total, they’ve had a respectable six top 10 hits prior to this record, but none of them got above number 5. So for their comeback phase to give them their first number one is a pleasant surprise.

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Just one major new entry this week, but…

1. Charli XCX featuring Billie Eilish – “Guess”

Technically this is Charli XCX’s second number one, because she had a featured artist credit on Icona Pop’s “I Don’t Care”. That’s an odd one, since she doesn’t actually feature on the record in any normal sense – apparently she’s doing backing vocals somewhere, but the credit mainly relates to her writing the song. Anyway, that was in 2013. Since then, she’s been a steady presence in the singles chart, mostly in the mid range and with the occasional bigger hit, but her peak as a lead artist was number 6 (with “Boom Clap”, over a decade ago).

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Back to another quiet week, then.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Please Please Please”

That’s five weeks in total. It’s hanging on there by default more than anything else, but it’s still 5% ahead of Chappell Roan at number 2, and everything else in the top 10 has been around even longer than it has. “Espresso” is still at number 8

26. Post Malone featuring Luke Combs – “Guy For That”

Another single from Post Malone’s country album, though the change of genre hasn’t persuaded him to get rid of that awful vocal processing he insists on using. The previous track, with Blake Shelton, only got to number 34. Luke Combs has a bit more of a UK profile, since his version of “Fast Car” was a minor hit last year. The most notable thing about this, though, is that we’ve now reached the point where routine country-pop records are a regular feature on the UK chart, when for years they were quarantined within the USA.

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At last, a clear out! But first…

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Please Please Please”

Returning to number 1 for a fourth week, after a fortnight at number two when it was stuck behind Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso”. No doubt some fascinating record has been broken about being the first person to knock herself off number one twice in a row. “Espresso” gets hit by the downweighting rule this week, and drops straight to number 9.

4. Jimin – “Who”

He’s a member of BTS. This is his third solo appearance in the top 40; “Like Crazy” got to number 8 last year. It’s a surprisingly high position considering that last month’s single, “Smeraldo Garden Marching Band”, only got to number 46. The parent album “Muse” is out this week, but it doesn’t make the albums top 40; apparently some of the formats weren’t chart eligible.

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Well, Eminem’s got an album out, so something is happening.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”

That’s seven weeks in total, two weeks in the current run. “Espresso” has been either 1 or 2 since the start of May. “Please Please Me” is still at 2, which means Sabrina Carpenter has occupied both number 1 and number 2 for five weeks in a row. Both tracks are past their peak but… there’s just nothing coming along to challenge them. We’re really overdue for a shake-up. “Espresso” isn’t likely to make it to week eight, though, because barring a miracle it’s due to be hit by the downweighting rule next week.

11. Eminem featuring White Gold – “Habits”
13. Eminem – “Renaissance”

These are the first two tracks on the album “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace)”, which might well be the main reason why they top the list. “Renaissance”, in particular, is under two minutes long and it’s not obvious why you’d be singling it out for re-listening. The lead single, “Houdini” rebounds 7-4. Most of the album would have made the top 75 if it hasn’t been for the three song rule.

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Once again, not a great deal is going on. Perhaps this is just seen as a bad time of year to promote singles, since there’s not much happening outside the top 40 either. Still, even with rules designed to shoulder records out of the chart if they’ve been out for more than 10 weeks and have passed their peak, we’re very much clogged up with long running records right now.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”

No, that’s not a typo. “Espresso” gets a sixth week at number one, after five weeks at number 2. In the interim, we had two weeks for Eminem’s “Houdini”, and three weeks for Carpenter’s own “Please Please Please” – which is now number 2. The difference between the two tracks is absurdly small – the equipment of 962 sales, a margin of 1.8% – and both tracks are actually past their peak. There just isn’t anything else to take them on.

20. David Baddiel, Frank Skinner & The Lightning Seeds – “3 Lions”

The Euros are on right now, and England are doing quite well, so here’s the obligatory England football perennial. In fact, we had this as a re-entry at number 32 three weeks ago, but it promptly dropped out of the top 75.

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Britain’s attention is elsewhere, and so we have another rather quiet chart. I’m doing this on my iPad, so no embedded videos this week. But there isn’t actually much to embed anyway, so don’t get too comfortable.

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Please Please Please”

That’s three weeks at number one, and “Espresso” has spent all three of them at number 2.

30. The Kid Laroi – “Nights Like This”

Not a new release, but a 86-second track from last year’s album “The First Time” – although there is a new video for it in order to promote his tour.

35. BL3SS & CamrinWatsin featuring Bbyclose – “Kisses”

This week’s only actual new entry, and it’s a track that’s been out for three months and climbs from the lower reaches. Debut hit for everyone – as best I can tell, BL3SS and CamrinWatsin are the producers. Although I’ve linked the primary version above, a lot of the streams seem to belong to the Evan McGee remix.

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