LANGLEY & RODRIGO KEEP RECORD-BREAKING YEAR FOR WĀHINE ARTISTS ROLLING

Ella Langley chalks up a ninth week on the Top 40 Singles Chart with ‘Choosin' Texas’. The Hope Hull, Alabama-born singer has been a big contributor to a record-breaking run by wāhine artists this year. At the halfway point in 2026, women have held both the Singles and Albums #1 spots for 19 weeks out of 26 – an all-time record.

On the Albums Top 40, Olivia Rodrigo celebrates a fifth week at #1 with you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love – surpassing the four weeks she spent there with 2023's GUTS, but short of SOUR's 15-week run in 2021 – and just holds the Rolling Stones at bay, with their latest LP Foreign Tongues landing at #2. Despite being at rather opposite ends of the career spectrum, Rodrigo and the Stones have at least one point of commonality; their current albums both include a guest appearance by Robert Smith of The Cure.

The Tukutahi Tiketike 10 Te Reo Māori features TAWAZ and friends at #1 for another wiki with ‘Mānawa Maiea Matariki’, but also boasts some more great new entries. Brutha Rodz will be familiar to many for his epic triple-platinum hit ‘Heart Of A Lion’. ‘Manawa Raiona’, his te reo Māori translation of the tune, is #2 on the Chart this week, which also enters the Top 20 Aotearoa Singles Chart at #17. Also new to the Te Reo Top 10 is EDM artist Ardon England with his first foray into waiata reo Māori, ‘Whai Mai Rā’.

Hori Shaw and Te Wehi continue to lead the Top 20 Singles Chart, with ‘Ready To Ride’. Lorde is the only NZ solo artist to have spent more weeks at #1 than either of the two artists (103 total weeks for Lorde, 60 and 54 for Hori and Te Wehi respectively). Six60's Right Here Right Now returns to the top of the Top 20 Albums Chart after a four-week gap.

This week’s Hot 40 #1 is ‘Joy’ by ROLE MODEL (a.k.a 29-year-old American Tucker Pillsbury). It's the artist's ninth appearance on the Chart but first to make it to the top. Another name to keep your eyes and ears peeled for, leaping to #1 on the Aotearoa Hot 20 with his global streaming smash ‘Freaked Out’, is Fat Papi. The Pōneke-born and raised rapper of Kurdish ancestry is blowing up worldwide, in the company of Australian producer prodshushy. Papi already has more than 3 million followers worldwide, but is just now beginning to get noticed at home.