Welcome to James Masterton's Chart Watch UK – your essential weekly deep dive into the Official UK Charts!
As the longest-running British music column online, we bring you the ultimate guide to this week's Top 40, unraveling the stories behind the biggest new singles and chart-topping hits. Plus, explore our extensive archives, a treasure trove of nearly 1800 articles documenting three and a half decades of popular music history and expert analysis.
It was a Thriller of a week. Golden spends at 10th week at No.1, Lily Allen is back in the Top 10 for the first time in over a decade. But despite the calendar being unkind to them, the Halloween hits make quite the splash. Including Michael Jackson's Thriller landing its highest chart position ever. Told you he's not like other guys.
Dave. Dave? DAVE! Oh, there you are. Another new album, another huge sale. And doing things on the singles chart that puts you on a par with Stormzy. Plus, we need to talk about Lily.
Three is once more the magic number. Three weeks for Taylor, three chart hits for Huntr/X (that's them over there again) and but for the presence of RAYE we would have just three different acts occupying rungs of the Top 10. Strange times we live in.
You may not realise it, but this lady is now on the verge of becoming the biggest of big deals. And she has one of this week's big new entries. Meanwhile the reign of Taylor Swift continues almost unopposed. But there are still new demon hunting tracks to be discovered.
