Well, Billie Eilish has an album out, and nobody’s going up against that. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to number one…

1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”

That’s four weeks, in the face of a major release. Her biggest British hit by a mile.

2. Billie Eilish – “Lunch”
7. Billie Eilish – “Chihiro”
9. Billie Eilish – “Birds of a Feather”

Three tracks from her album “Hit Me Hard and Soft” – officially her third album, though her 2018 EP “Don’t Smile at Me” also qualified for the album chart. All three official albums have gone to number one, so this is not a surprise in the slightest. For what it’s worth, the first album hung around a lot longer than the second, but both had very respectable chart runs.

Billie Eilish is in the unusual position of having had two number one singles, both of which came from movie soundtracks rather than her regular releases: “No Time To Die” in 2020, and “What Was I Made For” last year. This is the third time that she’s got to number 2, though, after “Bad Guy” in 2019 and “Therefore I Am” in 2020.

“Lunch” is the official single, and the other two songs are, um, the next two tracks on the album after it. “Chihiro” is really good, though. I’m not sure why “Birds of a Feather” is getting singled out – I thought it was one of the weaker tracks on the album – but I suppose it’s somewhat single-friendly. If it hadn’t been for the three-song rule, everything else on the album would have placed within the top 25.

Pretty much nothing else is happening on the singles chart this week, but down at the bottom end we do have…

32. Gunna – “One of Wun”

Climbing from 55 last week. Gunna had a top 10 hit last year with “Fukumean”, and has a number 1 to his credit as one of the artists on Internet Money’s “Lemonade” from 2020, but the 30s and 40s is more his normal stomping grounds. The parent album of the same name placed at number 4 last week, making this an unusual case of a delayed hit.

36. Tems – “Love Me Jeje”

This has been climbing from the lower reaches for four weeks. Tems also had a minor hit last year with “Me and U”, and had hits as a guest singer with Future in 2022 and Wizkid in 2021, so she’s an infrequent but persistent singles chart presence. The track interpolates Seyi Sodumu’s song of the same name, which was a hit in Nigeria in the late 90s.

39. Disturbed – “The Sound of Silence”

Officially, this is a re-entry for the Disturbed’s cover of “The Sound of Silence”, which reached number 29 in 2016. However, the reason it’s reappeared in 2024 is the dance mix above, which has unusually been released under the original artist credit, and thus gets lumped in with the original for chart purpose. It’s terrible.

This week’s climbers… um, there aren’t any. Just records rebounding on their way out, and a few returning to peaks that they already reached a couple of weeks ago.

The six tracks leaving the top 40 are:

• “Home” by Good Neighbours, which only got to 26 but lasted 15 weeks.
• “Family Matters” by Drake, which entered at 17 and lasted two weeks.
• “Europapa” by Joost, after a week at 37.
• “Rim Tim Tagi Dim” by Baby Lasagna, after a week at 36.
• “Saturn” by SZA, which peaked at 15 and lasted 12 weeks.
• “Whatever She Wants” by Bryson Tiller, which peaked at 16 and lasted 12 weeks.

The longest running track on the singles chart is still “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan, at 33 weeks and counting. It’s currently at number 22.

On the album chart, “Hit Me Hard and Soft” by Billie Eilish is number 1, in case you missed that.

3. Zayn – “Room Under the Stairs”

The fourth solo album by Zayn Malik, formerly of One Direction. He (or his label) will be very happy with a number 3. His solo debut was a number 1 album in 2016, but he followed that up with an album that missed the top 75 entirely, and then released a third album called “Nobody is Listening” which actually did rather better – it got to number 17 – but still got him dropped by RCA. He’s now in his thirties and has understandably tacked to country-ish MOR.

7. Beth Gibbons – “Lives Outgrown”

Technically the first solo album from the former lead singer of Portishead. She has released a couple of collaboration albums outside Portishead, though: “Out of Season”, with Rustin Man, reached number 28 in 2002 and did okay internationally; and she reached number 35 in 2019 with a live recording of Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No 3 alongside the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra. That album was recorded in 2014, and she seems to have done very little else since then, aside from guesting on a Kendrick Lamar album track.

8. Slash – “Orgy of the Damned”

It’s one of those “covers of standards with guest singers” records. Technically this is the second solo album credited simply to “Slash” – the first being a self-titled album that reached number 17 in 2010 – but he’s also released multiple albums as “Slash’s Snakepit” and “Slash featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators”.

10. Michael Head and the Red Elastic Band – “Loophole”

This is the third album by Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band, though Head also released a 1997 album as “Michael Head introducing the Strands”, two albums in the mid-1980s with the Pale Fountains, and another five with Shack. The previous album got to number 6 in 2022, far and away the highest chart position of his career, and this isn’t too far behind.

30. Clavish – “Chapter 16”

Clavish is a UK rapper who’s had the occasional hit single, usually as a guest with bigger names like D-Block Europe. His previous mixtape, 2023’s “Rap Game Awful”, reached number 4 – this is obviously way, way lower.

39. Girls Aloud – “Ten”

This is their 2012 career retrospective. It’s here because of the publicity for the reunion tour of the remaining four members (Sarah Harding having died in 2021).