Is the hallowed album stumbling towards obsolescence? Fellow England fans, if you don’t want to know the result, look away now.

But first, the triumph. Glory be: the Official Charts Company has made the imperative move to fold streaming data into the Singles Chart, with a robust weighting ratio in check. Newspaper headlines suddenly reflect a tech-savvy industry, as the likes of Spotify bask in the collateral uplift that only mainstream public nattering brings.

And yet, behind the sea of ...