So, mmm, yeah, probably not going to get to that Wolverine Max review this week after all…  With an eye on the time, though, let’s see if I can finish this off while it’s still mildly topical.

35.  Sean Paul – “Turn It Up”

So.  Is there anything to say about this beyond “I’ve heard worse”?  Well, the single’s a bit of a mystery, really.  It’s got a video, but it’s not exactly been hyped, and Wikipedia seems to suggest it hasn’t even been released outside the UK (even though Sean Paul regularly has hits in several major European markets).  It’ll be gone next week, anyhow.  Slightly surprised this didn’t go further, since while Sean Paul is hit and miss with his chart placings, this seems like something that should have done okay with a bit of promotion.

34.  Rizzle Kicks – “Skip to the Good Bit”

Mini aren’t subtle with their product placement in music videos, are they?

This is the follow-up to “Lost Generation”, which made the top 10, but it’ll be charting as an album track download on the strength of early promotion.  The midweeks have it climbing – to 28, admittedly, but climbing nonetheless.

The sample – and there must be some of you too young to remember – is from “Unbelievable” by EMF, a number 1 hit in 1990… in America.  In Britain it only got to number 3, though it’s still probably better remembered than most of that year’s number ones.  It’s aged pretty well, actually.  EMF were one of those indie/dance/pop hybrid acts that flourished around 1990.  Despite perennial rumours that the E stood for Ecstasy and the MF stood for the obvious, the band always insisted that it stood for Epsom Mad Funkers (which would have been a reference to a New Order fan club, and thus isn’t quite as implausible as it sounds).

33.  Reconnected – “Time of our Lives”

Wow, are these guys still going?  This is the boy band signed to the indie label that Duncan Bannatyne invested in, which still sparks a level of cognitive dissonance that’s difficult to look past.  Their previous single “One in a Million” made number 32 in March, so no progress there.

31.  Icona Pop – “All Night”

Follow-up to “I Love It”, which was a number 1 in July when the record company finally got around to releasing it here.  A bad choice of follow-up, if you ask me; the tune’s too similar to “I Love It” at times, and that makes it come across as a pale imitation of the better-known hit.  The midweeks suggest it’s going no further.

28.  Justin Bieber – “Hold Tight” 

This week’s “Music Monday” single.  Quite the woozy mid-paced album, this is turning out to be.  Also of note is that this was at 9 in the midweeks, so it really did sell almost exclusively to the fans in the first couple of days.  It’s going to be interesting to see if Bieber can actually get all of these tracks into the top 40.  He also appears as a guest on a Tyga single out this week, which failed to chart.

22.  Eminem – “Survival”

The third Eminem single in as many weeks, and diminishing returns are clearly setting in.  This one’s on his upcoming album and it’s in Call of Duty: Ghosts.  The uncredited vocalist on the chorus is Liz Rodrigues of the New Royales.

This definitely won’t be in the top 40 next week, and to explain why, we must take a detour into the arcane and tedious world of chart rules.  In fact, we need to touch on this anyway in order to explain why Lady Gaga isn’t in the chart…

So.  Remember back in January when David Bowie released “Where Are We Now?” and the broadsheet papers had a collective fit that it was going to be disqualified from the chart because it was also available as a freebie for anyone pre-ordering the album?  And remember how the chart compilers explained that technically it was eligible to chart as long as they were provided with separate figures for the standalone track, but since they didn’t have that data they couldn’t figure out which sales were of the single and which were of the album?  And remember how David Bowie is a special case for some reason, so iTunes and everyone else somehow decided to provide that information after all?  And remember how this whole issue kind of dropped off the radar after that?

Well.

It turns out that, in fact, David Bowie was indeed a special case because of the publicity.  Retailers still aren’t providing data that allows the chart compilers to distinguish between sales of the individual track, and freebie downloads for people who pre-ordered the album.  So, as a workaround, they changed the chart rules instead.  The rules (as interpreted in practice, because god knows this isn’t readily apparent from reading them) apparently now provide that any album which is available for pre-order can nominate one “instant gratification” track, and as long as pre-orderers pay for that track up front, it will count as a single on the charts – even if you were actually buying the album.  In the absence of data that allows the sales to be separated out, the chart compilers appear to have accepted this as the best compromise available to them.

