Charts – 26 June 2011
We have a new number one! And it’s crap.
That’s “Don’t Wanna Go Home” by Jason Derulo, a track which has almost nothing to recommend it beyond the bits it lifted from other, better records. Imaginatively, the video features Derulo dancing in a warehouse. Never seen that before.
It’s the lead single from Derulo’s second album, and his second number one following “In My Head” last March, which was just the right side of forgettable. I assume everyone knows the source material here, but the hook comes from “The Banana Boat Song” by Harry Belafonte (number 2 in 1957).
Here he is performing it with the Muppets.
The bassline, on the other hand, comes from “Show Me Love” by Robin S, a hardy perennial of the UK charts – number 6 in 1993, number 9 in 1997, and number 11 in 2009 (credited to Steve Angello and Laidback Luke featuring Robin S).
You can still get it on iTunes, Britain. You don’t need a blander, duller Jason Derulo record that samples it. Oh well.
Three other new entries this week. Number 7 is “Badman Riddim (Jump)” by Vado Gonzalez featuring Foreign Beggars. Gonzalez is a Dutch DJ; the Foreign Beggars are well respected English rappers who’ve been around since 2003 but have never actually had a hit before; and the video, which has absolutely nothing to do with the single, appears to be some kind of even lower budget homage to Be Kind Rewind. I approve.
Number 27 is “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People, a Californian indie band also getting their first UK hit. Takes a while to get going, but it does have a great chorus and a nice laidback hook, all of which thoroughly disguises the fact that it appears to be about a Columbine-style spree killing. (“All the other kids with their pumped up kicks / You’d better run, better run, outrun my gun…”)
And at number 38, “Perfume” by Parade. They’re a manufactured girl band, this is their second single, and it’s dreadful. Their debut “Louder” made number 10 earlier in the year (then plunged out of the top 40 after three weeks), but the midweeks suggest this is going no further.
Notable climbers: “Edge of Glory” by Lady Gaga is back up to 8; the excruciating “Last Friday Night” by Katy Perry is up to 11; and “Lighters” by Bad Meets Evil, despite not being the official single from that album, is up to 30.

“What’s that playing? It’s my song.”
Well, not quite, Jason.
First heard “Pumped Up Kicks” a couple of months back on an episode on ‘CSI:NY’, when it was the tune playing over one of those timefiller scenes where they just do stuff in the lab.
It stuck in my head and so I just Googled the lyrics after and found it on YouTube. It’s a very good song.
“Pumped Up Kicks” has been getting plenty of airtime here in Canada. It’s excellent, but I have a feeling there’s a deeper point to the pairing of cheerful, upbeat music and dark, violent lyrics that I’m missing.
That Derulo song is terrible! Hating all this US 90s euro dance that’s filling the charts at the mo.