Every so often a record gets to number 1 that I don’t get at all.  It’s not so much the really bad ones – at least they stand out.  It’s more the ones where I can’t quite figure out how they ever broke from the pack and got noticed.

That’s “Give Me Everything” by Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo, AfroJack & Nayer – a veritable horde of guest stars even by modern standards.  And people must like it – it’s been a slow burner, climbing 35-25-12-4-1.  The midweeks have it staying at the top for a second week.  I’m just kind of struggling to see what marks it out from a hundred other songs of its type.  And indeed, I see from Wikipedia that while it’s made the top 10 in plenty of countries, it’s only reached number 1 here.

But the people have spoken.  It’s Pitbull’s tenth hit (not bad considering that he first charted in 2007), and his first number one as a lead artist.  Technically, it’s his second number one, because of his co-credit on Jennifer Lopez’s “On The Floor” last month.  As a comics fan, I find that I derive much more enjoyment from his videos simply by pretending that he’s Grant Morrison.

Ne-Yo gets his fourth number one, following “So Sick” (2006), “Closer” (2008) and “Beautiful Monster” (2010) – he’s had a pretty impressive career for somebody who doesn’t have a huge media profile in the UK.  Nayer is apparently a singer and model, and this is her debut.  The internet seems to know virtually nothing about her, though I see she’s cropped up on at least one other Pitbull single before.  And Afrojack is a Dutch producer; his only previous chart credit was for his slightly (but only slightly) quirky single “Take Over Control”, which reached number 24 last year.

The highest new entry is “Save The World” by the Swedish House Mafia at 11.  It’s something of a change of direction for them – this is more of a straightforward song, compared to their previous hits “One” and “Miami 2 Ibiza”.   It doesn’t feel like it was intended principally for the clubs.  The video’s a cute idea, but it kind of promises more than it can deliver

More interesting, though, is “Hair” by Lady Gaga at number 13.  This was the fourth and final track to be released in advance of her new album, and once again it came out with no advance warning.  The result is to give her four singles in the top 20 – “Edge of Glory” at 6, “Judas” at 8, and “Born This Way” at 16.

That’s highly unusual.  Michael Jackson and John Lennon both managed it, but only by dying.  The last person to do it while continuing to breathe was Elvis Presley in 1957.  What this really tells you, though, is just how odd Lady Gaga’s promotional strategy for this album as been.  Plenty of acts could have achieved four concurrent singles if they’d released them in this short a period, but the conventional wisdom for decades has been to do precisely the opposite – wait for one single to fade and then stick out another one.  If the first single won’t fade of its own accord, delete it.

Lady Gaga’s approach is obviously attention-grabbing, but I suspect it works mainly on the novelty value – I’ll be surprised if we get other acts copying this.  You never know, though.  Interestingly, “Hair” doesn’t feature on the midweek charts at all.

Number 27 is “Right There” by Nicole Scherzinger, which ought to be in the dictionary next to “sub-Rihanna”.  It’s going to climb on Sunday, though.  There’s also a version with 50 Cent, for those who find the original just too darned subtle.

This week’s surprise hit is number 29 – “We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off” by Jermaine Stewart.  It’s being used in a Cadburys advert. The original release was a number 2 hit in 1986.  Stewart had two lesser hits in 1988 (“Say It Again”, which has the most 80s video imaginable, and “Get Lucky”, which is slightly less 80s but does have some remarkable hairstyling) before dropping off the UK’s radar.  He died in 1997.

Number 34, but set to climb much further, is “California King Bed” by Rihanna, the token ballad from her current album.  The charitable view would be that she’s displaying her range, but more realistically, this is a glaring case of a record which exists solely to get her airplay on different American radio stations.  What the hell is it doing on the same album as “What’s My Name?”, “Only Girl In The World” or “S&M”?  It’s got a dad-rock guitar solo!

Finally, at a strangely appropriate number 40, there’s the Irish Eurovision entry, “Lipstick” by Jedward.  It’s actually not that bad a record – ignore the fact that it’s Jedward and you could see somebody else having a hit with it.  And it now has a second, vastly inferior video.  But they’re Jedward, they’re a national joke, and it’s hard to see them ever being successfully repackaged as anything else, no matter how effectively their limitations can be disguised in the studio.

Notable climbers this week: “I Need a Dollar” by Aloe Blacc is now at 4.  “Mr Saxobeat” by Alexandra Stan reaches 14, and is set to make the top 10 on Sunday.  “Bass Down Low” by Dev is at 18 and looks to be going further.  (It’s growing on me the more I hear it.)  And “I’m Into You” by Jennifer Lopez, which still isn’t officially a single, climbs ten places to 21.

I’ll be honest – “The Lazy Song” by Bruno Mars has been out for four weeks now and I’ve never actually sat through the whole thing.  But it climbs to number 1 this week, so I’ve dutifully watched it.

And, you know, it’s fine.  It’s catchy enough.  It’s got a decent video.  (The guys under the masks are Poreotics, the winners of season 5 of America’s Best Dance Crew.)  It’s a little bit different.  It’s kind of summery.  Personally, I find it a touch on the bland side.  But each to their own.

More remarkably, this is Bruno Mars’ fourth number one hit in less than a year, following “Nothin’ On You” with B.o.B., “Just The Way You Are”, and “Grenade.” There’s a decent amount of range there.  More to the point, four number one singles in a year is rare.  You might have thought it would happen more frequently in these days of serial collaborators notching up strings of “featuring” credits, but in fact, it hasn’t happened since 2000.

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Well, that was one I didn’t see coming.  The 2011 contest winner is an 80s-style duet from Azerbaijan – admittedly one with a decent chorus.  I wouldn’t have picked this as a standout, but I suppose it didn’t have much competition in its genre, which is always a help.

The contest actually credits the act as “Ell & Nikki”, but their names are Eldar Gasimov and Nigar Jamal.  Ms Jamal is an ex-pat living in London.  Azerbaijan only started entering in 2008, but they’ve made the top 10 every year since, so perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised by this.

Countries like Azerbaijan take winning the Eurovision seriously, and not without good reason.  They’re well aware that the rest of Europe doesn’t pay them much attention, couldn’t place them on a map, and vaguely suspects they’d be a poor choice of holiday destination.  But as winners of Eurovision 2011, they get to host the 2012 show.  That’s great publicity.  (For an illustration of this attitude, see the excellent documentary Sounds Like Teen Spirit about the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, and the segments about the girl from Georgia.  It’s on Netflix.)

Technically, they’ll put on a perfectly decent show.  The real question is whether they’ll screw it up with bad publicity from their human rights record.  This is, after all, a country where people are still jailed for mocking the President.  There is certainly a risk that they won’t get on well with the travelling retinue of Eurovision fans.  Of course, there’s also the possibility that a bit of international attention will encourage the authorities to get their act together; they’ll certainly have to relax their visa rules, which would currently prevent the Armenian entry from showing up at all.