Why limit it to one track?  Because otherwise you could manipulate the chart by converting a single album pre-order into multiple singles sales.  That’s the theory.  But it kind of breaks down when all of those instant grat tracks really have been promoted separately as singles.  Lady Gaga has actively promoted several tracks from her upcoming album ARTPOP, but only one of them, “Applause”, is currently chart eligible.  Eminem has taken a slightly different approach: he released this track, “Berzerk” and “Rap God” as regular singles, but as of this week they’re also available as instant grat tracks for album pre-order along with a fourth track, “The Monster”.  Now, “The Monster” has been nominated as the eligible instant grat track, so that means that the other three get disqualified from the chart until the album comes out, at which point they count again.

Got that?  No, probably not.  While you can see the chart compilers’ problem, it’s plainly a very awkward compromise, and it doesn’t do wonders for the credibility of the chart.  And while the chart exists primarily as a marketing tool for the music industry, its effectiveness as a marketing tool does depend on its underlying credibility.  Fortunately for the chart, we’ve yet to have the spectre of a number 1 single being disqualified under these rules – but it can only be a matter of time.

8.  Union J – “Beautiful Life”

Union J are the boy band who came fourth in X Factor last year, and have now been dutifully pressed into service as the Lidl One Direction.  This is their second single – yes, I’d forgotten the previous one too.  It was called “Carry You” and it got to number 6.  Two singles, neither making the top 5 – that’s not usually good for teen acts.

5.  Showtek featuring We Are Loud & Sonny Wilson – “Booyah”

Showtek are brothers who started off as a hardstyle duo from Eindhoven, but they’ve been collaborating with people from more – well, more radio friendly genres for a while now.  Still, there’s more than a hint of their roots in this, which makes it an odd track to find so far up the chart.  We Are Loud are also Dutch, and consider themselves more progressive EDM.  Sonny Wilson?  Dutch singer.  So yes.  Very Dutch.

2.  James Arthur – “You’re Nobody Til Somebody Loves You”

The first single proper from last year’s X Factor winner, though of course the obligatory coronation single (“Impossible”) was a number 1 last Christmas.  By the standards of X Factor winners still under contract, this is really not bad at all; there’s actually a bit of passion to it.  It’s a little surprising that, despite being performed on the results show last week, it hasn’t made number 1 – but then it was up against a strong challenger.  What ought to be more worrying is that it drops to 10 on the midweeks, though that’s partly due to a raft of high new entries.

1.  Lorde – “Royals”

Lorde is a sixteen-year-old from New Zealand, and this has already been a somewhat surprising number one in the USA.  I wouldn’t have guessed this as a global hit, but I like it a lot.  Minimal, mid-paced, a video in which she barely appears (she’s in the US version  a lot more, but not the edit being used in this country)… but it sure stands out, and it’s a got a fantastic chorus.  This isn’t a Gotye-style viral hit; the record company is actively promoting her in this country.  Still, it’s a nice change of pace at the top of the singles chart.

It won’t be number 1 next week, but it’ll be hanging around the top end for a while to come.

On the album chart:-

• “Prism” by Katy Perry at number 1.  Yes, she sells albums too.  This is her second number one album, following “Teenage Dream” in 2010.
• “Moon Landing” by James Blunt at 2.  His fourth album, and they’ve all made the top 5.  The single “Bonfire Heart” got to number 4 a couple of weeks back.
• “Live in Portofino” by Andrea Bocelli at 5.  An ideal Christmas present for the Classic FM listener in your life.
• “The Message” by Andrea Begley at 7.  The winner of last year’s The Voice, and the producers with breathe a sigh of relief that at least this one has sold a few records.  It’s a covers album, though, which doesn’t exactly suggest massive confidence on the label’s part.  In case you’d forgotten that she’s the blind one, the single is a cover of “Dancing in the Dark”.  Seriously.
• “Now Then and Forever” by Earth Wind & Fire at 25.  Despite the title, this isn’t a greatest hits album, it’s a new studio album – though not featuring founder Maurice White.  Single: “My Promise”.
• “Shulamith” by Poliça at 33.  Second album by a synthpop group from Minneapolis, first to chart.  Single: “Warrior Lord”.