After a long run of singles that only spent a week at number 1, at last we reach a record that managed two.  (It’s unlikely to manage three, since the midweek charts show it dropping to 6.)  And yes, you guessed it, it’s connected to The X Factor.

“Start Without You” by Alexandra Burke featuring Laza Morgan.  Simon Cowell’s empire notches up its second consecutive number one – last time it was the 2009 runner-up, this time it’s the 2008 winner with the lead single from her next album.

Cowell generally seems more comfortable promoting MOR than pop music, but he’s always recognised that if Alexandra Burke is anything, she’s a pop singer.  Pushing her as another diva would never have worked; that would have made her a B-list Leona Lewis.  So she gets material like this – produced by RedOne, and extremely loosely based on “Hooray Hooray It’s a Holi-Holiday” by Boney M, a number 3 hit from 1979.

According to Wikipedia, Boney M never got anywhere in America.  So a bit of explanation might be called for.  Boney M were marketed in Europe as a sort of Caribbean disco/pop crossover act.  But they started life as an alias for German record producer and songwriter Frank Farian, who hired some performers to front the group the fact.  The people on stage are in fact from Jamaica, Montserrat and Aruba, but the records themselves are German – Farian continued singing on the records even after hiring the group.

Boney M were very much of their time, but they did release some records that proved to have an unexpectedly long shelf life.  “Rasputin” (number 2 in 1978) is perhaps their weirdest effort – a reflection on the life of the popular early twentieth century Russian monk, it features some of the most audaciously ridiculous deadpan lyrics ever heard in a pop song: “Ra ra Rasputin / Russia’s greatest love machine / There was a cat that really was gone.”

Their only number one was a double A-side, “Rivers of Babylon” and “Brown Girl In The Ring”. The first is a Melodians cover, the second is a West Indies nursery rhyme. The single has the unique chart distinction of reaching number one, dropping to number 20, and then climbing all the way back to number two when radio stations belatedly started playing the other side.

But returning to the current number one…

This is Alexandra Burke’s fifth hit single, and third number one.  (Sixth and fourth, if you count her appearance on the obligatory X Factor finalists charity single from her year.)  It’s the chart debut for American singer Laza Morgan.

Other new entries from that week:

• “For The First Time” by the Script at number 5.  A fourth hit for the extremely sincere Irish rock band.  It climbed to number 4 this week.  Fine if you like that sort of thing.
• “Party Girl” by McFly at number 6.  I know, I thought they’d split up too.  McFly haven’t charted since 2008, so this is very much a comeback single.  This is their seventeenth hit, and they’ve had seven previous number ones, but they were also the classic example of a boy band with minimal crossover appeal – their records entered at number 1 and then plummetted (straight to 20 in one case).  Normally a sort of cheerful bouncy guitar pop act, McFly seem to be trying to jump aboard the Lady Gaga zeitgeist and age with their fans… with middling success.  Not so much as a video as a rebranding exercise, this.  (The opening caption is overstating matters, duh.)

• At number 10, “This Day” by Emma’s Imagination is another single from the Must Be The Music semifinals on Sky One.  “Emma’s Imagination” is Emma Gillespie, a busker from Dumfries.  She went on to win, and Sky might have something here .  It’s a bit KT Tunstall.  No official video, so here’s her TV performance.  I’m more impressed, though, by the song she did at the auditions, “Focus” – but that’s out this week and it’s going to chart, so I’ll come back to it in a later post.

• “Drummer Boy” by Alesha Dixon at number 15.  Fifth solo hit for the former member of Mis-Teeq, who’s also a judge on BBC 1’s Strictly Come Dancing, though nobody can figure out why.  Starts off like one of the weirder Gwen Stefani tracks, and then turns into a sort of Lion King On Ice epic.  Quite odd, and against my better judgment, I rather like it, though it really needs to performed by somebody who can carry off the diva act better than Alesha Dixon.
• Number 17 is “Turn My Swag On” by Greg Street, because somebody did the song in an X Factor audition.  The original is actually by Souljah Boy, but it was never released as a single in the UK, and the auditionee credited it to Keri Hilson – whose vocals do indeed appear on this cover version.  Some searchers are persistent.
• At number 33, “Tears” by the Pictures is another Must Be The Music semifinalist.  Meat-and-potatoes indie, basically.  It’s alright.
• “Islands” by the xx at number 39.  The xx are one of those universally acclaimed bands who normally can’t seem to give their singles away.  This track has been out for months, but their album won the Mercury Music Prize in September, which has sparked a bit of interest. The video is a lovely exercise in repetition.

• And finally, “The Catalyst” by Linkin Park at number 40.  Their fifteenth top 40 hit, and (obviously) the smallest – though “Shadow of the Day” missed the top 40 altogether a couple of years ago.  This is the lead single from their current album, which entered at number 2 the following week – so it looks like they’re turning into an album act, as often happens with bands who’ve been around for nine years.