So apparently Ellie Goulding is still a thing.

1. Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding – “Miracle”

That’s two weeks, which is way outperforming expectations. Ellie Goulding’s longest running number one was “Love Me Like You Do”, which had four weeks back in 2015. But her album “Higher Than Heaven” also enters the album chart at number one… despite it not including “Miracle” and having no hit singles of its own. That shouldn’t surprise me too much – four of Ellie Goulding’s five albums have now reached number one, and the fifth (2015’s “Delirium”) was just unlucky – it got to number 3 and actually had higher first week sales than the other four.

2020’s “Brightest Blue” did get to number one, and couldn’t get any singles into the top 75 either. None of the singles from “Higher Than Heaven” have actually made the top 100. This was the lead single from the album, which you’ve almost certainly never heard before. It came out nine months ago. To be fair, it was a moderate hit in some European countries. It reached number 11 in Finland.

5.  Drake – “Search & Rescue”

Yes, that’s the whole video.

Drake can still reliably get his major singles into the top 5, but it’s maybe worth noting that he hasn’t actually had a number one since “Toosie Slide” in 2020. Apparently the hook for this single is that it has the voices of Kim Kardashian and Kris Jenner on it. Don’t worry, they’re not singing. It’s a sample from Keeping Up With the Kardashians where Kardashian is talking about her divorce from Kanye West. I gather this is very exciting to those who follow this kind of thing more closely.

26. David Guetta, Anne-Marie & Coi Leray – “Baby Don’t Hurt Me”

If thought David Guetta covering “Blue” was boring, well, here he is having a crack at Haddaway’s “What is Love?” (number 2 in 1993).  The sort of record that can most charitably be described as “superfluous”, the most notable thing about this is that it gives Coi Leray a second hit to follow “Players” (which is at number 37 this week).

34. Fifty Fifty – “Cupid”

Debut hit for another K-pop group. This is where I normally say that the track is boosted by first-week sales and will probably vanish next week, but in fact, this is already in its third week, and it’s climbing from number 61 – it actually has some viral traction and could go further. There is an English language version of this, though apparently it only features two of the band members.

The official explanation of the band name is that they’re half dream and half reality, or something like that. According to Google Translate: “Just as life coexists with bright hopeful ideals and painful and difficult realities, the album to be presented by Fifty Fifty contains both vague anxiety and exciting expectations about the life that will unfold.”

35. Morgan Wallen – “Last Night”

Blimey, country music. Wallen’s album “One Thing At A Time” reached number 40 in March, but this is his first appearance on the album chart. Wallen is a former Voice contestant, but that was back in 2014. He’s been big in America for a while, notwithstanding being caught on tape being racist in 2021. Todd In The Shadows has a 20 minute video on this song – mostly about that last thing and why Morgan Waller is still around – which, like most of his essays, is worth your time.

This week’s climbers:

• “People” by Libianca climbs 4-2.
• “Forget Me” by Lewis Capaldi – a former number 1 – is a re-entry at number 8, and “Pointless” re-enters at number 17, on the back of a Netflix special. (“How I’m Feeling Now” also rebounds from 37-24, and the album “Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent” rebounds from 17 to number 4.)
• “Hell N Back” by Bakar climbs 28-20.
• “Can’t Tame Her” by Zara Larsson climbs 27-25.

Six tracks leave the top 40:

• “Eat Your Young” by Hozier got three weeks peaking at 22.
• “Oh Baby” by Nathan Dawe & Bru-C featuring bshp & Issey Cross has popped into the top 40 twice now, for single weeks in the mid 30s.
• “Made You Look” by Meghan Trainor reached number 2.
• “Labour” by Paris Paloma got two weeks peaking at 29.
• “Dogtooth” by Tyler, the Creator got a week at number 39.
• “Flower” by Jsoo got a week at number 38.

On the album chart, number 1 is “Higher Than Heaven” by Ellie Goulding, but we’ve covered that.

2. NF – “Hope”

Ah, the former Christian rapper who escaped into the mainstream. This is his sixth album (if you count one that he released under his real name right at the start of his career), the third to chart in the UK, and his first time in the top 5. The lead single is actually pretty good.

7. Linkin Park – “Meteora”

20th anniversary reissue. It was a number 1 album on release. “Somewhere I Belong” was the biggest hit single from the album, reaching number 10.

12. Daughter – “Stereo Mind Game”

Finally for this week, indie folk. It’s their third album; the first two made 16 and 17 respectively.