Fender and Dean break 73-year UK chart record with 19 weeks at number one

Sam Fender and Olivia Dean's Rein Me In has spent 19 non-consecutive weeks at the top of the UK singles chart, surpassing the record set in 1953 by Frankie Laine's I Believe, which held the top spot for 18 weeks. The milestone was confirmed on BBC Radio 1's Official Chart show on Friday, making it the longest-standing number one in British chart history.

Speaking to presenter Jack Saunders, Fender said he was "speechless." He credited Dean with transforming the track, adding: "It wouldn't have happened without Olivia obviously, but now I feel like it belongs to the fans, they've made it what it is." Asked how he planned to celebrate, he joked: "I think I'm just gonna have a really big sandwich."

The record falls at a moment when the music industry is grappling with how songs build audiences. Rein Me In did not follow the traditional trajectory of a blockbuster single. Originally released as a solo Fender track from his Mercury Prize-winning third album People Watching, it was reworked as a duet in June 2025 and took eight months to reach number one in February 2026.

That slow ascent points to a structural shift in how hits are made. The song first went viral after Fender and Dean performed it live at London Stadium, home of Dean's club West Ham, and a week later at Newcastle United's St James Park. From there it spread across TikTok, where users have set it to everything from holiday montages to football-goal compilations. TikTok streams do not count toward the official chart, but BBC research last year examined the platform's growing influence on listening habits, particularly for lyrically driven songs.

For Polydor, the label run by Ben Mortimer, the result is a commercial windfall built on patience rather than a concentrated marketing push. Mortimer called it a "historic achievement" from "two homegrown stars," referring to Newcastle-born Fender and London-born Dean.

The song briefly lost the top spot to Harry Styles' American Girls for seven days, and was also superseded temporarily by Olivia Rodrigo's Drop Dead and Ariana Grande's Hate That I Made You Love Me. Each time, it reclaimed the number one position. Three weeks after first hitting the summit, it was named song of the year at the Brit Awards.

Previous long-running chart-toppers include Bryan Adams' (Everything I Do) I Do It For You at 16 weeks in 1991 and Wet Wet Wet's Love Is All Around at 15 weeks in 1994. Rein Me In has now outlasted them all.

Dean, who wrote an additional verse exploring the breakdown of a relationship from a female perspective, said the original was her "favourite song on Sam's album" and called it "a pleasure to write a new verse from a female perspective." Fender echoed that the duet format made the song "a much more universal track."

For the wider industry, the record is a reminder that streaming-era hits no longer need to peak quickly to generate sustained revenue. A song that climbs over months and lodges in public consciousness through social sharing can outperform a heavily promoted launch, a lesson labels across Europe will be studying closely.