I know, I know.  I’m running very late.

Last week’s delayed podcast will be up tomorrow (with the rest of this week’s reviews most likely following early in the week), but in the meantime…

1.  Gotye ft Kimbra – “Somebody That I Used To Know”

That’s four weeks total at number one, and the midweeks show him staying for a fifth.  Gotye is now closing on the six week combined run of Rihanna’s “We Found Love” last October/November.

5.  Stooshe ft Travie McCoy – “Love Me”

This is the first full-scale release from the London trio, who are an unusual outfit.  They’re technically a girl band, but the music is vaguely soul/R&B, while the personas are primary-coloured cartoons.  They’re certainly different. Teeters on the verge of being really irritating, but I think on the whole they make it work.

This video is for the radio edit “Love Me”, which is the title they’re using on the chart.  But the song was called “Fuck Me” when they first released it on YouTube a year ago (yes, the promotion for this bunch has been in the works for a long time), and that’s still the title of the “explicit” version.  The original video has been taken down from YouTube.  Though it’s still available elsewhere.

Travie McCoy is the frontman for the Gym Class Heroes, who are still on the chart with their own current single “Ass Back Home.”  He wasn’t on the original, where some bloke called Suave Debonair did the rap break.

7.  Tinchy Stryder ft Pixie Lott – “Bright Lights”

This is something of a high-concept collaboration.  Both acts have a version of the song on their current album, and both of them take the lead on their own version.  The big idea is that in the Pixie Lott version, she actually turns out to be a bit miserable, thus ironically undercutting the Tinchy Stryder version.  Or something like that.  Anyhow, this is the Stryder version, and it’s being released as the third single from his current album.  Without the context, it sounds very much like you’d expect from these two – typical UK pop-rap, but done pretty well.

9.  Marcus Collins – “Seven Nation Army”

This is the guy who came second in X Factor last year, which you will recall was generally considered to be rather a poor year in terms of commercial promise.  He was one of those acts who could clearly sing but had a massive wad of professionalism where the personality ought to be.  Still, he made the final, so he must have had something.

The fact that he’s got a single out as early as March says “cash in” to me; in recent years, they’ve generally steered clear of rushing out follow-up records in this way.  This is indeed a cover version of the White Stripes song, which reached number 7 in 2003.  (Oddly, the White Stripes’ biggest UK hit was the 2007 single “Icky Thump”, which made number 2 – largely because they hadn’t had anything out in a while, I suspect.)  Needless to say, a soul version by an X-Factor contender has met with a somewhat divided response.

Adding to the general air of cash-in, Collins’ version of the song is actually an inferior clone of a version released three years ago by French singer Ben L’Oncle Soul.

Marcus Collins is the first act called Marcus ever to have a UK hit, so that’s nice for him.

34.  Taio Cruz ft Flo Rida – “Hangover”

Set to climb into the top 20 on Sunday.  This is being used as the lead single on Cruz’s album internationally, though in the UK they trailed it with “Troublemaker” instead.  According to Wikipedia, the song was performed on the Season 2 finale of Dutch talent show The Voice of Holland.  With “Good Feeling” and “Wild Ones” still on the chart, it gives Flo Rida three concurrent hits.