This week's Official UK Singles Chart

This week's Official UK Albums Chart

Sometimes it is nice when things go to the way you want them to.

I've been a massive and unashamed cheerleader for Flo Rida's Club Can't Handle Me song ever since it first appeared on the chart and so it is with great pleasure that this week we can note that after a three week climb the track is a comfortably and deserved Number One - and in the process causes one of the biggest chart shocks for some time.

First the facts however, and Club Can't Handle Me is either the rapper's second or third Number One single depending on how we are counting them - his first unequivocally being Right Round from March 2009 whilst he can also lay claim a second thanks to his co-credited guest slot on Alexandra Burke's Bad Boys from November last year. Collaborator or not, they all count for statistics I guess, and given that he has not charted a single since, this is actually Flo Rida's second Number One hit in a row.

Speaking of co-credits, David Guetta gets a "featuring" nod on the label, bringing to four the number of chart-topping hits to which the Frenchman can lay claim, although this is the first time he has ridden to the top on the coattails of another artist rather than being the lead act on any track.

Just ahead of Flo Rida at Number 2 is.... NOT the highest new entry of the week. Instead it is yet another climb for Eminem and Rihanna with Love The Way You Lie. After two months on the chart, the single finally has a video of its own although its "release" as a digital and physical single is still another fortnight away. This is now the second time the track has peaked at Number 2, having last been this high three weeks ago in the week of July 31st. Meanwhile the appeal of the track has continued to have a beneficial effect on sales of Eminem's album Recovery. After losing its crown to Arcade Fire a week ago, the album is once more Number One on the album chart for its third run and a sixth week in total - enough to push it past the five week mark and officially become the most successful hip hop album in chart history.

What then of the real shock of the week? If you had kept half an eye on the music columns of the popular press in the last week you could have been forgiven for assuming that the arrival of The Saturdays at Number One come the weekend was little more than a foregone conclusion. However whilst their new single Missing You did indeed open up a comfortable lead at the start of the week, the track fell victim to the fate that seems to be befalling so many pop singles at the moment in that its sales were heavily front-loaded thanks to some enthusiastic first day purchasing by a well drilled fanbase. As the week wore on it was clear that the gap was narrowing, enough to cast doubt on their prospects of a first ever Number One by the weekend, but I don't think anyone expected them to fall as low as Number 3 by the time the final totals were added up.

Now in fairness the race at the top of the charts was so close that in fact less than 4,000 copies separated the Top 3 singles this week but ultimately it seems that the girl group just didn't quite have enough genuine widespread appeal to finally manage the one chart feat that has eluded them thus far. In truth though to have had The Saturdays at Number One would have somehow been wrong. The track is taken from their newly released mini album Headlines, designed we are told to "bridge the gap" between their second and third albums but which you suspect was born out of an urgent need by their label to keep their act in the public eye. Missing You cannot compare with sparkling past singles from the five piece such as Up and Forever Is Over and from the moment the tiresome autotuned vocals kick in you actually want to get angry with them for releasing something so lazy and formulaic.

Facts are facts though, and for all its faults and chart failings, Missing You is still the seventh Top 10 hit singles in eight releases for The Saturdays and their third Top 3 single. In one of those fun quirks that the charts can throw up from time to time, their March 2009 cover of Just Can't Get Enough stalled at Number 2 behind none other than Flo Rida with his first Number One Right Round.

As far as former Number One singles are concerned, there is a slightly worrying pattern developing as Ne-Yo's Beautiful Monster becomes the third chart-topper in the last month or so to crash down the listings a week after its debut. Ne-Yo's 1-5 fall exactly mirrors that of The Wanted's All Time Low last week and comes a few weeks after JLS tumbled 1-7 with The Club Is Alive. Fortunately the two other Number One hits of recent weeks are both faring slightly better in terms of chart longevity, We No Speak Americano down to Number 4 this week whilst Airplanes holds firm at Number 7.

The UK end of the urban invasion is represented by the second biggest new hit of the week which arrives at Number 10. In My System is Tinchy Stryder's first Top 40 single of the year and arrives on the chart almost exactly a year since he was a Number One with Never Leave You. New single In My System is the first release from his forthcoming third album Third Strike and maintains the electro-grime fusion vibe of his last hit You're Not Alone from the tail end of 2009, albeit perhaps with slightly less of the charm. A hit is a hit though, and the single is his fourth Top 10 chart hit as a performer.

Steaming its way up the charts and into the Top 40 at Number 19 is The Writer from a presumably rather relieved Ellie Goulding. The next big thing of 2010 was in severe danger of attracting the one hit wonder tag after her last single Guns and Horses trotted its way to a mere Number 26, a far cry from the Number 4 peak of her first proper single Starry Eyed in March. You suspect however that the surge of The Writer from its Number 45 placing last week was more down to a completists scramble for the CD single rather than any sustainable level of interest in the track. She can at least hoot herself to sleep in the knowledge that she has more Top 40 hits to her name thus far than soundalike Diana Vickers.

Next time you want an example of a model of consistency, just point people in the direction of DJ Got Us Falling In Love by Usher featuring Pitbull. The single this week spends a fourth consecutive week at Number 20 in a fashion which will have the dedicated scouring the record books for equivalents. This even beats the feat of endurance of Chiddy Bang's Opposite Of Adults from earlier this year which managed three straight weeks at Number 16.

Our hunt for another brand new hit takes us all the way down to Number 31 in the shape of Brainwashed by Devlin. Another grime MC from the mean streets of Dagenham, this is his first ever chart single after a number of well received minor releases over the past couple of years. His first proper album Bud Sweat And Tears is set for release in early 2011.

To finish let's track a couple of recent minor hits which appear to be on a brief second wind. Sadly for all her fans Paloma Faith's upward momentum appears to have stalled for now with the newly remixed version of New York slipping back to Number 46. A few places below there is the pleasant surprise of the Top 75 return of Need You Now from Lady Antebellum. A Number 21 single back in May, the track picks up a new surge of interest following extensive promotional work by the trio ahead of a one-off first ever UK gig later this week.