In which a couple of surprise releases avoid a completely dead week.

1. Kate Bush – “Running Up That Hill”

Two weeks. It’s actually slightly up from last week, but I suspect that’s driven partly by the publicity from it actually making number one last week.

7. Drake featuring 21 Savage – “Jimmy Cooks”
8. Drake – “Massive”
10. Drake – “Falling Back”

These are the maximum three tracks from the surprise release of Drake’s album “Honestly Nevermind”, which enters the album chart at number… oh, number two. Okay. His last two albums both made number one, and I’d have thought he could take Harry Styles in his fifth week on release. Apparently not – though it was extremely close, at the equivalent of 350 sales. Oddly, the official single comes only comes in third. I can’t quite figure out whether the video is intentionally or unintentionally disturbing. There’s a bit of a turn towards dance music going here, but Drake still leaves me cold for the most part.

21 Savage gets his second top ten hit, after guesting on Post Malone’s “Rockstar” in 2017.

21. Beyoncé – “Break My Soul”

Another surprise release – and a midweek one, so its position is probably understated. Beyoncé hasn’t had a top 40 hit since 2017, when she guested on Eminem’s “Walk On Water”; her last hit under her own power was in 2016. That’ll happen when you start releasing records exclusively on minor platforms like Tidal. She’s not made that mistake twice.

Oh… and I should have picked up on this last week, but Ed Sheeran’s “2 Step” dropped out of the top 10 last week. That puts an end to an uninterrupted run of “at least one Ed Sheeran single in the top 10” which stretches back to the release of “Bad Habits” in the first week of July 2021.

This week’s climbers:

• “Afraid to Feel” by LF System climbs 4-3.
• “Green Green Grass” by George Ezra climbs 6-5.
• “Glimpse of Us” by Joji climbs 31-14, so it looks to be heading for the top 10.
• “Stay the Night” by Sigala & Talia Mar climbs 40-28. Apparently it got some exposure on Love Island.

The four tracks leaving the top 40 are:

• “Shivers” by Ed Sheeran, which had four weeks at number 1 last autumn and has been in the top 40 for all but one week since (it was elbowed out in the Christmas deluge).
• “First Class” by Jack Harlow, which reached 2.
• “Bam Bam” by Camila Cabello featuring Ed Sheeran, which got to 7.
• “Yet to Come” by BTS, who got a week at number 27, and clearly didn’t get any traction beyond their fanbase.

On the album chart, Harry Styles’ “Harry’s House” returns to number one for a third week, with Drake at number 2.

3. Foals – “Life Is Yours”

Continuing a clean sweep of top 10 studio albums. Their previous album got to number 1, but five straight top 3 albums is pretty good.

12. David Bowie – “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars”

50th anniversary reissue. It got to number 5 the first time around.

21. Queen – “The Platinum Collection”

Another vinyl reissue. It’s just their first three greatest hits albums packaged together, originally as a box set in 2000.

23. Jessie Buckley & Bernard Butler – “For All Our Days That Tear The Heart”

Yes, that’s the Irish actress and the guitarist from Suede.

27. The Nova Twins – “Supernova”

Their second album, their first to chart. They’re a rock duo, and gosh, they’ve spent a lot on that video for a band who get to number 27 on the album chart.