Peking Duk and Elliphant are up two places to a new peak of No.5 with “Stranger”, becoming the duo’s equal highest charted single after their first big chart entry “High” went to No.5 in April 2014. With only five weeks until the release of the film ‘Fifty Shades Darker’ (2nd week of Feb), the lead single from the feature film rebounds back to it’s original entry position of No.3, as Zayn and Taylor Swift move back up two places with “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever”, which in turn pushes “24K Magic” for Bruno Mars down a place to No.4 after he peaked at No.3 for the past two weeks, whilst also down but two places to No.6 are The Chainsmokers and Halsey with the No.1 song for 2016 in “Closer”, logging its 23rd week within the Top 10, now becoming the second longest (outright) run within the Top 10 (pre and post ARIA, 1983), and if it stays in for another week it will join three other songs which have spent 24 weeks within the ten, but if that happens next week I will reveal them then. This is the first time that both acts have had two songs in the Top 10 at the same time, The Weeknd almost came close in 2015 with his first two Top 10 hits “Can’t Feel My Face” and “The Hills”, but they are two weeks apart from leaving and entering the ten respectively. And talking of The Weeknd and Daft Punk, they score a second combined Top 10 entry this week, as “I Feel it Coming” is up four places to a new peak of No.7 after sitting at No.11 for the past three weeks.
Alternately we could finally see The Weeknd and Daft Punk finally take over the top spot with “Starboy”, which has now been sitting a No.2 for a record breaking twelve (broken) weeks without progressing any higher, which also breaks the eleven week record set by Taylor Swift’s first big hit “Love Story” (2009), which eventually went to No.1 for two broken weeks, but did also amass eleven fractured weeks at No.2.