Justin Bieber dominates singles chart for seventh time this year

Justin Bieber has claimed the top two spots in the UK singles chart for the seventh time in a year.

Cold Water, his collaboration with Major Lazer, is at number one for a third week while Let Me Love You, with DJ Snake, is a new entry at two.

Before Bieber did so last year, no artist had held the chart`s top two positions since Madonna did so in 1985 with Into The Groove and Holiday.

Indie group Blossoms topped the albums chart with their self-titled debut, BBC reports.

The band, who formed in 2013 and who came fourth in the BBC`s Sound of 2016, were all born in the same Stockport hospital and honed their sound by rehearsing in their bassist’s granddad’s scaffolding yard.

‘We’re absolutely made up that album has gone to number one,’ they said. ‘From the scaffolding yard to the top of the charts, who`d have thought it? Up Stockport!’

The five-piece sold 9,500 more albums than their nearest rival, grime star Giggs, to secure the number one slot despite never having had a hit single - an indication of the increasing split between the singles and albums charts.

Last week’s number one album, a posthumous release by Blossoms’ former support act Viola Beach, drops to number five.

There are new entries for indie rockers Wild Beasts, whose fourth album Boy King debuts at nine; and emo band Moose Blood, who make their first appearance in the Top 40 with Blush, at number 10.

Elvis Presley’s final studio recordings, compiled under the title Way Down in The Jungle Room, enter the chart at 16; while Dinosaur Jr’s first album in four years, Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not, is new at 23.

It’s not such good news for US producer DJ Khaled, whose latest album, Major Key, tumbles 27 places after debuting at number seven last week.

The singles chart is largely static, with most of the Top 10 shuffling down a place to accommodate Justin Bieber’s new entry at two.

However, there are two major exceptions: Twenty One Pilots jump from 20 to nine with the glitchy ballad Heathens, taken from the Suicide Squad soundtrack.

And Chainsmokers’ collaboration with US pop sensation Halsey, Closer, leaps from 33 to 12 - giving Halsey her first top 20 single in the UK.