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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 18/07/2026 (Olivia Rodrigo, Poppy Baskcomb, Josh Baker)

“Rein Me In” by Sam Fender and Olivia Dean spends an 17th week at #1, overtaking Bryan Adams and looking to overtake Frankie Laine’s “I Believe” from 1953 for the longest-running UK Singles Chart #1 of all time next week. For now, welcome back to this “Spanish” episode of REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

content warning: language, references to self-harm, abusive relationships, sex work

Rundown

As always, we start this week with our notable dropouts, which are songs exiting the UK Top 75 (that’s what I cover) after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This episode, we bid farewell to: “Bring Your Love” by Madonna and Sabrina Carpenter, “Baby Steps” by Olivia Dean, “Like a Prayer” by Josh Fawaz featuring our robot overlords, “Cinderella” by the late Mac Miller featuring Ty Dolla $ign, “Hit the Wall” by Gracie Abrams, “National Treasures” by Drake, “Baby” by Prospa and Murda Beatz, former #1 “drop dead” by Olivia Rodrigo (thanks to the three-song rule, more on her later), “Go” by The Chemical Brothers featuring Q-Tip, “Stateside” by PinkPantheress, carried to its chart success by a viral remix with Zara Larsson (and not so much the versions with Kylie Minogue, Groove Armada or, of course, Bladee).

As for our returns, let’s talk a little bit about the FIFA World Cup – sure, it was a disappointment this week against Argentina, and now seemingly a political incident, but that doesn’t stop songs from resurging and thankfully, I do have an episode that covers many of those songs. It was a fun episode to write back in July 2021 during the Euros, you can read about some of the football anthems here, though not all of them were covered. As for songs I already covered back then in that episode (or elsewhere), “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers is up to #42 (I’m counting it here), “Sweet Caroline” by Neil Diamond is back at #35, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” by Shakira and Freshlyground is up to #26 and “Vindaloo” by Fat Les is back at #20.

One that seems to have been adopted this year more than usual – or at least enough this time to chart again – is “Hey Jude” by The Beatles, back this week at #24 thanks to fans chanting the name of footballer Jude Bellingham. Originally written by Paul McCartney to console John Lennon’s son Julian over his mum and Lennon splitting, it can now console fans of the England football team over our loss to VARgentina. Now for that time every other episode where I go scouring through the Official Charts Company database! For “Hey Jude”, it’s decently simple, spending two weeks at #1 in 1968, dethroning the Bee Gees’ “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You” and blocking “Those Were the Days” by Mary Hopkin which would soon get six weeks at #1 of its own. The original recording has returned a few times – 1976 when a re-release peaked at #12, 1988 when a reissue hit #52, 2010 when it reached as high as #40 and 2024 when it didn’t get even close to the higher reaches of the chart at #94. “Hey Jude” technically did make it back to the #1 spot in 2009 – for another two weeks no less – as one of the songs in Peter Kay’s Children in Need medley sung by the “Animated All-Stars” (essentially, Britain’s biggest cartoons). You’ll recognise more of the singers in that children’s song than in the song it took #1 away from: The X Factor finalists from that year’s season covering MJ’s “You are Not Alone”. Bob the Builder and co. also blocked Rihanna’s “Russian Roulette” from #1. Aside from that novelty, “Hey Jude” was covered – not long after release – by US soul singer Wilson Pickett, for a #16 peak in 1969 whilst Amen Corner’s “(If Paradise is) Half as Nice” was #1, and that’s all I can find from my decent but admittedly brief search – there could very well be more samples, remixes or other renditions of “Hey Jude” out there that have charted briefly in the UK.

