Overwhelming: The music industry has hit a dramatic standstill this summer, and Taylor Swift’s “Poets” has surged back to number one, causing quite the uproar. Industry insiders are stunned as this unexpected turn of events sends shockwaves through the charts

The music business should be thriving during the summer. Kids are out of school. Beaches are very busy.

But no: we are in the dog days. And that’s insulting dogs.

With no new major releases, the album chart has fallen apart. Sales are frozen and melting. The number 1 album this week is back to being Taylor Swift’s “Tortured Poets.” The album sold just 72,751 copies to be number 1.

This is sad.

Eminem’s “Death of Slim Shady” dropped to number 7. Last week’s number one album, by Stray Kids, fell 78% to number 8. The other big K Pop album, by Jimin, fell 68%. The KPop releases always do this. Their sales are contrived, and have no legs.

Ice Spice, who’s supposed to be popular, debuted at number 34 with less than 20,000 copies sold. After all the PR she’s received, there was no response from the general public

A raft of new releases from people like Kacey Musgraves and Khalid might liven things up for next Friday. But I won’t bet on it. The new release number 1 on iTunes is by Jack White, of the White Stripes. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Sony, meantime, got a $700 million investment this week from Apollo Management. The company has 1 album on the top 50, at number 32, by a country artist no one’s heard of.

And the beat goes on.