Right – this time I really, really will bring things up to date!

This week’s number 1 is “Written in the Stars” by Tinie Tempah.  It’s on EMI, so the YouTube video isn’t embeddable, but hey, hop over there if you want to see the man himself standing on a rooftop in New York looking moody.  Or, if it works in your jurisdiction, here’s the Daily Motion version, which is also uploaded by EMI and is embeddable, because they can’t make up their bloody minds.

While we’ve had a huge turnover of number one singles this year, “Written in the Stars” is one of the top sellers, shifting 115K in its first week.

In a year when plenty of people who used to be underground grime acts have made an unabashed bid for mainstream commercial success, Tinie Tempah has been one of the most successful; this is his third single, and his second number one following “Pass Out.” His other single, “Frisky”, got to 2.  Now, my concern about that single was that it sounded suspiciously close to a remake of “Pass Out”, so it’s good to see that this one isn’t.  It’s also not as distinctive as his earlier singles – it’s got one of those formula anthem choruses and the production’s a bit over polished if you ask me – but at least he’s demonstrating some range.

Eric Turner is the guy singing on the chorus, he’s never had a hit before, and I’ve never heard of him.  Google reveals that he’s the lead singer of a Swedish band called Street Fighting Man, and he used to be a maths teacher.  (Here’s their 2008 single “Raise It”, if you’re interested.)

Number 3 is “Let the Sun Shine” by Labrinth – a writer/producer who worked on both of the previous Tinie Tempah singles, and now releases his own single.  The scheduling is no doubt deliberate.  It’s a nice little feelgood production job let down by a weak chorus.  Unusually, Labrinth is signed to Simon Cowell’s label despite having no connection with any sort of reality TV show. That’s not snark, by the way.  Cowell almost never signs people who aren’t connected with his TV shows.  According to Wikipedia, Labrinth is the first one in six years.

Speaking of which, The X Factor strikes again, as “Make You Feel My Love” by Adele re-enters at number 4.  This Bob Dylan cover from 2008 already charted a month ago when it reached number 24 on the strength of an audition performance, but it dropped out of the top 75 pretty quickly.  Thanks to extensive use in the “boot camp” shows, it’s back, giving Adele her second-biggest hit (after the number 2 debut “Chasing Pavements”), despite the fact she hasn’t actually released a single in two years.  There will be more of this sort of thing over the coming weeks as the X Factor live finals begin.

Other new entries this week:

• “Get Outta My Way” by Kylie Minogue at number 12.  That’s unusually low for Kylie – if you disregard “The One” (a 2008 single whose promotion was aborted before physical release and which limped to 36 on pre-release downloads), she hasn’t missed the top 10 since 1998.  Still, it’s her 45th hit in a career now in its 23rd year.
• “Tokyo (Vampires & Wolves)” by the Wombats at number 23.  Comeback single for the Liverpool indie band, who haven’t charted since 2008 (though they’ve had a couple of minor singles out).  Sounds like another act who’ve rediscovered the eighties.
• “This Little Light” at LZ7 at number 26.  Interesting one.  This is remix of a Christian rap single which has been floating around on YouTube for a while.  Overtly Christian acts rarely chart in the UK, so this is an anomaly.  It’s apparently based loosely on “This Little Light of Mine”, a gospel children’s song from the 1920s.  The video is, uh, trying a bit hard to be cool, but to give it its due, it’s actually quite catchy.

• “In the Army Now” by Status Quo & The Corps of Army Choir at number 31.  Charity single for Help for Heroes and the British Forces Foundation (who raise money for British soldiers injured in Afghanistan and Iraq).  Status Quo are a veteran band who’ve been around since 1968 and are, frankly, something of a national joke, thanks partly to their penchant for writing three-chord songs and partly to their grim refusal to accept the march of time, which led to them doing idiotic things like suing the BBC for not playing them on Radio 1.  (They lost.)  This is, nonetheless, their 57th top 40 hit, and there are some good songs in there, of which “In the Army Now” is one.  The original peaked at number 2 in 1986.  If you’re wondering why it’s so uncharacteristic of Status Quo’s output, well, it’s actually a cover of a song originally recorded by  Bolland & Bolland, the Dutch brothers who also wrote “Rock Me Amadeus”.  (There’s a glitch on this video between 0:13 and 0:20, but it’s interesting enough to me that I’m using it anyway.)

• “Ill Behaviour” by Danny Byrd featuring I-Kay at number 36.  Danny Byrd is a drum and bass producer, and this is his debut hit.  Video is a nice little collection of unrelated video clips.  His YouTube page describes this as “replicating a classic 90s hook”, presumably “Renegade Master” by Wild Child.

• “Turn My Swag On” by Greg Street is a re-entry at number 38, again thanks to the X Factor effect.
• And “(Still A) Weirdo” by K T Tunstall brings up the rear at 39, her first top 40 hit since 2007.  The video’s a bit bland, but I do like the song, even if it probably falls between two stools when it comes to getting radio play.