It’s the end of January and the charts are now firmly back in their normal rhythm.

1. Noah Kahan – “Stick Season”

Four weeks, and having seen off Ariana Grande, he seems to be settling in for the long haul. This week’s biggest challenge, for example, comes from…

5. Noah Kahan & Sam Fender – “Homesick”

This is the latest in a series of reissues of Kahan’s album tracks with guest verses by other singers – basically the equivalent of the single remix with the guest rapper. This time it’s Sam Fender, who understandably has completely different lyrics for his verse because he plainly did not grow up in New England. They didn’t change the chorus, though, making him a weird fit.

As spillover, Fender’s big hit “Seventeen Going Under” re-enters at number 35. And even without an album release, Kahan now has three singles in the top 40, the third being “Northern Attitude”, rebounding from 32 to 29 this week.

18. Benson Boone – “Beautiful Things”

Benson Boone is big on TikTok, and had a previous hit in 2022 with “In the Stars”. That reached number 22 in the UK, and did respectably in other parts of Europe – it was a top 10 hit in Ireland, Norway and Sweden. Several singles since then haven’t done a great deal, but he gets a second (and slightly bigger) hit with this. It’s pretty decent.

26. Ella Henderson featuring Rudimental – “Alibi”

Yes, we’ve reached the point where sampling Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” is acceptable. It was number 1 for two weeks in 1995. Coolio in turn got it from Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise”, a 1976 album track, but “Alibi” is clearly taking it via Coolio rather than direct from source.

34. Becky Hill & Sonny Fodera – “Never Be Alone”

Becky Hill’s chart positions are very erratic, because she’s not an act with a big personal following so much as a jobbing diva who turns up on an awful lot of dance tracks that sell on their individual merits. Her last single “Disconnect” made number 6; the one before that, “Side Effects”, number 35. This is pretty routine, so I’d place it in the latter camp, but you never know.

Sonny Fodera gets a second UK hit to follow on “Asking”, the collaboration with MK and Clementine Douglas that reached the top 10 last year.

36. David Kushner – “Skin and Bones”

David Kushner was unlucky not to get a number 1 hit last year with “Daylight”, which spent five weeks at number 2. This is… “Daylight” with more God. A lot more God. I’m not sure how many UK listeners actually identify with “I want to sleep with this woman but she is clearly a deceiver sent to lure me from the path of salvation” – which is only barely a paraphrase of the lyrics. And frankly, it’s getting quite firmly into “um, do you have a problem with women” territory. So… yeah, I’ll be surprised if this can repeat “Daylight”‘s success.

39. Kygo & Ava Max – “Whatever”

Kygo last had a hit remixing Tina Turner in 2020; before that, he was remixing Whitney Houston in 2019. This time, he’s got Ava Max in to do what’s basically a cover of Shakira’s 2002 number 2 hit “Whenever, Wherever”. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would listen to this when the original exists, unless they’re just too young to know it.

Ava Max had a number 1 hit with “Sweet But Psycho” in 2018, but she really has been struggling to follow that up. After three solo top 20 hits in 2019-2021, she showed up on a Tiesto song that got to number 12 in 2022 and hasn’t had a hit since. None of the singles from her second album even made the top 75.

This week’s climbers:

• “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield climbs 18-13.
• “Never Lose Me” by Flo Milli climbs 24-17
• “Angel Numbers / Ten Toes” by Chris Brown climbs 35-31, finally passing the number 32 peak of its first appearance on chart in November.
• “Toxic” by Songer climbs 39-32.

The seven tracks leaving the top 40 are:

• “Black Friday” by Tom Odell, which re-entered for a single week at 31; it peaked at 21 in October.
• “Vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo, with three weeks in its post-Christmas run.
• “Practice” by Drake, after two weeks, peaking at 27.
• “Body Moving” by Eliza Rose & Calvin Harris, after three weeks, peaking at 34.
• “Surround Sound” by JID featuring 21 Savage & Baby Tate, after three weeks, peaking at 35.
• “Nee-Nah” by 21 Savage featuring Travis Scott & Metro Boomin, after a single week at 23.
• “N.H.I.E.” by 21 Savage featuring Doja Cat, after a single week at 27.

On the album chart:

1.  Green Day – “Saviors”

Green Day’s fifth number 1 album. The others were “American Idiot” (2004), “21st Century Breakdown” (2009), “Revolution Radio” (2016) and “Father of All…” (2020). Basically, they’ve become one of those legacy acts who can be pretty confident of getting a week at number 1 in the declining album market.

11. Neck Deep – “Neck Deep”

Welsh band who’ve been around in one form or another since 2012. This is their fifth album, but the first to chart. It’s also their first album without their original drummer, who must be wondering what the hell the listening public had against him.

19. Saxon – “Hell, Fire and Damnation”

Well, that is… certainly in line with my expectations from a Saxon track called “Hell, Fire and Damnation”. This is their 24th studio album, and comes in two places below its predecessor, 2022’s “Carpe Diem”.