We’ve had eleven straight number ones by British artists, but this week that run comes to a screeching halt thanks to what can only be described as a Spanish novelty record.  Oddly enough, the last Spanish number one single (“Asereje” by Las Ketchup from 2002) was also a novelty record.  But at least it wasn’t “Loca People” by Sak Noel.  Caution: what follows is an irritating record with an extraordinarily bad video.

Sak Noel is a Spanish DJ who’s done pretty much nothing else of note (in terms of releases, anyway – apparently he also runs a music festival).  The uncredited vocalist is Esthera Sarita, who’s pretty much a blank slate too.

It is certainly a record to ponder.  Why has this woman come to Spain?  Has she done even the most elementary research into her choice of holiday destination?  Who is Johnny, and what exactly does she think he’s going to do about it?  Truly, the lyric hints at a whole broader story on which we can but speculate.

“Loca People” came out across most of Europe in June, and hard as it may be to believe, it was a hit around the continent.  It made number one in Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and (ahem) Flemish Belgium, and it made the top ten in another seven countries.  In Britain, it’s being released at the tail end of the summer, which effectively means that it’s reviving the extremely dubious tradition of the holiday novelty single.

There was a time when post-holiday novelty singles were a regular feature of the UK chart.  The basic idea is that British people go on package holidays to Spain or Greece, listen to some godawful single which is hammered at the local tourist nightclubs, come back home, and buy it as a memento of their two-week hangover.  Actually, this sort of thing still happens, but with the rise of a pan-European dance music culture, the records in question have tended to be straight euphoric dance records without the novelty angle.  But in the days before Ibiza and Ayia Napa, the sunburned punters would come back itching to buy far less defensible records.

The classic example is probably Sylvia’s 1974 hit “Y Viva Espana”, but frankly, the genre is best summed up by Spitting Image’s 1986 parody “The Chicken Song”, which astonishingly stayed at number 1 for three weeks.

Mmm.

For those of you too young or too foreign to remember, by the way, Spitting Image was an ITV satire show which was hugely influential in its mid-80s heyday.  That particular song was written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who went on to create Red Dwarf.  Well, they wrote the lyrics – the tune is loosely ripped off from “Agadoo”.

The record sleeve actually billed “The Chicken Song” as a “double B-side”, though the chart quietly ignored that.  If you’re wondering, this was the flipside.  (And yes, it is very much a product of the apartheid era, isn’t it?)

The other major new entry this week, thanks to an outing in the X Factor auditions, is “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls, at number 3.  In America, it was a massive hit, spending 18 weeks at number one.  In Britain, it never really caught on – its previous peak was at number 26 in 1999.  But because it was such a big hit in America, it’s a song that most people would vaguely recognise from film and TV soundtracks.  To all intents and purposes, the Goo Goo Dolls remain one-hit wonders in the UK.  Their only other single to make the top 40 in this country was “Stay With You”, which reached number 39 in 2006 – as a double A-side with a reissue of “Iris”.

Further down the chart, number 20 is “Sexy And I Know It” by LMFAO, which will climb into the top 10 on Sunday.  (It’s one of those odd tracks where the record has no discernible irony and the video goes way over the top in the other direction.)  And number 39 is “Loverboy” by You Me at Six, of which we will hear nothing further.  There are seven climbers, but none of them moving very fast.

Next week looks to be the quietest in months, as the record industry finally forgets to release something that can enter at number one.  Or indeed anywhere else north of 20.