Outside of football, we have one of the greatest UK #1s of the 1980s returning due to its artist sadly passing away on July 8th: “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler is back at #29. Jim Steinman wrote an over-the-top song elevated by part-dreamy, part-cheesy pop rock production, but it’s Tyler’s raspier conviction that sells the drama and gives the power ballad the weighty release. A massive song, one I remember hearing all my childhood, and a massive hit all the same: one of the best-selling singles of all time, one of the UK’s top favourite 80s songs, “Total Eclipse” hit #1 the year of release in 1983. Tyler knocked off a song also charting right now coincidentally, “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson, from the top spot in her first week and blocked Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” from #1 in the second (interesting coincidence that both this and “Hey Jude” spent two weeks at #1). Though it soon left the chart, it would, like “Hey Jude”, return to the top 10 in other forms, with Tyler’s original recording only making brief returns in 2008 and 2010 (the highest it reached during this time was #57). In 1994, years before her Eurovision bid, English singer Nicki French released a dance cover of the song that peaked at #5 for three weeks in 1995 (during which, Rednex’s “Cotton Eye Joe” and Céline Dion’s “Think Twice” were #1). German DJ Jan Wayne released a trance rendition of “Total Eclipse” sung by Lena that peaked at #28 in 2003 (whilst Gareth Gates’ The Kumars-backed “Spirit in the Sky” cover was #1) and finally, the Glee cast got their hands on it for a #9 peak in 2010. Roll Deep’s “Good Times” was #1 that week and “Total Eclipse” hadn’t charted since that year to my knowledge in the main UK Singles Chart, and thankfully nor did David Guetta’s unfortunate remix last year. Oh, and “Nice to Each Other” by Olivia Dean is also back this week once again to #62, sure.

Then as for our notable gains, for songs already charting that is, we see boosts for “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac at #69, “MORNING DEW (DONK)” by Beyoncé off of the debut to #60 (wouldn’t mind this being a slow burn hit at all), “Sue me” by Audrey Hobert at #54, “Satisfy” by Calvin Harris and Jazzy at #43, “bloodstream” by Alyssa Grace at #36, “Blessings” by Calvin Harris and Clementine Douglas at #28, “Great Expectations” by SIENNA SPRIO at #22 and, unfortunately, “Movin’ to the Sun” by HUGEL, Imael Angel and Ultra Naté at #16, though there are some brief notable gains above in the next section.

Our top five on the UK Singles Chart starts with this year’s kind of pathetic FIFA World Cup anthem “Dai Dai” by Shakira and Burna Boy up to #5 for obvious reasons, “Talk to You” by ANOTR and 54 Ultra up to #4, “Three Lions” by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds up big to #3 (that won’t last) and, speaking of not lasting, “Wonderwall” by Oasis is at #2, for now, with “Rein Me In” at the very top. Now to sift through the new entries below…

New Entries

#68 – “misery.” – pupsies

Produced by Goetia and/or pupsies and Elujjin

With other songs titled “my femcel life” and “Instagram reels!”, I feel like I knew exactly what kind of young, five layers of irony scene revival artist we were getting with this one, as pupsies, who started making music when she was just 16 in 2023, gets a sleeper hit with “misery.”, a song from March that got so big that pupsies can no longer edit her own lyrics on Genius, much to her discontent. I used to be a bit of a connoisseur of this trend out of a morbid curiosity for people experiencing a nostalgia of that era and subculture much differently than mine, though I’ve moved on from that crop of artists as we got further from the pandemic. Spotify credits the production to “Goetia”, but Genius credits it to pupsies herself and a Kazakh producer Elujjin – maybe Goetia is their group name, who knows?

Either way, the song is well over two minutes which honestly surprised me. I figured we’d be dealing with a fast-paced one-and-done track but this is actually much more thought through than I expected or many might give credit, with a slower sprawl of chiptune synths and pleading delivery mixing small emo inflections into an Uffie-like speak-singing full of run-on sentences that, even with assumingly punching in or stringing together takes, leaves pupsies a little bit breathless and for a song like this, it’s great to hear those moments of exhaustion, with the bubbles of 8-bit melodies crawling over the song before a looming, basic and factorial drum pattern takes slow bites of whatever is left of pupsies’ energy, her vocal soon drowned out by everything else. She reminds me of 8485 but ridding much of the modern, cleaned-up pop and EDM influences that bring convention to the songs by embracing the rawer, MySpace-era bitpop, even down to awkwardly-mixed stock guitar riffs. The drop into a panicked scuttle of percussion in the pretty long second verse, before the guitars come in to push the song back into its place, and how that trade-off continues throughout the rest of the song, is one of the awkward genre-blending signatures of this kind of music that ends up as an amazing choice for a song about an unhealthy, seemingly abusive relationship, wherein pupsies is neglected outside of when her partner wants sex (“the kind where you are nice to me, but only in the evenings so I wish that I was dreaming” – some harrowing implications can be made there) and feels like their unconditional love for this person is getting overbearing and too much because he turns a blind eye to the passion and affection she shows him. The release that comes with the first acknowledgement that she’s left this guy, near the end of the manic of the second verse, really struck me and it hurts to hear the cycle return with the chorus, with the guitar taking up the space she now has to breathe.

