Rarely has a week with so many new releases been so utterly dull.  There are seven new entries (plus one big climber), but with one exception, they’ve all dropped sharply on the midweeks.

In a display of unusual staying power, “We Found Love” by Rihanna returns to number 1 in its sixth week on release, having moved 1-1-1-3-2-1.

(The song starts at 0:50.)

This is a little unexpected, because the midweek charts had “Take A Chance on Me” by JLS in the lead.  And the X Factor’s only successful band has a good track record for making number 1.  But the second single from their new album is just a generically forgettable mid-tempo pop dirge.  It’s inoffensive.  It’s slightly above average.  But the initial sales from the fanbase clearly didn’t hold up, since it winds up at number 2, and the midweeks show it dropping to 7.

Number 10 is “What Do You Take Me For” by Pixie Lott featuring Pusha T.  It has a vaguely diverting brass sample and not much else to commend it.  It’s Lott’s eighth hit; on the whole, she tends to either go to number 1, or wind up round about here, and I don’t see this one going any further.  Guest rapper Pusha T appears to have based his contribution entirely on the song title without actually bothering to check whether he was writing about the same topic as the verses.  It’s his first solo credit in the UK, though he was also one half of Clipse, who reached the dizzy heights of number 38 back in 2003 with “Ma I Don’t Love Her”.  He also appears on Justin Timberlake’s solo debut “Like I Love You”, but the chart company didn’t give him a credit for that.

Number 12 is this week’s big climber, “Shake It Out” by Florence + the Machine, which was boosted by an unlikely booking for the X Factor results show.  The single has now moved 27-48-50-57-26-12, which is certainly quirky.  Unfortunately the midweeks show it going straight back down again.

Back to mid-paced tedium at number 14 with “Me Without You” by Loick Essien, who is from Hammersmith, and has therefore naturally filmed his video in New York to give it that vital, transatlantic lack of edge.  It’s the sort of record which makes you reach for words like “professional” and “competent”.  It’s, you know, fine, it’s just hard to imagine why you’d choose to listen to that particular single in preference to the many, many records that sound just like it.

At number 16, we have the one new entry that bucks the trend by holding its place in the midweeks – “It Will Rain” by Bruno Mars.  It’s his sixth hit of the year, but only three were official singles from the album.  Of the rest, one was an album track that charted after he performed it on the X Factor results show; one was a guest appearance on a Bad Meets Evil track; and the other was this on, which is from the new Twilight movie.  And it sounds much the way you’d expect a Bruno Mars song from a Twilight movie to sound.

Number 18 is “I Need” by Maverick Sabre, the UK rapper who’s broken from the pack by taking the trip-hop route instead.  I’m not sure this single quite works – the verses are nicely moody, but it all goes a bit Simply Red in the choruses – but it’s certainly one of the more interesting new entries on this week’s chart.

Calvin Harris shows up again at number 24, as a featured artist on “Off The Record” by Tinchy Stryder.  I was about to say that you hardly need the credit to tell that it’s a Calvin Harris production, but actually, he’s so widely imitated that you probably do.  Surprisingly, this seems to have vanished altogether from the midweek chart; perhaps the British public can only be bothered with one Calvin Harris record at a time.

Finally, at number 25, “No Beef” by Afrojack & Steve Aoki.  In which the DJ duo demonstrate that they can make a video even more unwatchable than “Loca People”.  Actually, it does get a lot less irritating as it goes on, but the first half of that video really is a chore to watch.