Last year I ran a couple of posts in which I dipped into the UK Charts – not something I do very often – and as they were well-received I thought I’d try it again. It is five months since the last one so I was expecting to see some changes, and as the Christmas takeover is behind us it’s kinda safe to look again.

I’m playing you six tunes today, three of which are new entries this week and three which have been around for a while, as our album charts often see long stays and these give me a chance to cheat a bit and play some favourites!

The first is from the album which burst in at #1 this week. I am by no means a fan of Robbie Williams and have never played him before, but I have to admit that he has a talent for writing catchy songs and tunes. His new album is called Britpop and this is the track All My Life:

Since he left the boyband Take That Robbie has enjoyed phenomenal success. Having already had two UK #1 albums with the band, he has since gone on to achieve a further sixteen chart toppers. This latest one has enabled him to break the record he previously shared with The Beatles of most UK #1 albums. I still prefer The Beatles – by miles – but you can’t deny his achievement. And that track is tolerably good, too – probably as it sounds a bit like Oasis.

In last week’s post New Music January 2026 I played a couple of songs by artists that had just released new albums, and I said that I was hopeful that both would make the new chart published last Friday. Guess what? They both did, giving me the perfect excuse to play more by them.

The higher of the entries was Angels’ Share, by Nathan Evans x SAINT PHNX, who came in at #4. Some of its tracks had already been released, including this one, another example of the joyous feel Nathan brings to his music:

I’ve been a fan of Nathan since he burst to fame with his #1 single Wellerman, and have the full set of his music in my Apple Music library. Milarrochy Bay is the result of his collaboration with SAINT PHNX, who are brothers Alan and Stevie Jukes. They are all listed as songwriters and on the evidence of this album I think things are working well for them as a team. A separate chart is listed just for Scotland, where these guys are all from, and it is no surprise to me that their album was #1 up there last week.

The other debutant was Elles Bailey, in at #14 with her new album Can’t Take My Story Away. From it, this is Take A Step Back:

As I said last week, Elles owes her husky voice to childhood illness and I think it is well-suited to her musical style: intelligent lyrics, blues-roots music stylishly performed with more than a hint of sass. This whole album is superb, like everything she does, and I recommend it to you.

I’m trying to avoid the great many compilation ‘best of’ albums here, as that feels like blatant cheating. Less like cheating is playing something from an album which has been out for quite a while but is still in our charts. Like this one:

Poker Face was a track on The Fame, the debut album by Lady Gaga, which is currently at #59. It was first released in August 2008, and then again in an expanded version (if you bought the right one), The Fame Monster, in November 2009. To date the original has sold more than 18m copies worldwide, including 6m in the US and 3.6m in the UK, and has a total of 381 weeks on the chart to its name. But although it made #1 here it only got to #2 in the US, which is a surprise to me, given those sales figures.

This next one is from a more recent album, which is enjoying a long run:

People Watching is the title track of Sam Fender’s third album, which was released at the end of February 2025. It entered the chart in March at #1 and has a 48 week unbroken run since then, currently sitting at #40. All of his albums have been UK #1s, all have sold well in other countries apart from the US – so far. I think his style is well-suited to their market and it can only be a matter of time before he breaks through there. He played a set at the Coachella Festival last year that was well-received, so I’m hopeful for him.

Today’s closing tune is probably an even more blatant cheat than Lady Gaga. I’ve played this and numerous others of his songs, have built posts around him, and when his debut album, from which this comes, is back in our charts at #90 that is all the excuse I need:

Lewis Capaldi, of course, with Someone You Loved. The album it was on, Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent, was released in May 2019, by which time this track had already been a UK #1 single and had featured on an EP. The album went straight in at #1, where it has spent ten weeks out of a combined stay of 336 weeks, including 30 in the current run going back to last July. It has also made #20 in the US. The single reached #1 in the US as well as here, and has to date sold 10m in the US and 6m in the UK. I think that counts as a success, don’t you?

That’s all for this latest of my looks at the pop charts, and I hope you’ve enjoyed some of these, if not all! I’ll see you again for Song Lyric Sunday, so until then please stay warm and dry 😊