For the first time this year, we have a proper slate of new entries!  Not just one at the top and a few stragglers outside the top 30!  And with a couple of exceptions, they’re a fairly interesting bunch.

But despite facing a proper challenge for once, the number 1 single is, for the third week, “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye ft Kimbra.

It’s still selling 85,000 copies a week, after nine weeks out, and it’s comfortably the biggest single of the year so far.  And as of right now, it’s still at the top of the iTunes chart, with no real challenge from this week’s new releases.  Could be around a while.

On to this week’s seven new entries, almost all of which are worth a bit of attention.

2.  Dappy featuring Brian May – “Rockstar”

I say “almost all” because first of all there’s this.  Dappy and Brian May – a match made in hell if ever there was one!  The one with the stupid hat!  The one with the stupid hair!  Together at last!

As so often with Dappy, this hasn’t really been thought through.  There’s something endearingly absurd and Q-readerish about Dappy pushing the rebel image while collaborating with Brian May.  I’m not sure either fan base was crying out for this one.  Musically, it’s basically much the same as Dappy’s previous single “No Regrets”, except with more guitars.  The video director, bless him, is trying to do edgy and urban, which, even in the MTV version of same, naturally results in some cartwheels to keep Brian May to a minimum.  And that’s perhaps the most entertainment this record has to ofer.

This is Brian May’s biggest solo hit, beating the number 5 peak of “Too Much Love Will Kill You” in 1992.  He hasn’t had a solo top 40 hit since 1993’s “Resurrection” (no, me neither).

12.  Matt Redman & LZ7 – “Twenty Seven Million”

Did you play the video?

No?

Go back. Play the video. I’ll wait.

Stick with it to the chorus.  Actually, stick with it till the spoken word bit in the bridge.

…

…

Yes.  Quite.

As you will no doubt have spotted, this oddity is a record campaigning against human trafficking.  It is apparently “raising awareness” for the anti-slavery A21 Campaign, although I haven’t been able to pin down any explicit statement that it’s a charity record.  Regardless, we can all agree that human trafficking is a bad thing.  Unfortunately, so is the single.

The more attentive among you may have figured out that this record has emerged from the ghetto of contemporary Christian pop, in one of that audience’s periodic co-ordinated attempts to push a single into the charts.  The song isn’t explicitly religious, though there’s a passing reference to “27 million that need heaven’s mercy”.  It does, however, have many of the features that have made religious pop music the backwater it is today.

There’s nothing wrong with Christian music as such; you could apply that tag to Handel’s Messiah, gospel choirs, or “You Got The Love”.  The problem with modern Christian pop music isn’t the religion, it’s the quality (which is why most Christians don’t listen to it either – Redman’s last album reached number 1 on the UK Christian album chart, and number 149 on the regular album chart).  Regrettably, “Twenty Seven Million” neatly illustrates that point by applying the same mix of clumsy sincerity and misjudged enthusiasm to a secular topic, with equally excruciating results.

Redman, described by Wikipedia as a “Christian worship leader, songwriter and author”, has never charted before.  LZ7 actually have – their single “This Little Light” made number 26 in 2010 largely on the strength of a campaign in Christian music circles.  In fairness, “This Little Light” is miles better than “Twenty Seven Million”.  But it still dropped out of the top 75 after one week, and with “Twenty Seven Million” currently sitting at 45 on iTunes, it seems unlikely to do significantly better.

13.  Chiddy Bang – “Ray Charles”

Crikey, that’s a lot of blind jokes in one single.  Pretty good nonetheless.

This is the first UK single from the Philadelphia duo’s debut album.  They had a number 12 hit back in March 2010 with “Opposite of Adults”, but apparently that’s not on the album.  I assume this is based around a Ray Charles sample, though I’m not honestly sure where it’s from.  The actual Ray Charles was last in the top 40 in 1990 when he guested on “I’ll Be Good To You” by Quincy Jones; his biggest hit was “I Can’t Stop Loving You”, a number 1 from 1962.

22.  Madeon – “Icarus”

Madeon is a French teenager, Hugo Leclerq, and this is the first single of his to be seriously promoted to the mainstream – though it doesn’t actually have a video. You will not be remotely surprised to hear that one of his biggest influences is Daft Punk, but he lives up to them rather well.

23. The Arctic Monkeys – “R U Mine?”

Quite the distinctive video there. You have to work these days to make something look as cheap as that. The guy at the start is Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols (who does indeed host a radio show on KROQ).

The Arctic Monkeys are more of an albums act these days; the pattern for the last two albums was that the first single charted and the rest sank without trace. Despite that, this is a standalone single, apparently intended to promote an upcoming tour. Presumably it helps remind people outside their fan base that they’re still around.

28. Utah Saints vs Drumsound & Bassline Smith – “What Can You Do For Me?”

A drum and bass remix of the Utah Saints’ debut single, which reached number 10 back in 1991. I have a suspicion that the wrestling-themed video may have been conceived by somebody listening to the original, which is infinitely more suited for use as entrance music (not least because of the “You wanted the best and you’ve got the best” sample that isn’t repeated here).

The two female vocal samples are from “There Must Be An Angel” by the Eurythmics, and Gwen Guthrie’s “Ain’t Nothin’ Going On But The Rent.”  Rather counter-intuitively, Drumsound & Bassline Smith are a trio from Derby (two of them are Drumsound). They’ve been around for years but have never showed up in the chart.

32.  Demi Lovato – “Skyscraper”

This has been out in America for months, but they’ve finally started promoting it internationally.

When last we heard from Demi Lovato in the UK charts, she was a Disney princess.  Her career started on Barney & Friends when she was 7, but in 2007 Disney signed her to star in the Camp Rock TV movie and her own show Sonny With a Chance.  She has two previous UK hits to her credit – “This is Me” from the Camp Rock soundtrack, which made number 33, and “La La Land” from her debut Disney album, which made 35.  That was in 2008-9.  Her second Disney album, “Here We Go Again”, did pretty much nothing in the UK.  So far, so typical for the Disney stable.

Things went off the rails rather spectacularly in 2010, when her stint as a support act for the Jonas Brothers was hastily terminated after she (in her own words) “basically had a nervous breakdown”, decked a backing dancer, and was whisked off to rehab.  On her re-emergence in 2011, she announced that, in addition to the expected stuff about drugs and alcohol, she had had an eating disorder since age 8, had been self-harming since age 11, and had recently discovered that she was bipolar.  Lovato is now 19.

“Skyscraper”, which was recorded shortly before her breakdown, thus ends up being a rather more appropriate comeback single than originally expected.  While the song is just an above average ballad about, you know, enduring adversity and so on, you’ve got to admit she sells it well.  She’s a good singer, on the strength of this, so life after Disney may well be on the cards, however bumpy the road to getting there.