U.K. MIDWEEKS: BAY WATCH FOR #1

James Bay is on track to narrowly secure his second #1 album in the U.K., while the summer’s biggest dance cuts experience a midweek surge, on the Official Singles Chart.

Bay’s Leap (EMI) sits just 300 in chart units ahead of Harry Styles’ Harry’s House (Columbia), so the race for the top slot remains anyone’s game. Bay previously reached #1 in 2015 with his debut, Chaos and the Calm.

At #5, Burna Boy’s sixth album, Love, Damini (Atlantic), may become his first U.K. Top 10 record, bolstered by his streaming hit “Last Last.” Brent Faiyaz is also looking at his first Top 10 appearance; his WASTELAND (Lost Kids/Venice/Stem) is one slot behind, at #6. Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s Toast (Reprise), recorded but shelved in 2001, sits at #7. It would be Young’s 10th U.K. Top 10 album.

Cave World (Year0001), from Swedish post-punk outfit Viagra Boys, is #20, and Journey’s first album in 11 years, Freedom (Frontiers), is pacing to debut at #26.

At singles, LF System’s “Afraid To Feel” (Warner) is eyeing a second week at #1 as David Guetta, Becky Hill and Ella Henderson’s “Crazy What Love Can Do” (Parlophone) and the Henderson/Nathan Dawe collaboration “21 Reasons” (Warner) eye new chart peaks.

Burna Boy’s “Last Last” looks set to crack the Top 10, and Metallica’s 1986 “Master of Puppets” (Blackened/Rhino) is headed for a Top 25 position thanks to Netflix’s Stranger Things.