Well, at least nothing’s happening on the chart.

1. Carolina Gaitan, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero & Stephanie Beatriz – “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”

That’s seven weeks at number one. All three Encanto songs are still in the top 10, with “Surface Pressure” at 5 and “The Family Madrigal” at 10 – the other two do seem to have peaked, though. And our highest new entry is…

25. Central Cee – “Straight Back To It”

Ah, filming your video at Chelsea’s stadium. Good week for that. Anyway, this is the last in a veritable barrage of singles that Central Cee has released in support of his album “23”, which enters at number 1 – his debut last year, “Wild West”, was a number 2 album. Central Cee has really churned out the supporting singles for this album, which is an interesting technique – “Straight Back To It” is his fifth top 40 hit of the year. One was the “Daily Duppy” freestyle (number 35), but the four proper singles all landed between 21 and 25. No guest stars on any of them, either – Central Cee has appeared as a guest on the D-Block Europe song “Overseas” (currently at 9), but he’s unusually un-keen on having other people on his own records.

One of those previous singles, “Khabib”, re-enters at number 36.

34. Becky Hill & Galantis – “Run”

Our only other new entry is… much what you’d expect from these guys, really. It’s uplifting, it’s a bit generic.

This week’s climbers:

• “Where Are You Now” by Lost Frequencies & Calum Scott climbs 4-3.
• “Make Me Feel Good” by Belters Only featuring Jazzy climbs 5-4. This is the latest low-budget video for it, but I assume they’ll do a proper one eventually.
• “Down Under” by Luude featuring Colin Day climbs 9-6.
• “Where Did You Go” by Jax Jones featuring MNEK climbs 23-11.
• “Boyfriend” by Dove Cameron climbs 16-13.
• “Anyone for You” by George Ezra climbs 25-16. That’s finally getting somewhere.
• “The Motto” by Tiesto & Ava Max climbs 22-19 to enter the top 20 after a slow start – it’s been out for 13 weeks now.
• “Do It To It” by Acraze featuring Cherish re-enters at number 28, which is because they released the Tiesto remix. It’s not that different to the original, but it’s put a bit of life into the track.
• “Go” by Cat Burns climbs 34-24.
• “Numb Little Bug” by Em Beihold climbs 36-31 and seems like it might be building some momentum.
• “Used to This” by Wilkinson & Issey Cross climbs 39-37.
• “BMW” by the Bad Boy Chiller Crew climbs 40-38.

Four tracks leave the chart (elbowed out by the two new entries, plus the re-entries for Acraze and the second Central Cee song).

• “I Drink Wine” by Adele, which peaked at number 4 in its first week back at the start of December.
• “Sacrifice” by the Weeknd, which I’d forgotten was even still in the chart. It lasted eight weeks and peaked at number 10.
• “I Wish” by Joel Corry featuring Mabel, which must have been hit by the downweighting rule, since it drops 24-65.
• “Sweet Talker” by Years & Years featuring Galantis, which is probably in the same boat, dropping 33-80.

The album chart is a bit busier. “23” by Central Cee is number 1, but we’ve covered that.

2. Tears for Fears – “The Tipping Point”

This is the first new Tears for Fears album in 18 years. It’s their highest position since their 1980s heyday – their chart positions fell off a cliff after 1995, though a re-issue of “The Seeds of Love” got to number 13 in 2020. The single above is way better than I was expecting.

3. Avril Lavigne – “Love Sux”

That’s her highest position since 2007, when she got her last number one album. To be fair, her 2019 album “Head Above Water” got to number 10, but it dropped straight out of the top 40 the next week. I suspect this one will too, but you never know. The single’s actually not bad at all, but it does feel like a song written for a teenager, and Avril Lavigne is 37.

4. Johnny Marr – “Fever Dreams Pts 1-4”

That’s his highest position for a solo album, though not by much – all his solo albums have reached the top 10, aside from a live album that sank without trace in 2015.

10. Gang of Youths – “Angel in Realtime”

Australian indie. This is their third studio album, but the first to chart in the UK.

17. Beth Hart – “A Tribute to Led Zeppelin”

Covers albums tend to be viewed as side projects and place lower, but this is actually Beth Hart’s highest placing album, beating 2019’s “War in my Mind” by two places.

18. The Scorpions – “Rock Believer”

File under “are they still going”. A lot of legacy acts have done well on the album chart in recent years, being less affected by the decline of the market. Even so, the Scorpions are quite an extreme case. They stopped having even top 100 albums back in the 1990s, even though they were still releasing records fairly consistently, and finally clawed their way back into the top 40 with 2015’s “Return to Forever” (which managed a week at number 31). This is the first album they’ve released since then.

31. Bakar – “Nobody’s Home”

Debut album. Gosh, that single takes forever to get going properly.

37. Half Man Half Biscuit – “The Voltarol Years”

Only the second time that Half Man Half Biscuit have made the albums top 40, amazingly. The other one was their previous album, 2018’s “No-One Cares About Your Creative Hub So Get Your Fuckin’ Hedge Cut”, which got to number 33.