Another astonishingly quiet chart – Radio 1 must be thanking their lucky stars they only have to fill 1h 45 with the run down these days.  There’s literally nothing going on in the bottom half of the chart at all.  So we pick up with…

18.  5 Seconds of Summer – “She’s Kinda Hot”

5 Seconds of Summers are a demographic anomaly – a guitar band who strenuously insist that they are not a boy band, but toured as a supporting act for One Direction.  Normally this means something like Lawson, but 5 Seconds seem to genuinely want to position themselves somewhere in the region of Blink 182 or early Green Day.  “She’s Kinda Hot” is a perfectly respectable single in that vein, and you probably wouldn’t guess it as a boy band product if you heard it blind.  But the demographic reality is against them; they’re a fan base act, and while they’ve had three previous top ten hits, including the number 1 “She Looks So Perfect”, their records enter high and plummet.  This was number 6 in the midweeks; it will be out of the top 40 next week.  There are surprisingly few bands whose records still behave like this.

7.  Calvin Harris & Disciples – “How Deep is Your Love”

This is the first single from Harris’s next album, a collaboration with the producers Disciples.  This apparently started off as one of their songs, which might explain why it sounds more house-y than your typical Calvin Harris track.  Or then he might be re-tooling for the next album.   Disciples are making their second appearance on the chart, after getting to number 24 earlier this year with “They Don’t Know”.

Number 7 is surprisingly low for the first single from a new Calvin Harris album, but bear in mind that this is a soft launch with little advance publicity –  it looks set to hang around for a bit.  The uncredited singer is Ina Wroldsen, who’s a member of Ask Embla, and also has a pretty extensive songwriting career for the likes of the Saturdays.

4.  John Newman – “Come and Get It”

Finally, this week’s highest new entry is the lead single from John Newman’s second album.  His previous album had the number 1 “Love Me Again”, and he’s also guested on number 1s for Rudimental and Calvin Harris.  So number 4 for the second album is a tad disappointing, and the midweeks show it dropping straight out of the top 10.  Funk and whistling seem to be the new elements for this album.  It’s a bit metronomically plodding, though.

1.  Little Mix – “Black Magic”

Two weeks – the first time they’ve managed that, surprisingly.  Even their X Factor winners single only got one week (because it was shouldered aside by the Military Wives).

On a similarly becalmed album chart:

• “Communion” by Years & Years spends a third week at number 1.
• “Currents” by Tame Impala at 3.  Australian psychedelics.  Their third album, and the highest charting in the UK.  Single: “Eventually”.
• “Kelly” by Andrea Faustini at 14.  Obligatory album from the guy who came third in last year’s X Factor.  Single: “Give a Little Love”.
• “Nick Jonas” by Nick Jonas at 16.  Technically his first solo album, though he charted three times as one of the Jonas Brothers, and he missed the top 40 in 2010 with album credited to “Nick Jonas and the Administration”.  The single “Chains” got to number 2.
• “Something More than Free” by Jason Isbell at 17.  Alabama songwriter.  He used to be a member of the Drive-by Truckers, but he left by the time they had their first UK album hit last year.  Single: “24 Frames”.