Just as I predicted last week, the JLS single “The Club Is Alive” flared out embarrassingly quickly.  After entering at number 1 on 11 July, it crashed to number 7 the following week. To be fair, the midweek charts show it hanging on in the bottom end of the top 10, so it’s not going to plummet straight out of the charts.  Even so, it’s an anomaly in the current charts – not many number one singles still get there solely on the strength of hardcore fans who bought the record in the first few days.  Despite the turnover of number 1 singles, which has been fairly high this year, most of them stick around for a reasonable time.

As it happens, it’s a fairly quiet period for new releases.  That means the collapse in JLS’s sales has benefitted a single which has been on the chart for 7 weeks.

“Airplanes” by B.o.B. featuring Hayley Williams entered at number 23 in June as an album track download.  Curiously, the album itself isn’t actually selling especially well – people seem to be cherrypicking this track instead.  It hovered around the twenties for a few weeks and then started climbing to the top 10 once the video came out.  (Which goes to show that they still make a difference.)

This is B.o.B.’s second UK hit, following “Nothin’ On You”, which also made number one in May.  That’s a pretty strong start to his career over here – especially considering that he hasn’t even charted before as a guest artist on somebody else’s record.  Presumably the album sales will come along in due course, but for the moment, it seems a fair bet that this track is selling on its own merits rather than because of an in-built fan base.

Hayley Williams is the lead singer of Paramore, a band from Tennessee hovering somewhere between rock and power pop.  They’ve been around for five years.  Their last album “Brand New Eyes” reached number 1 in the album chart, but they’ve never really had a breakthrough hit single, even though they certainly know how to write a tune.  The lyrics could stand to be subtler, but hell, that’s never stopped a lot of bands.  To be fair, they haven’t exactly had an extensive marketing push behind them in this country.  They’ve had five UK hits, the biggest being last year’s “Ignorance”, which made number 14.

As you can probably see, she’s not an obvious collaborator for a rapper, but spreading her wings – and raising her profile – is probably a smart move.  The UK record company only promoted two singles from Paramore’s current album – “Ignorance” and “The Only Exception”.  Since videos do exist for some of the other tracks (such as “Brick By Boring Brick”), I wouldn’t be altogether surprised to see them have another go at re-promoting the album.

In an unusually light week for new releases, there are only four new entries on the chart…

• Professor Green featuring Lily Allen, “Just Be Good to Green” at number 5.

(YouTube version here). Second hit for London rapper Professor Green, following “I Need You Tonight”, which reached number 3 in April, and which I described as a bit of a novelty record on the basis of its heavy sampling of INXS.  This is rather better.  It’s basically an answer record to “Just Be Good To Me”, originally recorded by the SOS Band in 1983.

That version reached number 13 in 1984, but it’s better known in Britain in the cover version by Beats International, retitled “Dub Be Good To Me”.  It reached number 1 in 1990 and it’s obviously the basis for the backing track on the Professor Green version.

Although Beats International were an actual band, they were basically an early vehicle for Norman Cook, later Fatboy Slim.  A curious feature of Cook’s career is that he’s had number one hits not only as Fatboy Slim, but also as a member of Beats International, Freakpower and, way back before he got into dance music, the Housemartins, who reached number 1 in 1986 with acapella single “Caravan of Love.”

But I digress. The Professor Green single is basically an answer to “Just Be Good To Me”, the answer essentially being “Really?  Excellent.”  Lily Allen, a much bigger star, make a surprising appearance on the chorus, picking up her tenth UK hit.

• Mark Ronson & The Business Intl., “Bang Bang Bang” at number 6.  Mark Ronson is a rare example of a producer who’s a big enough name to get credited as the lead artist in his own right.  This is his sixth UK hit, the biggest being his versions of “Valerie” and “Stop Me”, which both made number 2 in 2007.  The Business Intl are his backing band, now getting a joint credit.  The lead single from his new album is a grower, and the video is great.

• M.I.A., “XXXO” at 26.  The lead single for her new album “MAYA” – or, if you’re trying to find it on Spotify, “/\/\ /\ Y /\” – and from what I’ve heard so far, an island of radio-friendly songwriting on an album which is otherwise heavy going.  Confusingly, there is no video for this song, but there is a (eye-rollingly controversy-baiting) video for the track “Born Free”, which isn’t a single.  It was pulled from YouTube a while back, and I’ve got better things to do than track down a live link.  Surprisingly, despite all the hype from London hipsters, this is only her second top 40 hit (the other one being “Paper Planes”, which made number 19 largely because it’s in the soundtrack for Slumdog Millionaire).
• Jason DeRulo, “What If” at 40.  Bound to progress further, since his other three singles all made the top three.  It’s much like the others.   The video features histronic levels of sentimentality.