After four weeks (and with their album now available to buy instead), Daft Punk’s reign at the top comes to an end.  We can now return to our regularly scheduled business of records entering at number 1!

40.  Evanescence – “Bring Me To Life” 

Performed on Britain’s Got Talent, as if you couldn’t guess.

30.  The 1975 – “The City”

The follow-up to “Chocolate”, which made number 19 earlier in the year and hung around for a couple of months.  Can’t say I’m wild about it, to be honest.  Much like “Chocolate”, it’s a big, polished production job married to a decent enough hook, but the actual song beneath it all is pretty forgettable, with a lyric that’s elliptical to the point of meaninglessness and a tune that’s basically not there.

This was number 20 in the midweeks, dropped to 30 by Sunday, and is currently at 75 on iTunes, so it doesn’t look set to repeat “Chocolate”‘s success.

23.  Lana Del Rey – “Young and Beautiful”

From the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby film.  If nothing else, Lana Del Rey always stands out in the top 40.  The Americana is dialled back a bit in this one, a stately orchestral number in which Lana ponders whether her man will still love her when she is old, and insists somewhat unconvincingly that he will.  Not an obvious single, but it’s grown on me.

Her first two singles reached number 9, but this is the first time she’s been in the top 30 since then.

15.  Emmelie de Forest – “Only Teardrops”

This is the Eurovision Song Contest winner, which I already wrote about last week.  Not nearly as big as last year’s winner, “Euphoria” by Loreen, which made number 3 – but then “Euphoria” was a stand-out as  Eurovision goes.  It’s already outside the top 100 on iTunes, so we won’t be hearing from it again next week.

6.  2 Chainz featuring Wiz Khalifa – “We Own It (Fast and Furious)”

Music to edit trailers to.  It’s the first UK hit for 2 Chainz, who’s been around since 2007.  He started as a member of Playaz Circle (who’ve never had any UK hits either) before starting a solo career in the US last year.  Fairly obviously, he’s here thanks in large part the promotional efforts of the movie studio.  I’ve heard worse.

1.  Naughty Boy featuring Sam Smith – “La La La”

Not exactly the artist I would have expected to knock Daft Punk off the top.  Naughty Boy is Shahid Khan, an established producer, but not someone with much commercial track record as an artist in his own right.

Khan’s career starts off rather implausibly in 2005, when he funded the purchase of his studio by winning £44K on Deal or No Deal.  He had a minor hit the next year with “Phat Beach”, which scraped the bottom end of the top 40 and doesn’t even seem to be on YouTube.  After that, he shifted into production work.  Technically his first major hit was in 2010 when “Never Be Your Woman” (a semi-cover of the White Town song) made number 8 – but that was credited to “Naughty Boy Presents Wiley Featuring Emeli Sande”, and it’s fair to say that it was generally seen at the time as a Wiley single with an odd credit.  (Sande was still just a guest vocalist at that point, and she’s almost unrecognisable in the video.)

He next cropped up on Sande’s own single “Daddy”, which made number 21.  For some reason he got a featured artist credit on that one, though his contribution being as producer and co-writer.  And then, towards the tail end of last year, he made number 10 with “Wonder”, the first single from his own upcoming album – featuring guest vocals from, you guessed it, Emeli Sande.

With this track, though, he has dispensed with Sande’s services, in favour of Sam Smith, the vocalist from Disclosure’s single “Latch”.  It’s a pretty safe bet that this song isn’t going to number one simply thanks an existing fanbase, then; it’s here on merit.  And it’s a pretty good record.  The hook’s on the right side of irritating, the vocal is soulful enough to sell a lyric that could easily have been hideously trite in the wrong hands.

The video is shot in Bolivia, where it’s apparently gone viral, if you believe the director.  It seems to be a loose re-enactment of the Wizard of Oz, which has very little to do with the song.

On the album chart:

• Number 1 is “Random Access Memories” by Daft Punk, obviously.  I imagine it’s going to be settling in there for the foreseeable future.
• “Trouble Will Find Me” by The National at 3.  An American indie band; their previous album made number 5
• “The Conversation” by Texas at 4.  Their first album in eight years.  Their commercial peak was back in the late 90s when they were having number one hit albums.
• “Love Lust Faith + Dreams” by 30 Seconds To Mars at 5.  The fourth album from Jared Leto’s band, and the biggest – they’ve never previously got above 15.
• “Demi” by Demi Lovato at 10.  The British public has, for whatever reason, suddenly decided it’s going to pay attention to her – previous album “Unbroken” peaked at 45.
• “Momentum” by Jamie Cullum at 20.  Sixth album from the jazz-lite singer.  Previous album made 16.
• “Black Dog Barking” by Airbourne at 22.  An Australian rock band.  This is their third album and again, the biggest so far – the last one peaked at 31.
• “Seesaw” by Beth Hart at 27.  US singer-songwriter.  She made the album chart in 2011 with a collaboration with Joe Bonamassa.