Miley Cyrus holds her lead for the 2023 singles crown with ‘Flowers’

Miley Cyrus continues to buy herself Flowers as she maintains her position as the UK’s biggest song of 2023 so far, Official Charts can reveal, as we head into the final few months of the year.

The scintillating post-disco breakup anthem shares the record as the joint longest-running Number 1 of the year, completing 10 weeks at the top of the Official Singles Chart, equalled by Dave & Central Cee’s Sprinter. Flowers gave Miley her third UK chart-topper back in January, and first in nearly a decade, since both We Can’t Stop and Wrecking Ball in 2013.

The song’s success even bolstered Miley to achieve the coveted Official Chart Double, when parent album Endless Summer Vacation summited the Official Albums Chart during Flowers’ reign at the top.

According to Official Charts Company data, Flowers has racked up a total of 1.5 million UK chart units since its release in January; with over 178 million streams and over 87,000 downloads, making it the most-streamed and most-downloaded song of the year so far.

Flowers also claims the biggest week of any track in 2023, pushing a mammoth 121,000 chart units during its second week at Number 1, becoming the longest-running Number 1 single by a female artist this decade. In doing so, it equals the epic runs of Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You and Rihanna’s Umbrella.

Holding steady in second place is RAYE and 070 Shake’s jagged Escapism. The experimental electronic banger became RAYE’s first ever UK Number 1 single in January, and has so far this year shifted almost 1 million chart units.

Up next, Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding’s trance eight-week chart-topper Miracle is at Number 3, while SZA’s Kill Bill coasts to Number 4.

Surging into the Top 10 to-date is Dave & Central Cee’s record-breaking team-up Sprinter. Smashing several records during its time at Number 1, Sprinter achieved the biggest first week of any song in 2023 (108,000 chart units), and set an all-time record for the most weekly streams for a rap track in the UK (13.4 million), before going on to be crowned the UK’s Official song of the summer.

Sprinter has also set the record as the longest-running UK rap Number 1, serendipitously celebrating its 10th week at the top during the 50th anniversary of the founding of hip-hop. Sprinter marks Dave’s third Number 1, and the first for Central Cee.

2023 has also witnessed the further rise of Afrobeats as a dominant commercial force in the UK, best exemplified by two Top 10 hits; Rema’s Calm Down (7) which peaked at Number 3 and Libianca’s People (10), which climbed all the way to Number 2 and spent a mammoth 12 weeks at Number 1 on the Official Afrobeats Chart to boot.

TikTok continues to prove itself a hitmaker on the Official Chart; several of 2023’s biggest songs have found success via the video-sharing platform, and for many this success has come years after their original release. Miguel’s 2010 single Sure Thing (11), David Guetta & Bebe Rexha’s former Number 1 I’m Good (Blue) which was originally a scrapped demo recorded in 2017 (12), The Weeknd’s 2016 Starboy cut Die For You (14), Taylor Swift’s New Wave banger from 2019 Cruel Summer (2020), Tom Odell’s 2013 single Another Love (24), Meghan Trainor’s Made You Look (25) and Lizzy McAlpine’s Ceilings (26).

Other 2023 Number 1 singles continue to resonate, with Ed Sheeran’s Eyes Closed (21), Olivia Rodrigo’s vampire (29) and Dua Lipa’s Dance The Night (31) all making their way into the year-to-date Top 40.

Further down, Irish dance vocalist Jazzy may have earned her first UK Top 10 single with a feature on Belters Only’s Make Me Feel Good, but her debut solo single Giving Me – at Number 31 on the year-to-date list – provided her highest peak in the UK yet, reaching Number 3 on the Official Singles Chart in June.

Finally, Stephen Sanchez’s Until I Found You rounds off the list at Number 39. Originally blowing up on TikTok, Stephen got a big break recently when handpicked by Elton John to perform the track live during Elton’s headline set at Glastonbury.