When All This Was Fields
It was exactly one year ago next week that Taylor Swift achieved an accolade that had previously eluded her - the chart Grand Slam. Topping the albums chart and occupying the whole of the singles chart Top 3. That she came within an ace of doing so this week is not the extraordinary bit. It is that she nearly did so with songs from the same damn album.
I'm still allowed to be a little cynical about the whole concept of a "special edition" of an album. Particularly one that comes so long after the original. A collection of new songs (four in this case, although of course only three are eligible to chart at once) which apparently weren't good enough to make the final cut of the original. And yet we are obliged to feel privileged for finally being able to consume them. But then again of all Taylor Swift's gimmicks, her role as undisputed Queen of the multi-format means that a one-year anniversary re-working of the tracklisting of The Life Of A Showgirl was still nothing less than we expected.
And the charts this week are the result of this new promotional push. The Life Of A Showgirl returns to No.1 for a third spell on top, and for the first time since November 2025. Released, as noted, a year ago this coming week, this is its 51st week as a chart album - the missing one being w/e September 10th when it fell out of the Top 100 for the first and only time.
The three eligible tracks from the special edition land on the Official UK Singles chart at 1, 3 and 4 respectively - denied the clean sweep by a still strong Sienna Spiro who rallied during the week to retain runners-up and presumably in pole position to reclaim her chart crown next time out.
The biggest of Swift's three is the one that was always pushed as the primary one, complete with star-studded video. Patient Zero becomes her third No.1 single of 2026 (following Opalite and I Knew It I Knew You) but perhaps more notably her fourth No.1 hit in the space of 12 months by the narrowest of narrow squeaks. This too is one of the more underrated "ultimate" chart feats as it requires both a swift (if you will pardon the pun) turnover of hit singles and of course for them all to take turns to top the pile in rapid succession. Swift is the first artist to achieve this since Bruno Mars in 2010 and 2011 - and he too landed his fourth exactly 52 weeks after his first.
Never Ending
Already her only album to spawn two No.1 hit singles, The Life Of A Showgirl extends that to three. This is now the fifth time Taylor Swift has done the chart double, topping both singles and albums charts simultaneously. But as if to indicate how much the 2020s have been her era, these doubles have come in every one of the last five years: 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and now 2026.
Her other two hits of the week are Cleveland at No.3 and Babylon at No.4. But can we now say the quiet part out loud? None of them are actually very good are they? Each song in turn a continuing development on the theme of "I was a sad lonely girl but then Travis came and moustached his way to my heart". It is at the point where it becomes tedious. Just think, in 5-6 years we may have to sit through an entire cycle of songs about her divorce.
Paused, But Not Halted
With three new entries appearing at the top, the forward momentum of everything else in the Top 10 is halted for the moment. But if you apply a few mental filters you can still see the songs closing in on further success. Jamie Miller's Babydoll only slides 2 places to No.8 - meaning it would have risen to a new peak in a Taylor Swift-free world. It is also notably the only Top 10 single not performed by a solo female artist. In other good news, Stop The Wedding by Ashe posts a mere 1 place fall - translating to a two place climb in the alternate universe. I will manifest this to the top of the charts in time for the Christmas rush, you see if I don't.
Amusingly the one thing the Taylor Swift invasion has done is brought to a shuddering halt the Top 10 run of Rein Me In, the Sam Fender and Olivia Dean megahit falling to a 2026 low of No.12. It means its all-time record for consecutive weeks in the upper reaches is now printed at 39 weeks. And where you suspect it may stay for some time to come. It should however next week equal Alex Warren's record for most consecutive weeks in the Top 20 and seems destined to break and extend it.
Mad Fer Mads
Were there any other ways you could tell that Taylor Swift had new songs out? Possibly by the way nobody else found it worthwhile to push anything new. A dearth of much resembling new material is the result. The highest "new" entry is Danceteria from Madonna, a track from her Confessions II album which you may recall had a brief cup of coffee at the bottom of the Top 40 back in the summer. No.38 first time around, it now charges back to life at No.22, all thanks to a new mix which adds in some Charli XCX vocals.
Cheeky
We sometimes talk here about "momentum" as if it is a thing and as if it is an guaranteed indication of future performance. Which it mostly isn't, but sometimes can be. So an 80-36 leap by a single is worth noting at the very least. Mi Chico is the track in question, credited to Romanian producer DJ Gota, Brazilian female star Melody and a certain Jason Derulo who duly lands his first Top 40 hit since 2021 and his biggest charting record since 2020's Take You Dancing. The latter hit spent six months on the charts and peaked at No.7, yet I guarantee many have memory-holed it. And there is possibly a good reason for this. Earlier this summer I was talking to Simon Clarke from the DJ Teams music selection tool who noted that their data shows that few people request DJs play hits from the pandemic era. Because nobody went out clubbing at that time, nobody has formed any proper emotional connection to the music from that time.
Go Elsewhere
This piece is out of necessity low on content this week, so to satisfy your cravings here is an interesting bit of further reading. With Choosin' Texas setting records for No.1 tenancies in America, the experts at Billboard are asking themselves the same questions we did a month or so back - just how has one single managed the kind of stranglehold that nobody else has managed in the whole of chart history. Among their conclusions they note the decline of curated playlist streaming for "lean back" consumers (those who don't primarily make active music choices) and the switch to more algorithmic means of music curation. Machines don't (yet) know that a song might be burning out or have overstayed its welcome. The more people who choose to sit through it, the more people it is subsequently served to.
