For the sixth straight week, there’s a new entry at number 1.  (And according to the midweeks, there’ll be a seventh on Sunday.)  The main thing this tells us, to be honest, is that quite a few record labels have given up on the “On Air On Sale” thing and have gone back to promoting their singles in advance of release.  And frankly, they seem to be getting better results that way, at least in terms of getting a high chart placing in their first week.  And to be fair, nine out of the last ten number 1s are still on the chart, so it’s not like they’re all crashing straight out.

Oh, and if these things interest you, the last eight number one singles have all been by British acts.  Which is actually quite uncommon.

Olly Murs drops to 2 in his second week, and his replacement at number 1 is…

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The phone-voting juggernaut that is X Factor is upon us once again.  Of course, we’ll be in the audition shows for a while yet (and so far, they haven’t generated any surprise hits from the back catalogue).  But this is always a good time of year to have an album out, if you’re connected with the show.

Last year’s winner, Matt Cardle, will presumably have his first “proper” single out in time for the first live show, that being the way these things usually work.  So it falls to 2009 runner-up Olly Murs to land this week’s number 1, with the unexpectedly acceptable “Heart Skips A Beat”.

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Somebody must have liked Cher Lloyd’s “Swagger Jagger”.  It did get to number one, after all.  But it drops to number 3 on its second week, and judging from the midweeks, it’ll be out of the top 10 on Sunday.  Given that it had plenty of pre-release hype, the obvious conclusion is that it had little crossover appeal beyond her fanbase.  Which might be because it was terrible.

The new number one looks like another one-week wonder.  It’s the lowest-selling number one in almost two years, and it’s down to four on the midweeks.  But at least this one is an overachiever.

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(If you’re looking for the podcast, it’s one post down…)

These are bleak times.  Looters stalk the streets of England.  The global economy teeters on the brink of collapse.  And 2010 X-Factor fourth-placed finalist Cher Lloyd has released a very bad single.

I think this may be the first time I’ve seen a number 1 single where the YouTube “dislikes” outnumber the “likes” by two to one.

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First things first: there is no Amy Winehouse on this week’s chart.  The chart week runs from Sunday through to Saturday, and so the inevitable posthumous sales rush won’t make its presence felt until next week.  As of right now, it looks like she could well top the album charts, and land “Back to Black” inside the top 10.

But there is no Amy Winehouse on this week’s chart.  Nor is there much else.

The Wanted spend a second week at number one with “Glad You Came”, heading up a completely static top five.  There are several climbers, but it’s mostly rebounds from songs that have been around forever; the only vaguely notable one is Enrique Iglesias’ “Dirty Dancer” climbing eleven places to number 21.  And there are three new entries, all outside the top twenty.

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Founded on the principle that there simply must be a gap in the market for another boy band, the Wanted were created by the same person who assembled the Saturdays.  Heavily marketed to the core boy band demographic, they’ve got the sort of fanbase that rushes out to buy things in the first week if you hype it enough in advance.  “Glad You Came” was hyped well in advance of its release, which is why it’s the new number one.

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A brace of new entries right at the top of this week’s chart help to disguise the fact that it’s otherwise pretty much moribund – there are three new entries total, and only a couple of climbers of any significance.

The new number 1 is “Louder” by DJ Fresh featuring Sian Evans, which is currently being used in a Lucozade advert.  For the benefit of overseas readers, Lucozade is an energy drink.  That means it’s full of sugar but does a lot of branding work to associate itself with sports.

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This week’s chart is dominated by the effects of the Glastonbury Festival, that much loved annual event in which London media types get to tell us how they went to a field and saw some mud.  Personally, I’ve never been that keen on festivals – I went to T in the Park a few times back when I did student radio, but even then I kind of saw it as a massively inconvenient trek to see bands who’d usually have been better in a proper venue.

But the festival circuit is an established part of the UK calendar, and Glastonbury is the established top festival, which means it gets tons of radio and TV coverage from the BBC (particularly today when there are acres of space to fill on the digital channels).

Jason Derulo’s “Don’t Wanna Go Home” is still at number 1.  But the highest new entry at number 3 is “Best Thing I Never Had” by Beyonce, who was one of this year’s headline acts.

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We have a new number one!  And it’s crap.

That’s “Don’t Wanna Go Home” by Jason Derulo, a track which has almost nothing to recommend it beyond the bits it lifted from other, better records.  Imaginatively, the video features Derulo dancing in a warehouse.  Never seen that before.

It’s the lead single from Derulo’s second album, and his second number one following “In My Head” last March, which was just the right side of forgettable.  I assume everyone knows the source material here, but the hook comes from “The Banana Boat Song” by Harry Belafonte (number 2 in 1957).

Here he is performing it with the Muppets.

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“Changed The Way You Kiss Me” by Example is still number one – though it was behind in the midweeks, so it was clearly a close run thing.  It probably won’t manage a third, but stranger things have happened.

The thwarted single that topped the midweek charts, only to find itself at number 2 on Sunday, is “Bounce” by Calvin Harris featuring Kelis.

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