So Rein Me In by Sam Fender and Olivia Dean has broken the record for the most weeks at number one, 17.
I must confess to being totally oblivious to this song, and while I have vaguely heard of Fender, I know nothing of Miss Dean…..come to think of it, I couldn’t name a single song in the top 20 this week or indeed any week for maybe rhe last ten years at least.
I am very old…
This week’s number one, pop pickers
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I haven’t known what’s number one this millennium. I’m aware of Sam ‘the electric Sheeran’ Fender but am unmoved by his contribution to the wider culture. I thought I might know the name Olivia Dean until it occurred to me that I was probably thinking of Hazel Dean. All of these reactions are entirely age appropriate.
Olivia Dean is very good indeed. Her album The Art Of Loving is fabulous; check it out, kids!
Nominated for the Mercury – think she has a strong chance of winning.,
Casual friends know of my musical interests and naturally assume I know the song currently playing on their smart speaker. I try telling them the last hit parade song I can identify is circa 1982.
However, I have frequently championed Sam Fender on here and I’ve played Olivia Dean albums – excellent, not really for me.
Of course, I have no knowledge whatsoever of the seventeen week chart topper..
In the meantime, time to post once again .
I saw this item on the news and could barely muster the energy for a vague shrug of interest.
Back in the day, I followed the Top 40 with a passion and like many people (well, mostly boys/men, let’s be honest) could have told you of the rise and fall of certain acts, the long-running hits, etc. Now, I wouldn’t recognise Sam Fender or Olivia Dean if I was sat next to them, and I couldn’t name any of their songs or albums if my life depended on it.
That might mean that I’m missing out, but it’s almost certainly age-related and I expect every generation has gone through the same thing. Also, you can only follow or listen to a certain number or acts or musical genres at a time, and today there is much more music available to us than ever before.
My knowledge of chart acts has been replaced by an interest in goth, darkwave or industrial music (largely European and American) that I would never have heard of during my chart-watching days and that I can guarantee is never going to make an “And finally…” item on the news.
“Also, you can only follow or listen to a certain number or acts or musical genres at a time.”
Sadly the above is true, even if you try hard to be inclusive. I am prone to genre crazes, currently ethno-fusions from Africa and South America. As I dig deep into such silos, I slip from awareness of other styles, shocking myself around the swiftness of losing touch. I today read a review of Maverick Festival, a superb shindig I attended 5 or 6 years ago, recognising hardly any the names. (OK, it’s a niche and bijou fest, but nonetheless, when in my A word prime, I would have expected to have at least heard of a majority.)
I am sort of, begrudgingly, getting to be in envy of the mindset of friends and acquaintances, content with a butcher’s handful of favourite artists, satisfied by them alone, happy with the ten discs they play time and time again.
There is an irony here in that Sam Fender is very much an Afterword friendly artist.
The charts are largely irrelevant and what little relevance they have passes us by (like it did for our parents and grandparents when it mattered to us).
The song is a belter. Both artists have proper talents. It is well worth a listen.
Funnily enough, I am more aware of the Grammy and Brit Award-winning Olivia Dean than our correspondents above. She appeared on Jools’ New Year show and also on the regular weekly Jools show. I thought she was great. I don’t know Sam Fender – and I’m not aware that I’ve heard the duo single. I certainly wasn’t aware that it had taken up residence at no.1…
…I shall chat with my grand-daughters and may report back.
Well the charts used to be a shared experience, now not so much. Are the young interested in knowing what the top 10 is? Most people seem to end up stuck with the music from their younger years, no longer motivated to learn about what comes after. Having now taken a look I see the hits of today have made themselves known to me but only in a fairly limited fashion. I mean it’s pretty easy to look up new releases on Spotify, the albums of the year we nominate are represented in the singles charts in some cases, without anyone needing to look there, because why would you? Young people are often also singles charts averse, chart music being derided, as it was for us sometimes, albums are the thing, or whatever’s ‘alternative’.
The current top 40 albums chart looks reassuringly familiar – Michael Jackson, ABBA, Oasis, Fleetwood Mac, Stones, Elton….
Oasis? Who they?
Peter Skellern, Julian Lloyd Webber & Mary Hopkin. I’m surprised they’re so popular after all this time
Lana Del Rey Born To Die 365 weeks on the album chart. It’s the album chart but not as we knew it.
Isn’t the album chart now just a chart of what people listen to, not what people buy new, so it is surely bound to have all that music that the vast majority of the population like..?
I have heard the duet version once or twice I think but had no idea it was number one. I know the original Fender version well – it’s a brilliant song from a great album and like what @Leedsboy said it’s immensely Afterword friendly. I think Sam Fender is the real deal.
As for Dean, Mrs BB and I were on a tram into Manchester earlier this year heading for a Nadia Reid gig. The tram was heaving with very excited young women, mainly in their 20s and early 30s. I hazarded a guess they weren’t going to the same gig we were; they were in fact headed to the Coop Arena to see Olivia Dean. Our daughter was at that gig too and absolutely loved it. Dean is clearly an artist who genuinely speaks to many women of that generation. What a great thing that is.
UK singer Sienna Spiro first album debut in top 10 US chart. I wouldn’t have known who she was expect she performed at the Rosendal Garden Party in Stockholm recently which we were attending. Something of a phenomenon, a touch of Adele, a touch of Amy. She seemed pretty together and a natural you could say. Not all my cup of tea but some lively, retro moments. She won over the audience for sure.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/aug/05/demise-monoculture-why-have-so-many-never-heard-uk-record-breaking-no-1-single-sam-fender-olivia-dean?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
Someone on Twitter today insisted that they couldn’t believe anyone hadn’t heard it, so I sought it out on YouTube. Obviously now I have heard it. I may have done before, if not now consciously, but honestly can’t say as I wouldn’t have remembered it. I don’t remember it now.; it’s pretty thin gruel.
I agree, and it’s stretched out to *checks notes* five and a half minutes.
I’m not at all surprised I haven’t heard it, or even heard of it – I don’t listen to the radio and what I stream wouldn’t cause an algorithm to pick it.
As has been pointed out, we do not live in as much of a musical monoculture, but we also now have a popular music hinterland of over 70 years worth of stuff and ways of listening which are multi channel which enables us to listen to it all. Unless we actively seek out new music, it doesn’t cross our radar. And what do you hear in shops and pubs..? Old stuff, classic pop and rock usually from the 60s and 70s….motown, Eagles and Steely Dan when I was in Tesco tnis week.
Our isolation, if that’s what it is, from “popular” music is for me exemplified when watching footage of an artist/band I barely know and the crowd are singing along word perfect.
I think it depends which shops and pubs you go to. Most of them still play music that’s currently popular, and the Tesco near me doesn’t play music at all.
When we took a gondola up a mountain in the Dolomites this summer there was a cafe there with some rather nice yellow deckchairs dotted about on the hillside with a spectacular view. We took a beer. They played some music from the cafe, not loud but clear. I heard Sweet Jane and Thirteen by Big Star among others. What a treat!
The hits of today come on the radio when we are in the car. Mostly bad but I don’t mind a bit of Agnes. There’s a song called Choosin’ Texas, a sort of cheesy country tune. At some point she sings about drinking Jack all by herself. It’s rotten. But there are things I like, Chappel Roan, Dua Lipa. Same as it ever was.