I’ll be honest – “The Lazy Song” by Bruno Mars has been out for four weeks now and I’ve never actually sat through the whole thing.  But it climbs to number 1 this week, so I’ve dutifully watched it.

And, you know, it’s fine.  It’s catchy enough.  It’s got a decent video.  (The guys under the masks are Poreotics, the winners of season 5 of America’s Best Dance Crew.)  It’s a little bit different.  It’s kind of summery.  Personally, I find it a touch on the bland side.  But each to their own.

More remarkably, this is Bruno Mars’ fourth number one hit in less than a year, following “Nothin’ On You” with B.o.B., “Just The Way You Are”, and “Grenade.” There’s a decent amount of range there.  More to the point, four number one singles in a year is rare.  You might have thought it would happen more frequently in these days of serial collaborators notching up strings of “featuring” credits, but in fact, it hasn’t happened since 2000.

Does this put Bruno Mars in exalted company?  Well… not especially.  You might have thought that an act capable of getting four number one hits in a single year would be something special, a group who summed up the zeitgeist like no other.  In fact, the last act to achieve it was Westlife.  They even managed a fifth, which stands an all-time record.  Those five singles are “Swear It Again”, “If I Let You Go”, “Flying Without Wings”, the double A-side “I Have A Dream”/“Seasons In The Sun”, and “Fool Again” (for a total of 9 weeks at the top).  Every one a slab of focus-grouped tedium.

Astonishingly, the act before them was Irish denim enthusiasts B*Witched.  Can you name four B*Witched singles?  No, me neither.  The songs in question were “C’est La Vie” (obviously), “Rollercoaster” (inexplicably successful follow-up), “To You I Belong” (token ballad) and “Blame It On The Weatherman” (new plaintive direction).

The thing is, in those days, sales tended to slow down by the time you reached the fourth single from the album.  Westlife and B*Witched sold to kids who didn’t buy albums, which might explain why they bucked the trend.  Westlife, in particular, had a hardcore fanbase who would cheerfully buy the same song twice in order to get the B-sides.  Bruno Mars doesn’t fit that mould, but then this is the download era, where cherrypicking of tracks is more common, and multiple hits are more frequent.

Also on this week’s chart, seven new entries, several of them a bit odd.

Number 6 is “Edge of Glory” by Lady Gaga, which is the third single from her upcoming album.  Like the last two, it received a sudden midweek release, and there’s no video yet.  The promotion of this album has been very strange indeed – it’s been less than a month since “Judas” came out, less than a fortnight since its video was released.  That single climbs back to number 11 this week.  “Born This Way” also climbs back 10 places to number 24.  It’s fairly common these days to release all the singles before the album, but rushing them out in this haphazard way is odd.  Either they figure it’s going to make her stand out, or they’re just nuts.  Possibly a bit of both.  “Edge of Glory” is great, though – an over the top 80s power ballad complete with sax solos.  It’s certainly better than “Judas”.

Number 13 is “Finish Line” by Yasmin.  That’s a huge improvement on the number 39 peak of her first solo single “On My Own”, and beats her previous chart peak of 15 (as guest vocalist on “Runaway” by Devlin).  It’s a decent arrangement on what strikes me as a rather middling song, but her career’s clearly heading in the right direction.

Number 15 is “Love Love” by Take That, a surprise midweek release.  It’s from the soundtrack of X-Men: First Class, which was released with no prior promotion after they performed it at the National Movie Awards. Chances are sales will pick up once the rest of the world realises it exists.  It’s on somewhat similar lines to the previous single “Kidz”, so apparently they’re serious about this as a new direction.  Good chorus.  Absolutely nothing to do with the X-Men.

At number 17, more Romanian dance music – “Sun Is Up” by Inna.  It’s her third hit and, coincidentally, it lands one place above her stablemate Alexandra Stan’s “Mr Saxobeat”, which climbs an impressive 31-18 this week.

Number 22 is “Bass Down Low” by Dev featuring Cataracs, which actually entered last week at 33, but I forgot to mention it.  This is the woman who did the chorus on “Like a G6” (which the Far East Movement sampled from her track “Booty Bounce”).  My head says this is basically the Black Eyed Peas for hipsters, but against my better judgment, I kind of like this.  Perhaps it’s the protective layer of irony.

Number 30 is downright surreal – “Just Can’t Get Enough” by the Good Child Foundation.  The Good Child Foundation is a special needs school in Thailand.  A Celtic fan who was stabbed to death in Blantyre earlier this year in a sectarian attack taught at the Foundation in his gap year.  The kids have paid tribute to him by recording this cover version of the Celtic football chant version of Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough”.  Proceeds are being split between the Good Child Foundation and Crimestoppers.  The actual version on sale has been heavily remixed into something a bit closer to the original, but here’s the recording session.  Fabulously weird and strangely touching.

Number 36 is this week’s Glee Cast single, “I Feel Pretty/Unpretty”.

And at number 40, more football – an eccentric chart campaign by fans of Manchester United to pay tribute to the team’s nineteenth league win by buying…

Words fail me.