After last week’s bout of suspended animation, this week’s chart is rather more interesting.  There’s a new entry at number one – “Changed The Way You Kiss Me” by Example, the lead single from his third album.

Elliot Gleave (E.G., hence Example) started off as a rapper before dramatically shifting tack on his previous album to reinvent himself as an electro act.  This is his seventh hit – all of which followed the change of direction – but his first number one.  It’s certainly his best single to date, and it feels to me like a more successful version of what he was trying to do on the last album.  Leaving aside guest appearances, his biggest hit until now was “Kickstarts”, a perfectly good record which made number 3 a year ago, but doesn’t quite click in the same way the new track does.  Looks like he’s found himself a niche.  This has a tough fight to stay at number 1 for a second week (Calvin Harris is ahead on the midweeks), but it’s going to be up there.

Number 6 is “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall” by Coldplay – an odd title, since the lyric is actually “Every tear is a waterfall”, but whatever.  Coldplay are more of an albums act these days, and their last two singles didn’t make the top ten.  But this is (presumably) the lead track from the next album, and that’s evidently enough to get their highest chart position since 2008 (when “Viva La Vida” reached number 1) – though it crashes to 20 on the midweeks.  It’s their 14th hit in a career that now covers 12 years.  Oddly for Coldplay, the piano riff is acknowledged as coming from Peter Allen’s 1976 disco single “I Go To Rio”, which did nothing much in Britain, but was a big hit in Australia and crops up in a few film soundtracks.  Ah, the days when a man with a piano, a questionable shirt, and an inexplicable degree of enthusiasm constituted a music video.

Number 21 is “Monster” by Paramore, a song from the soundtrack of Transformers 3.  It’s their fifth hit, and their first as a trio following the departure of founding members Josh and Zac Farro at the end of last year.  (And it does sound like dropping to one guitarist has affected their style a bit.  Or am I imagining that?)  Their biggest UK hit remains “Ignorance”, which made number 14 two years ago.

At 25, “Easy Please Me” by Katy B is her smallest hit to date – but then it’s the fourth single from the album, so that’s hardly surprising.  It is, unfortunately, a classic case of writing a great tune and then saddling it with some dreadfully literal lyrics.  Despite the title, it’s actually four minutes of Katy B whining about the poor level of menfolk to be found in London clubs, before embarking on a lecture about the qualities she’s looking for in a man (in tones suggesting that she might be about to embark on a Powerpoint presentation about the difference between confidence and arrogance).  All of which is, at best, horribly mundane and does no favours for what would otherwise be a rather good track by a decent singer.   The video, with its extended intro sequence, does nothing to help.

While Cheryl Cole continues to grab headlines with her ill-fated attempts to build a career in America, the rest of Girls Aloud have to occupy their time somehow.  Kimberley Walsh showed up on Aggro Santos’ “Like U Like” at the start of the year, and Nadine Coyle’s “Insatiable” sputtered to 26 in December before vanishing the next week.  Now it’s Nicola Roberts‘ turn, and some people are getting quite excited about her solo album, which is reportedly rather good.  That excitement does not extend to the British public, it seems, as her debut single “Beat of my Drum” enters at 27, and looks set to vanish next week.

This is a Diplo production, and even Beyonce couldn’t get the British public to buy one of his singles in big numbers – it’s a style that seems to divide audiences.  I’m also not sure he’s done the most flattering production on her vocal.  But “Beat of my Drum” is certainly an odd single – part Diplo messing about with distorted vocal samples, part cheerleader chant – and that’s got to count for something.

Presumably Diplo cost so much that they had to film the video in a church hall.

Finally, stumbling from the depths of the back catalogue to a very unexpected number 32, “I Giorni” by Ludovico Einaudi – six minutes of piano instrumental from a classical album that came out in 2001.  It’s been used on adverts and trailers before, but it’s charting here after Radio 1 DJ Greg James started playing it in a chill-out slot.  It’s actually rather lovely, but it’s also a nice reminder that literally anything can make the charts in this country.

Surprisingly, the midweeks suggest it’s sticking around.

Major climbers this week: Nicole Scherzinger’s “Right There” reaches 3 (probably its peak), Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” is back up to 13 (thanks to Britain’s Got Talent) and the Black Eyed Peas are up to 17 with “Don’t Stop The Party” (no really, please, do).