Joseph's Hit 40

For the second week in a row, there's a top 10 clearout, with five new tracks entering within the top tier. Out of the five, three are from artists who have never achieved a top 10 hit before, while two are from established artists who already have a plethora of top 10s. One of the latter is Lady Gaga, who scores this week's highest new entry with surprise single The Cure. It instantly matches her personal best of #3, also achieved by Applause and Perfect Illusion, although I must say I prefer it to both of those!

The highest climber this week comes from American singer/songwriter Kiiara, who scored her debut hit last week when Whippin entered at #33. It leaps up this week to #9, giving both her and featured artist Felix Snow new personal bests. Felix Snow has one prior chart hit, on Era Istrefi's #16 hit Redrum earlier this year.

Re-entering at #10 after initially peaking at #31 is Places by French DJ Martin Solveig. The track is quite comfortably his highest peaker, with the only competition coming from #27 hit Do It Right from last year. It's technically featured vocalist Ina Wroldsen's first top 10 hit, although she sang vocals on Calvin Harris & Disciples' #6 hit How Deep Is Your Love in 2015.

The highest of the new tracks in this week's top 10 is from Maggie Lindemann, who jumps 11 places to #2 with Pretty Girl. American singer Maggie has never made my chart before, so of course scores a new personal best this week. Pretty Girl is impacting with two different versions - the original mix (which is getting the bulk of the plays), and the Cheat Codes x Cade remix, both of which are combined for chart purposes. It's very unusual I'll ever be into two versions of the same song at one point, and the only other instance I can think of is Little Mix's Touch, which impacted initially with both the album version and the acoustic version.

On Monday, I went to see The Tide live, and as a result, they see a boost in this week's chart. Put the Cuffs On Me rebounds one place to #5, and first hit Young Love re-enters at #34. The Click My Fingers EP makes a belated debut in the album chart, heading straight for the top spot, and EP tracks The One You Want and Holding On To You make singles chart debuts.

Sign of the Times holds on at #1 for a third week this week, making it only the second song in the past year to get over two weeks at #1. The other was Louisa Johnson's So Good at the tail end of 2016, which also notched up three weeks. He has competition next week from Shawn Mendes, who enters at #7 this week with There's Nothing Holdin' Me Back, and Charlie Puth, who is new at #15 with Attention. Both tracks will climb high next week and I'll discuss them in more detail then, but can Shawn score his fourth #1, or Charlie his second? Or will Harry retain his crown?