Ms. pupsies sticks to one melody throughout much of the song so when she deviates for her last resort of self-harming to prove that she cares in hope for just a spark of that being mutual, it makes a lot of sense that the song never reaches that energy again, spiralling and twinkling (with melodies that remind me of RPGs and fairytales) into a whisper, you could even say that it bleeds out for what remains of the song. At the end of the day, though we don’t get to cover a lot of it on the show, I’m a sucker for angsty indietronica and emo-pop, this fits that bill, covers a narrative realistically and with stakes whilst doing it, has a solid performance from its lead… it checks all the boxes for me. And given how online pupsies seems to be still, she could potentially see this review – if you do, and even if you don’t, amazing song, I hope it continues to rise and I may have to check out the rest of the discography after this episode is written because it’s 100% up my alley.

#67 – “Zone” – MK and Poppy Baskcomb

Produced by MK and Punctual

American DJ Marc Kinchen is back with another song, this time recruiting writer and singer Poppy Baskcomb for a song that, according to Erick Ycaza, “serves housey vibes […] made for dancing in clubs, at the gym, or even around your house this summer”. Wow, tell me what else is new. Released this May, the song has accrued enough momentum to chart and whilst it’s nothing we haven’t heard from MK, it’s got plenty of colour in its loud stabs and rubbery synth bass backing Baskcomb’s filtered, potentially pitch-shifted vocals that see her doing a bit of a bratty, repetitive sing-rap about being in the zone at a club. It does remind me, both content-wise (the lack of) and in its cute but minimal, bassy house knock, of MK’s previous hit with CHRYSTAL, “Dior”, but “Zone” has plenty more to stand out, including a series of alarm sirens in the build-up and drop alike, an incessantly catchy stutter to Baskcomb’s hook and an energy less complacent in staying in place than CHRYSTAL would, especially in the honestly great bridge that filters the mix in a liquid haze, peppers additional vocal riffs and melodic patterns and reaches a crisp, bass groove before the netty four-on-the-floors can sneak themselves back in. That final build is what completes the song for me and makes the rest worthwhile, though it’s far from MK’s worst in the first place and is quite fun, though I’d like to know who exactly out of MK, Baskcomb, Punctual and co-writer Theo Hutchcraft is the “lyrical assassin” claimed in the lyrics. Maybe the GZA went uncredited. Check out the MJ Cole remix for an eerier, barebones take and Tom Budin’s if you’re into royalty-free background music and off-beat wubs.

#65 – “FREAKED OUT” – Fat Papi and prodshushy

Produced by Owen Omen and/or shushy

…Okay, I’ll bite: what? Who are Fat Papi and prodshushy, exactly, and what are they freaked out by? Is Nile Rodgers involved? Released on viral independent label Broke Records and credited as being produced by “Owen Omen” (despite the co-lead artist literally including the abbreviation ”Prod” in their name – a potentially official SoundCloud upload says it is “(prod. shushy)” so maybe this was a distribution issue), “FREAKED OUT” was released in June and gathered viral traction thanks to the bob hairstyle on TikTok. Sure. So, according to Kieran Galpin of The Tab, a TikToker Jocelyn Meiere pairs videos of her, ahem, “cunty bob” to the song, inspiring a “legion of bob baddies” and racking up streams for the song. This all sounds like paid promo to me, to be completely honest, though with the speed that random songs can gain traction on there thanks to whatever meme or trend, it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s organic. Fat Papi is a rapper and producer based in New Zealand and the song is pretty rote in terms of its alternative R&B vocal loop, fake snaps and melodic sing-rap flows about this woman who’s “the baddest in the world”. To be fair, there is some wit in how he raps “Every time we talk, baby, I get something new”, as if he’s appreciating their conversations when really, it’s just finding out different kinks she has since she’s “freaked out” and the main conceit of the song is essentially him pimping her out, with Fat Papi “[showing] her how to move [and] get that bag”, convincing her to shake her ass and film sex tapes with him to make cash and make her boyfriend (and ex-boyfriend) mad. There is a little sinister vibe to some of the pads, I don’t mind how the bouncier West Coast-influenced production drops into a trap beat and includes some great distorted yells at the back of the mix, but it doesn’t make that much of an impression outside of being cleanly produced. Fat Papi definitely doesn’t really have the charisma or slickness of, well, actual Fat Papis before him in rap, at least not enough to make for a convincing pimp. He sounds more like a sleazy Tory Lanez wannabe. And why would you want to be Tory Lanez?

