Sam Fender and Olivia Dean break Wet Wet Wet's UK chart record

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean have broken Wet Wet Wet's 32-year record for a British act's run at No.1 in the UK singles chart. Their duet 'Rein Me In' has racked up its 16th week at No.1, surpassing Wet Wet Wet's 'Love Is All Around', which spent 15 consecutive weeks at the top in 1994. Unlike Wet Wet Wet's consecutive run, Fender and Dean's song has dropped in and out of the top spot since February.

The song also scores the longest consecutive run for a song in the Top 40, with 55 weeks, beating Ed Sheeran's record for 'Thinking Out Loud'. However, Fender and Dean have yet to beat two non-UK acts: Bryan Adams' 16 consecutive weeks at No.1 in 1991, and Frankie Laine's all-time record of 18 non-consecutive weeks in 1953.

'Rein Me In' started as an album track on Fender's 2025 Mercury Prize-winning album 'People Watching'. After Dean added her own verse, the duet was released as a single in June 2025. It won Song of the Year at the Brit Awards in February. Dean herself has enjoyed huge success, with her single 'Man I Need' topping the chart in October 2025 and her album 'The Art of Loving' spending eight weeks at No.1. She also won three Brit awards, three Mobos and the Grammy for Best New Artist this year.

The record is especially notable because the Official Charts Company introduced a rule in 2017 that halves streaming value for songs that have been in the Top 100 for over 10 weeks and have three consecutive weeks of declining streams. Only four songs have managed more than 10 weeks at No.1 since then.

Elsewhere in the charts, Oasis's 'Wonderwall' reaches No.11 after being played at England's victorious World Cup matches, Shakira and Burna Boy's official World Cup song 'Dai Dai' is at No.13, and Madonna's album 'Confessions II' tops the album chart, making her the first US female artist with No.1 albums across five decades.