Rapper Drake is knocked off after 15 weeks at top of charts, having been poised to equal Adams’ 16-week record

It was a very close-run thing, but Bryan Adams can sleep easily once more. Twenty-five years (yes, really) since the Canadian singer spent four months at the top of the UK charts with his earworm Everything I Do, I Do It for You, it had seemed as if his record was at last about to be equalled.

But at the very last hurdle, another challenger has fallen. After 15 weeks at No 1 with his single One Dance, the Canadian rapper Drake had been poised to equal Adams’ 16-week record. Instead, the song has been knocked off the top spot on Friday by a song called Cold Water, a collaboration between Major Lazer, Justin Bieber and MØ.

Prince and Victoria Wood were still alive when Drake’s single first became number one on 15 April, and his reign at the top of the charts has encompassed the entire EU referendum campaign, Leicester City’s premiership victory and the full run of the new series of Top Gear.

Ultimately, however, it proved no match for the Adams anthem, soundtrack to the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which the singer has said he completed with co-writer Mutt Lange inside 45 minutes. “It was a moment that I’ve only felt a few times,” he has said. “It’s the moment when you know it’s a good song, you don’t know if it’s a hit, you just know it’s good.”

Britain, in fact, had a lucky escape: in Adams’ home country, the song stayed at No 1 for 39 weeks.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Drake performs in Atlanta, Georgia. Photograph: Paras Griffin/Getty Images for Atlantic Record

Cold Water enters the No 1 spot with 102,000 combined sales to date, which includes 5.56m streams (equating to 5,560 physical sales) and 47,000 downloads, according to the Official Charts Company.

The popularity of Drake’s track on streaming services may have been boosted by the fact that it has no official music video, making it less appealing to listen to on YouTube. Unlike in some other parts of the world, YouTube streams don’t count towards the UK charts.

Though Cold Water is Major Lazer and MØ’s first British chart-topping single, it is Bieber’s fourth.



“We can’t believe we have our first No 1, and are amazed at the support from the UK,” Major Lazer told OfficialCharts.com. “We have a lot more for you coming this summer!”

Earlier this year, Bieber, who is also Canadian, set a British chart record of his own, holding the number one, two and three spots with Love Yourself, Sorry, and What Do You Mean, a feat never previously accomplished.

Meanwhile, in another victory for the veterans, Jeff Lynne’s ELO achieved their first No 1 album since 1979’s Discovery and Time in 1981. More than a decade after its original release, and in the wake of their Legend set at Glastonbury, ELO’s All Over the World – The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra compilation climbs from No 7 to No 1 in the UK album charts.

“Thirty-five years between No 1 albums! I’m totally amazed. Thanks to everyone that made it possible,” Jeff Lynne told OfficialCharts.com.