(NB: See the housekeeping announcement a post down, if you’re looking for this week’s podcast.)

This is the busiest chart in quite some while, though it’s also a week of relatively low sales and some underwhelming debuts.  Still, nine new entries, and a couple of substantial climbers.  There’s no move at number 1, but by a very slender margin; Rita Ora held on by less than a thousand sales.

1.  Rita Ora feat Tinie Tempah – “R.I.P.”

Doesn’t look like it’s going to manage a third week, and I wrote plenty about it last week, so let’s move on.  The highest climber is “Express Yourself” by Labrinth, jumping from 34 to 17; Emeli Sande’s “My Kind Of Love” predictably vaults 27 to 19; and the Fun single “We Are Young” has rebounded to number 2 after being covered on The Voice.  It might yet make number 1 – it’s at 2 in the midweeks, but that’s behind the Wanted, and boy band sales tend to be heavily front loaded because the fans all buy the record as soon as it comes out.

On with the new entries…

7.  The Saturdays – “30 Days”

Ah.  This is the lead single from their fourth album, and a reversion to synth pop.  The song actually kind of grows on you, but it’s not the success they were hoping for.  The Saturdays have never had a number one hit, and in a week of relatively low sales with no other competition, they should have had a decent shot here.  Result?  Number 2 in the midweeks, number 7 at the end of the week, number 16 in the current midweeks.  That’s really not good.

9.  D’banj – “Oliver Twist”

An extremely rare appearance in the UK charts for African pop music.  D’banj is Dapo Oyebanjo, and he’s been having hits since 2005 in his native Nigeria.  African acts very rarely make it across the Mediterranean, and when they do, it tends to be in the world music category.  D’banj’s cause is helped, of course, by the fact that he makes records that qualify as radio-friendly dance music by European standards.  It’s helped even more by the fact that he’s been signed by Kanye West, who evidently fancies a crack at pushing African pop music to a new audience.

D’banj is not exactly notable for his subtlety.  His upcoming album is called “Mr Endowed”.

12.  The Scissor Sisters – “Only The Horses”

The Scissor Sisters are in the unusual position of being an American act who sell records mainly in Britain and Ireland.  According to Wikipedia, they’ve never had a hit single in the US (though they’ve had a couple of hits on the dance chart).  Their albums make the top 20, but barely.  In comparison, here in Britain, they’ve had two number 1 albums, a third that peaked at number 2, and nine previous hit singles.  In chart terms, their career peaked in 2006 with the international hit “I Don’t Feel Like Dancing” – number 1 in Britain for four weeks.  Since then, they seem to have become primarily an albums act; their last album in 2007 produced a solitary number 11 single (“Fire With Fire”), and “Only The Horses” looks set to repeat that.  It’s a Calvin Harris production, by the way, though for a change it’s not an especially recognisable one.

27.  Professor Green feat Ruth Anne – “Remedy”

The upcoming third single from his current album, picking up downloads as an album track (even though the version being played on the radio is a remix that doesn’t come out until June).  Naturally, it’ll climb when the version they’re pushing is properly released.  “Ruth Anne” is Irish singer-songwriter Ruth Anne Cunningham, who had a hit in Ireland in 2008 called “Take Me Away”, seems to have spent the intervening time writing songs for the likes of Westlife and Pixie Lott, and is now being geared up for an international push.

29.  Skepta – “Make Peace Not War”

Fifth hit for the London rapper, and I suppose at least he can take comfort in knowing that he beat the number 31 peak of both his last two singles.  It’s still going to crash straight out of the charts, from the look of it.  If you really need to be told, the sample is from “Gonna Make You Sweat” by C&C Music Factory, a number 3 hit from 1990.

30.  Coldplay & Rihanna – “Princess of China”

This is going to be the next single from the current Coldplay album, and it’s picking up airplay in advance of the video coming out (which should be next week some time).  It previously charted at 33 back in November as an album track download in the week of release.  As seems to have become customary, Rihanna has three singles in the top 40 at the moment, the others being “Take Care” with Drake, still hanging in at 35, and her own current single “Where Have You Been”, currently at 6 and climbing.  (Also with three singles on the current chart: David Guetta.)

32.  Skrillex feat Sirah – “Bangarang”

This has been out for ages, so quite why it’s getting a push now, I’m not sure. Regardless, it’s climbing in the midweeks, so it may well give Skrillex his first big hit in this country.  Thus far, it equals the peak of his only previous UK hit, “Breakin’ A Sweat”, his collaboration with the surviving members of the Doors.  Skrillex featured on several “ones to watch” lists at the start of the year – not an enormous leap of faith given his success in America and the current gap in the market for somebody who can make elderly relatives say “but that’s just noise”.  (Sirah, if you’re wondering, is the rapper whose voice was used to make the cut-up vocals.)

37.  Ben Howard – “Only Love”

Ben Howard is a vaguely folky singer-songwriter from Devon of the sort that a record label such as Island might sign upon realising that Ed Sheeran is quite popular with the young folk right now.  This is his first hit single (on a fourth attempt), but there may well be some spillover effect, since his earlier singles are cropping up on the recently-launched UK Streaming Chart, which otherwise looks pretty much like the sales chart.

Finally, for those of you wondering, Donna Summer’s death was not ideally timed to maximise sales within a single chart week.  At any rate, “I Feel Love” charted at 45.