Now these, I’m really behind with…

When we left off, it was 20 March, and Adele’s “Someone Like You” had just been knocked off number one by Nicole Scherzinger’s “Don’t Hold Your Breath”.  That was four charts ago.  So what’s happened since?

Well, Nicole Scherzinger’s first week sales didn’t hold up, so on 27 March, “Someone Like You” returned to number one for a fifth week.  After that, for the two weeks I was out of the country, we had “On The Floor” by Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull.

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Ah well, nothing stays at number one forever.  After four weeks, “Someone Like You” by Adele finally slips to number two.  (Mind you, it’s  number one again in the iTunes chart as I write.  So you never know.  It could be back.)

And the new number one is…

…“Don’t Hold Your Breath” by Nicole Scherzinger.  Wikipedia describes this as “an empowering mid-tempo pop song”, which pretty much tells you what to expect.  It’s one of those post-break-up declaration-of-independence dance records; all pretty familiar, let’s be honest, but it’s done well enough.  The song has been doing the rounds for a while; there’s a demo version out there with vocals by Timbaland and Keri Hilson, though quite why somebody thought it was good material for him, I’ve no idea.

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Nearly the end of the week, best get this done while it’s still vaguely up to date…

If you’ve enjoyed reading the words “Adele is still number one” over the last couple of weeks, then good news – Adele is still number one.  “Someone Like You” spends its fourth week at the top, though to judge from the midweeks, commercial gravity is finally going to catch up with it on Sunday.

The turnover of number 1 singles has been pretty high for the last couple of years; the last single to stay at the top for this long was “The Fear” by Lily Allen in February 2009.  (Admittedly, six different singles managed it in 2008.)

Further down, it’s a relatively busy week.  The highest new entry is at number 5 for “Black & Yellow” by Wiz Khalifa.  He’s been releasing albums since 2006, but this is the first time he’s made the UK charts.  It’s an odd song to be a crossover hit, since it’s basically a mixture of standard rap lyrics and tributes to his home town of Pittsburgh.  But it does stand out from the crowd musically. To some extent it’s been the victim of a record label who still insist on hyping records for ages before releasing them – which resulted in a dodgy cover version by Hype Squad scraping the lower end of the chart last week.

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This won’t take long.

You might remember that a few weeks ago, some of the major UK record labels announced their new “on air, on sale” policy, where records would be made available to download as soon as they were released to radio.  There was some speculation that this might result in records slowly climbing from the bottom of the charts.  And what happened?  A string of records went straight in at number 1 with no prior promotion.

But things seem to be changing.  Once again, the top end of the chart is eerily becalmed.  There are only four new entries on this week’s chart, none of which make the top 20.  This is about as quiet as the charts get.

“Someone Like You” by Adele is number one, for the third week.  And to judge from the iTunes chart, it’s got a decent shot of holding on for a fourth.

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Don’t get too settled.  This won’t take long.  It’s a very quiet week on the singles chart, with a largely static top ten and only one significant new entry.

“Someone Like You” by Adele holds at number 1 for the second week.  Interestingly, according to the iTunes chart, the original studio recording is now outselling the Brit Awards version that catapulted her to the top in the first place.  It doesn’t look like any of this week’s new releases are posing much of a threat either, though it’s too early in the week to predict anything with confidence, given what happened on the previous two charts.

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Last week, Lady Gaga released a single on Friday afternoon, it entered at number 3 on the strength of a day and a half’s sales, and I confidently predicted that it would climb to the top in its first full week of release.  Well, so much for that idea.

As it turns out, what seems to have happened is that the hardcore Lady Gaga fans – of whom there are apparently quite a lot – ran out and bought the single in the first few days, but it’s taking longer to catch on with a wider audience.  This shouldn’t actually have come as a surprise, since she has a track record of releasing singles that took a while to catch on before climbing to the top.  Perhaps “Born This Way” will be the same.  (I wasn’t sold on it at first, but it’s certainly growing on me.)

Regardless, the upshot is that although she was number one in the Wednesday midweek chart, Lady Gaga didn’t sustain her sales over the course of a second week, and Jessie J’s “Price Tag” outsold her again.  At time of writing, “Born This Way” has dropped to 9 on the iTunes chart, while “Price Tag” continues to sell.

But neither of those singles is this week’s number one.  Unexpectedly, this is.

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It seems that Lady Gaga enjoys making life unnecessarily difficult for herself.  The chart week ends at midnight on Saturday, giving the compilers time to verify everything before the charts are announced on Sunday afternoon.  (Sunday sales count towards the next week.)  So when does Lady Gaga release her new single?  Friday afternoon at two o’clock.

“Born This Way” dutifully shot to the top of the iTunes chart, which as we all know is based on a complicated formula involving very recent sales and water divination.  Would it make number one on less than a day and a half’s sales?

Well, no, of course not.  It may be the biggest new release of the week, but not by such a margin as to overturn a five day head start.  Granted, “Candle in the Wine ’97” managed it, but that was a special case.  “Born This Way” enters at number 3, but chances are it’ll climb to number 1 on Sunday.  So we’ll come back to it then.

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Welcome to a new chart era.  I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that some of the major labels were introducing a new system for promoting singles.  Instead of hyping them for weeks before putting them on sale, they’re going to release new singles for download at the same time that they’re released to radio.  So, in effect, no pre-release publicity at all.  They call it “on air, on sale.”  And this is the first chart to feature singles released under the new system.

You’d have thought that would mean singles entering low and working their way up.  But, as it turns out, no.  The first major release with an “on air, on sale” schedule goes straight in at number one – which, of course, you could read as evidence that the record industry has been completely wasting its time with the pre-release hype on singles for years now.

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The midweek charts suggested a fairly quiet week.  As it turns out, there are ten new entries this week – but six of them are between 31 and 40, so the midweeks weren’t entirely wrong.

One of those new entries is at number one – “We R Who We R” by Ke$ha.  This is the lead single from “Cannibal”, a companion EP promoting a re-release of her album “Animal”.  Basically, it’s the old “special edition” schtick, except they’re going to sell the same album packaged alongside the new EP.  Since the new EP is available separately, it’s actually a fairer way of treating the people who bought the album the first time round.  Although as a rule, these days, they can just download the extra tracks if they’re that bothered.

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The post-Christmas lull is definitively over this week, as 2011’s first wave of major releases results in ten new entries.  Despite that, Bruno Mars clings on at the top for a second week with “Grenade”.  Since he was at number 2 in the midweeks, it’s fair to assume that it was a close run thing.

The unfortunate single which was number one on the midweeks only to fall short at the end of the week is “Rolling in the Deep”, the lead single from Adele‘s second album.  And it’s really very good.

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