Fender & Dean Break Wet Wet Wet's 32-Year UK Chart Record
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- Sam Fender and Olivia Dean's duet 'Rein Me In' clocked its 16th week at UK No 1, breaking Wet Wet Wet's 32-year record of 15 weeks at the top set in 1994 by 'Love Is All Around' after its Four Weddings and a Funeral placement.
- Fender told the Official Charts Company 'Take that, Marti Pellow!' and called the run 'ridiculous' — but unlike Wet Wet Wet's consecutive streak, 'Rein Me In' has dropped in and out of the top spot since February.
- 'Rein Me In' also set the record for longest consecutive run in the UK Top 40 at 55 weeks, surpassing Ed Sheeran's 'Thinking Out Loud' — yet Fender and Dean still trail Bryan Adams (16 consecutive weeks in 1991) and Frankie Laine (18 non-consecutive weeks in 1953).
- The track began as an album cut on Fender's Mercury Prize-winning 2025 release People Watching; the duet won song of the year at the Brit Awards in February, while Dean's own album The Art of Loving has logged eight weeks at No 1 since October 2025 alongside her Grammy for best new artist.
- The feat is striking given the Official Charts Company's 2017 rule that halves streaming value once a song posts three consecutive weeks of declining streams after 10 weeks on chart — since the rule, only Ed Sheeran's 'Bad Habits', 'Despacito', 'Dance Monkey', and Alex Warren's 'Ordinary' have cleared 10 weeks at No 1.
- On the album chart, Madonna debuted at No 1 with Confessions II, becoming the first US female artist to earn UK No 1 albums across five decades.
Why it matters: Since the Official Charts Company's 2017 anti-staleness rule kicked in, halving stream value for songs that decline for three straight weeks after 10 on chart, only four songs had previously managed more than 10 weeks at UK No 1 — making a British duet surpassing a 32-year-old record a genuine rarity rather than a routine coronation. Olivia Dean, fresh off a Grammy for best new artist, now anchors two chart-topping releases within eight months, a commercial peak for one of Britain's fastest-rising pop writers.
