Alex Warren scores longest-running number one this decade
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Ian Youngs
Culture reporter
US singer Alex Warren’s smash hit Ordinary has notched up its 12th week at number one in the UK – the longest chart reign since Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You in 2017.
Ordinary, which the 24-year-old wrote for his wife after their wedding last year, has been streamed 107 million times in the UK, according to the Official Charts Company.
It has broken the 70-year-old record for the most consecutive weeks at number one by a US artist – surpassing Slim Whitman’s Rose Marie, which spent 11 weeks at the top in 1955.
Ordinary shows no sign of going away – it remains by far the biggest song on Spotify in the UK, with 33% more streams than its nearest rival in the service’s latest daily rankings.
But it has some way to go before it catches the longest-running number ones of all time.
Longest-running number ones in history:
- Frankie Laine, I Believe – 18 weeks, 1953
- Bryan Adams, (Everything I Do) I Do It For You – 16 weeks, 1991
- Wet Wet Wet, Love Is All Around – 15 weeks, 1994
- Drake ft Wizkid & Kyla, One Dance – 15 weeks, 2016
- Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody – 14 weeks, 1975/6 & 1991/2
- Ed Sheeran, Shape of You -14 weeks, 2017
- Alex Warren, Ordinary – 12 weeks, 2025
Warren found fame as one of the founders of the Hype House, a TikTok collective who lived together in Los Angeles and entertained millions of teenagers during the pandemic.
He first reached the top 10 with Carry You Home last year, then his career as heartfelt folk-pop singer-songwriter exploded with Ordinary, which is currently also number one in the US.
“It has been enormous,” said James Masterton, who writes the Chart Watch UK blog. “It’s a crossover hit single in a good old-fashioned sense, and in a way we haven’t seen for quite some considerable time.
“It’s the kind of record that sat comfortably on the playlists of both Radio 1 and Radio 2, but ironically it’s dropped off both of those now and they’ve both moved on to playing his new single. But that’s an example of how it has genuine pan-generational appeal.”
Ordinary has also become a popular wedding song, and Warren’s label has even released a Wedding Version.
“In that sense it’s got much in common with some of the other famous long-running tracks of the past, such as (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, Love Is All Around and I Will Always Love You. They are all very deeply felt romantic songs.”
Alex Warren was homeless and sleeping in friends’ cars – now he’s number one
But despite being such a mammoth hit, changing media and music habits mean Ordinary hasn’t become a ubiquitous phenomenon of the kind Bryan Adams and Wet Wet Wet had when they were appearing on BBC TV chart show Top of the Pops week after week.
“The fragmentation of the media means the ability for records to grab the attention of large groups of people has diminished rapidly,” Masterton said.
“In times gone by when a record was number one for as long as 12 weeks, everybody would know who the superstar was.”
Longest-running number ones of the 2020s:
- Alex Warren, Ordinary – 12 weeks, 2025
- Ed Sheeran, Bad Habits – 11 weeks, 2021
- Harry Styles, As It Was – 10 weeks, 2022
- Miley Cyrus, Flowers – 10 weeks, 2023
- Dave & Central Cee, Sprinter – 10 weeks, 2023
Ordinary is also the longest-running number one since chart rules were changed in 2017 to stop the top 40 getting clogged up by songs that have passed their peak of popularity.
The chart formula automatically demotes songs that have had three consecutive weeks of declining streaming figures, when compared with the rest of the market. But Ordinary has held sufficiently steady to avoid that fate so far.
