It’s a podcast week, so don’t forget to check out the podcast thread one post below!  And now…

Psy only managed one week at number 1, largely because he had the misfortune to run smack into a strong week for new releases – his sales actually went up from the previous week.  He winds up at an eminently respectable number 2, and he looks set to hang around the top 10 for a few weeks yet.

Meanwhile…

37.  Adele – “I Can’t Make You Love Me”

Adele has some actual, honest to god new material out this week!  But this isn’t it.

No, this is a relatively obscure entry from her back catalogue which was covered in the X Factor “judge’s houses” shows last week, and that’s why it’s suddenly in the chart.  It comes from a live show she did for iTunes in 2011 (not the one above, but I’m sure they were broadly similar).

X Factor has a habit of using relatively unknown songs and crediting them to high-profile artists who did cover versions, rather than to the people originally responsible.  “I Can’t Make You Love Me” is not an Adele song; the original version is by Bonnie Raitt, and it just missed the top 40 in 1991.  Raitt has always been a much bigger star in America than in the UK; her only top 40 hit in this country was “You”, which made number 31 in 1994.

Technically, the song has been a hit before – it reached number 3 for George Michael in 1997 as a double-A-side with “Older”.  But since everyone treated “Older” as the lead track, I’m not sure it really counts.

36.  The Other Tribe – “Skirts”

A throwback here to the days of indie/rave crossover bands, with a fair chunk of 80s pop thrown in on the verses.  The Other Tribe were once voted the best live act in Bristol, apparently.  That’s Bristol for you.  It won’t be around next week.

26.  Taylor Swift – “Red”

Swift is doing the increasingly fashionable thing of banging out album tracks as “promotional singles” in advance of her album release, without full-scale promotion.  This is one of them.  It’ll probably be gone next week, but that’s hardly the point.  The official single, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”, is still in the top 10, and she’s now charting with tracks like this at the same time.  That’s a real step up in terms of her UK career.  There’s another one out this week, “I Knew You Were Trouble”.

20.  Nicki Minaj – “Va Va Voom” 

This has been climbing from the lower reaches for a little while now.  It’s the promotional single from the deluxe edition of her album “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded”.  It was originally planned as the lead single for the album proper only to be shelved and shunted to the deluxe edition at the last minute.  A video was supposedly filmed last year and should have been out by now, but doesn’t seem to be.

It’s your basic Nicki Minaj In Pop Mode track.

11.  Jason Mraz – “I Won’t Give Up”

Climbing twelve places.  That’ll be because X Factor covered it two weeks running.  (This sort of thing tends to stop now that the live shows are underway.)

5.  Ellie Goulding – “Anything Could Happen”

This is the lead single from Goulding’s second album.  She’s not exactly a consistent singles seller, but this is her third top five hit, after “Starry Eyed” and her cover of “Your Song”.  Interesting choice of single – not many acts lead off their album promotion with a mid-pace ballad, but then again, it’s got a sort of Eurythmics meets Florence and the Machine quality to it.  It’s also being used in a Beats By Dre commercial.

Curiously, Goulding’s only US hit was “Lights”, which went triple platinum in the States, yet failed to reach the top 40 in the UK.

4.  Adele – “Skyfall”

This week’s other new entry for Adele, and the one we’re meant to be talking about, is the theme to the new James Bond film.  This was only released on Friday in order to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first Bond movie (specifically, they released it at 0.07am…), so it’s effectively here on the strength of two days’ sales.  Naturally, it looks to be in contention for number 1 next week.

There’s a long tradition of Bond themes being hits in the UK – hell, we even sent “You Know My Name” by Chris Cornell into the top 10.  In fact, you have to go back to 1983 to find a Bond theme that flopped in the UK (“All Time High” by Rita Coolidge, the theme from Octopussy, made number 75, and was lucky to get that far).  Still, the consensus is that “Skyfall” is a pretty good one – even if it’s firmly from the Shirley Bassey playbook.  And it helps that it’s her first major new material in over a year.

3.  One Direction – “Live While We’re Young”

Lead single from their second album.  This was number 1 on the midweeks, but it’s a real case of frontloaded sales from the fans – it was already down to number 3 on iTunes by the time those midweeks came out, and it’s at 7 on the current midweeks.  Still, One Direction records have been known to have a second wind once they reach an audience beyond their hardcore fanbase, and this is a perfectly inoffensive pop song.

1.  Rihanna – “Diamonds”

No video for this.  It only got about a week of pre-release hype, but it’s the first single from her new album, so it was always going to sell.  I don’t expect it to manage a second week, but it’s a nice enough change of pace for her.

It’s her 7th number one, following “We Found Love” (2011), “What’s My Name” (2010), “Only Girl (In The World)” (2010), her guest vocal on Jay-Z’s “Run This Town” (2009), “Take a Bow” (2008) and “Umbrella” (2007).  That’s a hard track record to argue with.