Expecations Fulfilled
Any feeling of ennui you may discern from these weekly words is not down to any lack of love for either the product or the music in the charts. But perhaps wistful longing for the days when things were fast moving, and each new singles sales countdown not only enabled the celebration of the biggest hits, but also gave a regular flavour of something new and exciting. So when we go through periods of largely the same old shit week in week out, you can't help but feel something is lacking.
But that makes it all the more refreshing, even more of a novelty when things start to move. When exciting new pop records achieve a cut-through that they so richly deserve. A combination of some random ACR drops and the genuine viral popularity of pop music that's exciting and new to many of us means there is a freshness to at least part of this week's Top 10. And so if that's to be the theme of the week, then so be it. Big up to the new boys.
That's not to say we don't have some degree of consistency at the top end. Unlike the last few weeks the destination of the No.1 accolade was obvious pretty much from the start. Great Expectation from Sienna Spiro has now opened up a lead over the competition which made a third straight week at No.1 more or less a given. Sales overall are still stubbornly low, admittedly. The track this week pulls in a mere 26,900 sales, another new low for the year and so yet again the lowest total for a No.1 single since Viva La Vida back in 2008. But even if Reign Me In had still escaped ACR and was still clogging up the No.1 position, it too would be on a mere 36,000 units. No.1 by default rather than down to any semblance of mass appeal. The singles market overall seems to be missing some 5 million units since the high point at the start of the summer, and nobody can truly explain why.
This does all mean the door is open for Taylor Swift to potentially waltz through and top the charts next week. Don't say you weren't warned.
Ominous...
For now we have a quite intriguing Top 3. The blues and soul revivalism of Sienna Spiro at the top and two American neo-country stars at 2 and 3, Ella Langley and Stella Lefty lining up in order. The three preside over a Top 6 made up entirely of female solo artists (the first time this has happened since 2023), male stars accounting for precisely 25% of the credited performers in the Top 10 overall.
One of the biggest gainers of the week is Adela, the trap beats of Nicole Kidman leapfrogging the track's predecessor Ain't In LA once and for all with a massive climb to No.4. Those who love weird facts will enjoy that this is I think the biggest hit single named after another former No.1 hitmaker since Charlie Puth and Meghan Trainor's Marvin Gaye topped the listings itself in 2015.
Also - gloriously - new to the Top 10 is Jamie Miller's Babydoll. With the uncredited Antonio Cipriano in tow, the uplifting love song that itself has marched straight out of the mid-teens now rockets 24-8 in what we once upon a time would call the week's highest climber. Bright, breezy and sounding at home on Radio 1, Capital and Heart all at the same time. It may be one of the most perfectly pitched pop records of the year, even if it doesn't necessarily break any new ground. Or perhaps that is part of the appeal - it is comfortably in line with all of our expectations.
More Worship
A word too for the fifth of five non-movers of this otherwise dynamic-looking Top 10: Stop The Wedding from Ashe holds steady at No.9, although I stand by my social media predictions this week that this is destined for No.1 at some stage. It is Bennie And The Jets as performed by Abba and arranged by Carol Bayer Sager and with an emotional climax to rival any Olivia Rodrigo track. That's what makes it so compelling, and why it is playing on repeat both in my head and on my devices.
But to complete the refreshed and overhauled Top 10, let us also welcome Sombr and My Body Isn't Ready which makes a 16-10 leap of its own after what has already been an epic 12 week chart journey (it first made the Top 30 back in July!). Like so many of his hits, it comes across as so low key you barely notice it is there before his ability to wrap an emotion-plucking chorus around a tune ensures it is buried into your brain. And most crucially in this day and age, in a "let's listen to that again" kind of way. That's actually quite the skill. My Body Isn't Ready is now his fifth Top 10 single, his second of 2026.
Smouldering
Lower down, it has been a good week for Noah Kahan. Orbiter jumps 22-18 to reach a brand new peak of its own after four months milling around. That brief surge can be explained with the release of a new physical format, but it is less obvious why Willing And Able (another track from his The Great Divide album) makes a 35-21 surge of its own. Perhaps finally crossing over as a streaming hit after scuttling around the lower reaches on and off since May.
Speaking of slow burners, we should pay due tribute to Self Aware by Temper City which has become one of those tracks which finds a groove in mid-table and sits in it for months on end - always avoiding the scourge of ACR along the way. The track is No.24 this week, one place below its peak so far which it scaled some five weeks ago. This is the track's tenth straight week as a Top 30 single, its 21st in a row as a Top 40 hit and 27th in the Top 100. Consider yourself no longer unaware.
Prospering
Electronic duo Prospa reached No.6 back in July with Free Your Mind, a track which gave a co-credit to fellow club producer Cloonee (but notably not house legend Sybil whose interpolated vocals from her 1993 track Oh, How I Love You formed the core of the track). The collaborators are back on the Top 40 this week but this time with the credits reversed as Good Girl lists "Cloonee & Prospa" as the artists. This is another slow burner; its appearance at No.29 comes after an eight week chart run that only edged towards the Top 40 in the last couple of weeks. This time around the vocals are an original work, performed by the American-born Tristan Henry who has been the club producer's voice of choice for the last 4-5 years but who until now has never featured on a credited chart hit.
Oldies But Goodies?
The lower end of the Top 40 remains an intriguing mix of the old and new. Nine of the songs occupying rungs 25-40 are revived hits from various bygone ages. Who would have thought when Katy Perry's The One That Got Away (released in 2011) debuted a new edit of its video back in May that it would still be scuttling around the Top 30 over five months later.
My last few hours of listening have been devoted to the work of Beabadoobie, top of the albums chart with her new recording Pylon. She is always a fascinating diversion, her style hurtling between the bedroom pop for which she first came to online attention at the turn of the decade and the more upbeat jangly indie-pop she clearly would much rather be famous for. The new album is very much in the latter camp and duly lands her a second No.1 album in a row, hard(ish) on the heels of 2024's This Is How Tomorrow Moves.
