And I was so close to catching up.  Oh well, we’ll get there eventually.

After two weeks at number 1, Alexandra Burke surprisingly dropped all the way to number 5 (though supposedly it was a very close run thing between numbers 3, 4 and 5, so she was a bit unlucky there).  The new number 1 – another one-week occupant – was “Just The Way You Are” by Bruno Mars.

In this video, you can see him flirting with a coy actress, while the video director livens things up with animated tape from a cassette.  Yes, a cassette.  Probably a bit hard to animate a wax cylinder.

This is Bruno Mars’ first release as a lead artist.  But he’s already charted twice this year as a credited guest vocalist, on B.o.B.’s “Nothin’ on You” (number 1) and Travie McCoy’s “Billionaire” (number 3), both of which he co-wrote.  Evidently he’s made a smart move by building up his profile on other people’s records before trying to launch his own career.  As you’d expect from somebody who’s already co-written other people’s hits, it’s a better than average, radio friendly pop/R&B number – not much in the way of originality, but he can do the formula well enough.

It held on at number 2 this week, so chances are it’ll  hang around the top ten for a while.

So much for the number one.  On to the reality TV hits!  For once, X Factor hasn’t propelled any back catalogue into the charts – but we do have two more singles from the final of Sky’s Must Be The Music.  Naturally, the bigger hit goes to the winner, Scottish busker Emma’s Imagination, who reaches number 7 with “Focus”.  Her previous single “This Day” also gets some renewed sales, climbing back to 26.

If you missed the explanation in previous posts: Must Be The Music is Sky One’s attempt to clone X Factor, except with a bit of credibility.  This means that the format is lifted wholesale, but the judges are acts who command a bit of respect (Jamie Cullum, Dizzee Rascal and Sharleen Spiteri), and there seems to have been a genuine, good faith effort to put through some proper unknown songwriters and indie bands.  They’re also releasing all the songs performed on the show as singles, with the proceeds going to the acts themselves.

YouTube doesn’t seem to have the final version of “Focus”, but that’s fine, because you can hear pretty much the whole thing in this video of her audition segment.  It’s a genuinely good song in its own right, and far better than you’d ever expect from a busker entering a Sky One talent show.  She really ought to get a career out of this.  The other thing I love about the video, though, is the sheer weirdness of putting this song in the middle of a segment so unashamedly derivative of X Factor.  It’s quite bizarre.

This being Sky, by the way, she doesn’t get a record deal for winning the show.  She gets £100,000 and a load of free publicity.  Although not enough to generate much in the way of crossover sales, since in its second week on release, “Focus” plummetted to number 53.

Down at number 38, losing finalists Missing Andy pick up a second hit with “The Way We’re Made (Made In England)”.  It’s another indie anthem, albeit that the flag-waving is a little unusual for English indie circles – though come to think of it, this was posted on YouTube about four months ago, which would be the World Cup campaign.  You’d figure that if they’re capable of charting twice in three weeks on the strength of a handful of appearances on a minority TV channel, somebody ought to look at singing them.  Unusually, it seems that Missing Andy have actually self-released this track in the past, so it has a proper video. Well, just about.

Other new entries last week:

• “I’m in Love (I Wanna Do It)” by Alex Gaudino at number 10.  Third hit for the Italian DJ, who’s previously charted with “Destination Calabria” (number 4 in 2007) and “Watch Out” (16 in 2008).  His earlier hits were basically dance anthems with the sort of shamelessly unsubtle videos that dance labels were churning out a couple of years ago, but seem to have fallen out of fashion.  This is more of a David Guetta type pop/dance crossover record, and it dropped to 19 on Sunday’s chart, so it probably won’t be around for long.
• “Heartbeat” by Enrique Iglesias & Nicole Scherzinger at number 13, climbing this week to 8.  His 13th hit, her third as a solo act (not counting a couple of Pussycat Dolls singles where she officially got a co-credit).  It’s not much of a song, but that piano hook’s quite nice.
• “Pyramid” by Charice at number 17.  Debut single from a Glee cast member who apparently was some sort of YouTube sensation beforehand.  It’s one of those “let’s hammer this simile into the ground” love songs.  Our love is like a pyramid… triangular and pointy.  Dropped to 37 in its second week, so there’s limited crossover appeal.
• “The Bike Song” by Mark Ronson and the Business International at number 21, climbing to 17 this week.  More 80s retro.  Not quite as instant as the last one, but it’s starting to grow on me.
• “Higher” by the Saturdays at number 22.  If it doesn’t go further, this will be their joint-smallest hit alongside last year’s “Work”.  However, “Higher” is being promoted as a single in a remix which isn’t available yet – it’s charting at the moment on the basis of album track downloads, but might go further when the single proper comes out.  Much like their last single, they’ve killed potentially decent pop song with inept autotune.