#57 – “My Place” – Josh Baker and Poppy Baskcomb

Produced by Mark Ralph, Luca Cazal, Josh Baker

Already a “staple” in EDM producer and DJ Josh Baker’s sets, “My Place” with – making her second appearance on a dance hit this week – Poppy Baskcomb, who I assume we should now come to expect as a go-to dance vocalist, takes a “slightttt left turn” according to Lissy Lubeck (her emphasis, not mine). Said change seems to be embracing a more anthemic sound which is fair enough for the Summer and given I’ve liked his output thus far since he first charted, I had some hopes for this one. Sadly, it’s a little too conventional for me, feels like a little step back for Baker in terms of defining his sound as the muted keys on this one, its relaxed vibe that, with the addition of ATB guitar, could easily be pretty tropical, as well as the very typical, weightless build it has, all sound a little flat. Thankfully, the drop does bring with it some cheesy 80s electro synth riff that sounds like it wants to break out of the stock dance hit and go sit on some bassy funk grooves. Speaking of, Baskcomb’s vocal performance here is much better than in “Zone”, and we may as well compare them – most of the colour and atmosphere in “My Place” actually comes from her, at least to me, as she’s sleeker, emotive and almost seductive on this one, with her stray, echoed backing vocals and harmonic runs giving her the stylings of a more R&B-influenced house diva, which I hadn’t really thought would fit Baskcomb until this song. I do want to hear that version of this song that embraces those R&B and funk influences but I don’t think they jam the breezy pop of this one, it all falls nicely enough into place and I’m still interested to hear more from Josh Baker. I can see this sticking around for quite a while yet too – even if I’m not a fan, and I’m also terrible at predictions, I can sense hit potential in everything but the characterless cover art. I wouldn’t be mad either, it’s still solid.

#30 – “honeybee” – Olivia Rodrigo

Produced by Daniel Nigro

We get a fan favourite album cut from O-Rod’s you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, the ballad “honeybee”, which comes right after two big singles as the third track on the record. I’ve covered the album before in detail (so I will be a little briefer) but as for this one, the decision to have a slower ballad that early in the track listing actually struck me as really interesting, since the lovestruck anxiety of the previous singles almost loom over it during a full album listen. That’s despite Olivia calling it a “plain and simple” love song, as the serene strings and typical multi-tracked vocals from Olivia don’t seem to allow for much in the way of tension or uncertainty like its surrounding tracks, especially with the emphasis on innocence and one time even infantilisation. It’s a little bit of a lullaby, but when that lullaby’s chorus ends with “here’s to hoping” (a line O-Rod thinks encapsulates the entire album), the comfort is still up in the air and Olivia is desperate to let her partner know just how much she loves them, even in the quietest moments where she’s not explicitly showing her affection. With the slow progression, fake choir vocals and sugary sweet strings, it does seem like an attempt for a wedding song, one that becomes less cute the further the mental entrapment of this relationship is revealed across the album and one that already seems excessively devoted after having heard a more manic, youthful song like “drop dead” just a few minutes before – “honeybee” is the dreamlike reality many a teenage girl might make of a crush or a boyfriend, feeling adult in its presentation but still endearingly committed, a little obsessive (not derogatory), in the way those young, tingling feelings of wanting to be with someone all the time for all-time can sound like when expressed to someone who doesn’t feel how you feel about that person. It’s not exactly what I’d think of as the sleeper hit for this album, it’s not one of my most favourites (though nearly every track is great anyway), but I wouldn’t mind it sticking around at all. Here’s to hoping.

Conclusion

Surprisingly, O-Rod doesn’t get the Best of the Week here, though “honeybee” gets my Honourable Mention as the similarly-lowercase “misery.” by pupsies ends up as my favourite new entry. Worst of the Week easily goes to “FREAKED OUT” by Fat Papi and prodshushy which just seems a little tired, nothing we haven’t heard before done in a particularly uninteresting way. As for what’s on the horizon, I’m sure albums from Gracie Abrams, Bella Kay (and maybe Steve Lacy) might make some impact, alongside the new beabadoobee single and potentially more. We’ll just have to see. For now, thank you for reading and I’ll see you next week.

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