Don’t get too comfortable, this won’t take long.  The week ending 8 July 2012 was utterly dead for new releases, resulting in a chart with only two new entries, both miles down the chart, and with only one major climber (“Pound the Alarm” by Nicki Minaj, jumping 34-16).

1.  Maroon 5 (feat Wiz Khalifa) – “Payphone”

Haven’t we been here before?  “Payphone” was number 1 two weeks ago, it got knocked off by will.i.am’s “This Is Love” (which drops to 3 this week), and now it’s back.  It’s probably not going to manage a third week, though you never know.  Judging from the video, the quality of aim among American gun-users has improved little since the days of the A-Team.  Also, it’s remarkably easy to just run out of a bank besieged by the cops.

34.  Blur – “Under The Westway”

This is apparently a song written “especially for the Hyde Park 2012 Olympics Closing Ceremony Celebration Party” (though it’s also appearing as a bonus track on their upcoming compilation, and it was previously performed at a War Child benefit).  It was released without warning at the start of the week, but it’s more designed to remind us about Blur before the release of Blur 21, rather than actually sell in big quantities itself.

Blur haven’t released a proper single since 2003 when “Good Song” made number 22.  (They put out a song called “Fool’s Day” in 2010, but it was a limited edition of 1,000 7″ singles, so it was never going to chart.  It does technically have a video, but since it consists entirely of a close-up of the 7″ single being played, it barely counts.)

A number 34 peak – and it isn’t going any higher – actually makes this Blur’s second-lowest chart placing for a proper single.  Their debut single “She’s So High” only reached 48 back in 1990.  The 1992 single “Popscene”, omitted from their subsequent album and generally considered a commercial disaster at the time, actually made 32.

Still, “Under The Westway” gives Blur their 26th top 40 hit.  They’ve had two number 1 singles, neither of which really shows them at their best, but which do at least show their range – 1995’s “Country House”, which was released as a high-profile chart battle against Oasis and was arguably one of the key points where Britpop started degenerating into self-parody, and the more low-key 1997 single “Beetlebum”, a case of new material selling in the first few days before  plunging down the charts the next week.

35.  Dappy – “I’m Coming (Tarzan Part 2)”

This is an odd release.  It is, officially, a “promotional single”, which apparently means that it has a video and it’s available as a single, but for some reason doesn’t count as a proper single.  In theory, Dappy is meant to be starting the promotion for his next single “Come With Me”, which is out in mid-August.  I suspect the idea here is to remind a segment of the audience that Dappy is, honest, a credible rapper.  Hmm.

You’ll note that the video opens with a disclaimer stating that the original edit has been removed at the request of the artist.  This refers to the original opening caption, which read “Free Leo Chindamo”.  Leo Chindamo murdered head teacher Philip Lawrence in 1995 by stabbing him in broad daylight when he went to help a pupil who was being attacked by a gang outside his school.  Chindamo was actually released on licence in 2010, but he was recalled to jail for breaking the terms of his parole.  Calling for the release of Leo Chindamo is just plain bizarre.

Dappy’s retraction also sets brave new standards in implausibility.  He claimed that “I honestly wasn’t aware he did that.”  You’d have thought even a moron like Dappy would bother asking why somebody was in jail before calling for their release, but Dappy is a very busy idiot.