This week's Official UK Singles Chart

This week's Official UK Albums Chart

You might want to take a print out or a scan of the album chart this week [what are these "scans" to what you refer 2011 James, just click the link above], for the biggest selling long playing records of the week line up in a manner which is unique in chart history and is perhaps unlikely ever to be repeated. The vogue for albums named after numerical digits reaches its inevitably zenith as 21, 4 and 19 line up side by side in the Top 3. Such aesthetic amusement aside, the significance of the particular order in which the albums line up should not be understated. After no less than seven weeks locked at Number 2 in a manner which suggested she was set to be the perpetual bridesmaid for the summer, Adele's mega selling album is finally rewarded for its patience and climbs back to Number One, topping the charts for the first time since May 28th. For those who have lost count, this is now 21's 17th week in total at the top of the album chart - leaving it now one week shy of the 18 week run of the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack to draw level with yet another chart benchmark. Figures released last week showed that in the second quarter of this year 1 in every 15 albums sold in the UK was an Adele recording. It was 1 in 10 in the first quarter.

A big hello also to The Horrors whose status as the highest charting new release of the week should not go overlooked. Their third chart album Skying lands neatly at Number 5, a massive improvement on the Number peak of 2009 release Primary Colours which was until now the best chart performance of their career. The album manages to spawn the Number 63 single Still Life this week as well, the first time they have entered the singles chart since they made their debut back in 2007.

There is a changing of the guard at the top of the singles chart, something which may possibly come as a slight surprise given the superlatives we were heaping on DJ Fresh last week after his enormous first week sale. Even he and his TV advert are no match for the might of an all-conquering boy band however. We're told that it was The Wanted's manager who insisted on an airplay lead in for their brand new single Glad You Came rather than an On Air On Sale release, and to tell you the truth it appears to have made perfect sense. After topping the charts with debut single All Time Low in August last year and hitting Number 2 first week out with second single Heart Vacancy, the chart fortunes of the five piece boy band went off the boil somewhat. Third release Lose My Mind stalled at Number 19 just before Christmas and even Comic Relief release Gold Forever could get no further than Number 3. So an intense period of pre-release promotion for the hitherto unreleased track was just what the doctor ordered. Glad You Came smashes its way to Number One with a rather satisfying sale of 117,000 copies, some 38,000 in the lead. Sympathies then for DJ Fresh whose 79,000 sale would have been enough to secure Number One in seven of the last ten weeks and indeed is the highest sale for a Number 2 single for 17 weeks.

Needless to say with pop singles such as this, the true measure of its popularity isn't necessarily what happens in Week 1 but where the track goes in Weeks 2 and 3. The benchmark is the chart performance of 2010 debut All Time Low which shot down to Number 5 the week after it debuted at the top but which went on to notch up 25 weeks in total on the Top 75, last appearing at Number 68 back in March. By contrast Gold Forever (like the current hit, taken from their forthcoming second album) managed just an 8 week chart life.

The Wanted gatecrash the top end of what is otherwise a quite static market, at least at the very top end. Aside from the rather unfortunate Vato Gonzalez who is the only one from last week's lineup to exit, every single one of the Top 15 records maintains that status. Sympathies possibly go to Adele with Set Fire To The Rain, as the single's slow but inexorable climb into the Top 10 is destined to last for another week, as the track moves 12-11 to be denied once more. [And here it would peak, although there are several more weeks of teasing ahead].

All this does at least leave room for a new entry at Number 16 - David Guetta and a host of guest stars with his new single Little Bad Girl. Like its predecessor, the Top 3 single Where Them Girls At, the track is taken from his forthcoming new album Nothing But The Beat, set for release at the end of August. Continuing his one man mission to collaborate on record with just about every musician currently active in the mainstream, the new single features cameo appearances from both Taio Cruz and Ludacris. At some point he will run out of names and have to collaborate with himself - for the moment though this is Guetta's 13th Top 20 hit.

One place below at Number 17 are the returning Scouting For Girls who make a long overdue return to the upper end of the singles chart with previously unreleased single Love How It Hurts. The track is one of a handful of new tracks to feature on a new special edition of their 2010 album Everybody Wants To Be On TV which will be available by the time you read this. Although their singles campaign from the album opened in the best way possible with Number One hit This Ain't A Love Song, their subsequent releases have struggled for appeal beyond the collectors market with Famous bombing out at Number 37 and Don't Want To Leave You stalling at Number 69. 'Love How It Hurts' will almost certainly wind up a one week wonder in singles chart terms, making it curiously their first ever hit to make the Top 20 but never reach the Top 10.

Other stuff to talk about? I got nothing sadly, although there is finally a Top 40 entry for LMFAO and Champagne Showers, the follow-up single to Number One smash hit Party Rock Anthem. After first appearing on the singles chart a month ago, the track has moved 71-46-46-43-41-37 in a manner which suggests it could become a proper hit, if only it could be bothered to make the effort. In the absence of anything else interesting, have a gratuitous plug for a video by Leeds band Escort Knights who are offering this single as a free download during July... [I've genuinely no recollection of what that plug was in aid of, it might just have been the group being cheeky enough to ask for a plug and catching me in a generous enough mood to give them one. There certainly wasn't anything in it for me I don't think. Sadly the video for the song itself (which research suggests was called Contagious didn't survive the demise of the group the following year. So its appeal will remain a mystery for now].