This week's Official UK Singles Chart

This week's Official UK Albums Chart

For the second week running the Top 10 of the Official UK Singles chart is flooded with new entries as four big new singles land straight at the top end of the chart, with one further intriguing new release sitting just outside as well.

All of this is of no interest to Ellie Goulding as she holds firm at Number One for a second week with Burn, even if her sale of 85,000 breaks once again the run of 100K+ chart-topping singles. Her only challenge to her crown came not so much from one of the new entries but from the single which was last at Number One a fortnight ago, Avicii's Wake Me Up which doggedly holds on at Number 2 for the third week in a row.

It is at Number 3 then that we find the highest new entry of the week as Sonnentanz (Sun Don't Shine) makes a spectacular debut for Klangkarussell featuring Will Heard. The duo are Tobias Rieser and Adrian Held, both hailing from Austria and who have been working together on productions since 2011 after a period spent as solo artists. Their debut single Sonnentanz has been in circulation for some time (its video first hit YouTube at the start of last year) and as a commercial single has already been a decent success on the continent, the Jazz House track going Top 5 in many counties across Europe in its original instrumental version. Once again the not unreasonable assumption that audiences in Western Europe respond better to vocal club tracks means that the single escapes over here in a radically new version, this time with lyrics added courtesy of newcomer Will Heard who you can reasonably expect to use this as a springboard to some solo success of his own. Don't tell the record company, but it is hard to escape the feeling that the original blissed-out jazz track was actually the far better record.

A little under two years since Labrinth became the first act in chart history to score a hit single with a track entitled Earthquake we now have a second. This is all thanks to a returning DJ Fresh who storms the chart at Number 4 with his ground-trembling new single, this time bringing both Diplo and Dominique Young Unique along for the ride. The single is Daniel Stein's first release of the year, a track which did not feature on his last album Nextleveilsm but which has already had a brief exposure of sorts thanks to its use on the soundtrack of the movie Kick-Ass 2. The track is far and away the biggest chart success so far for his American collaborator Diplo, the real-life Thomas Pentz having last been seen in early 2011 alongside Tiesto on the Number 13 hit C'mon (Catch 'Em By Surprise).

Continuing the parade of new entries is a returning Sean Paul who lands at Number 6 with new release Other Side of Love. Whilst this is technically his first hit single since She Doesn't Mind was an impressive three week long Number 2 hit back in March 2012, he has featured on two other major hit singles since then, guesting on Simple Plan's Summer Paradise almost a year ago and more recently helping The Saturdays to their first ever Number One single when What About Us topped the charts back in March. This new single will be taken from an as-yet-untitled new album which may or may not appear before the end of the year. He's too cool to worry about release dates, see.

His last single La La La has proved to be one of the more enduring hits of the summer, still sitting pretty this week at Number 19, but that still doesn't stop Naughty Boy grabbing yet another Top 10 hit with new single Lifted. Released as a prelude to his long-awaited album Hotel Cabana, the single reunites the producer with Emeli Sande, this the third time the star has supplied guest vocals on a Naughty Boy track following Never Be Your Woman in 2010 and Wonder last year - Shahid Khan of course also at the helm of many of the tracks on Emeli Sande's own album, including the hits Clown and Daddy. The new single Lifted is a powerful, intense soul track which surely sells as much for the novelty of being a brand new Sande work as it is thanks to the man who takes lead billing.

So if that is the Top 10, what you may ask is the most intriguing new release of the week. Well, it sits at a curiously lowly (given the amount of attention which was paid to it when first announced) Number 14 and sees as one-time X Factor winner team up with a one-time Spice Girl. 2010 winner Matt Cardle could easily have faded away to nothing after his contractually-obligated post-victory album flopped in 2011. Instead, he signed a deal to release his music independently, second album The Fire coming out at the end of last year although no Top 75 chart singles resulted even though the album comfortably made the Top 10. Now the singer returns to the singles chart for the first time in almost two years with Loving You, a track to be taken from another independently released album, its increased success almost certainly down the presence of one Melanie "Sporty Spice" C on guest vocals. The Liverpudlian singer has focused her attention on motherhood and stage work in recent years, making this her first singles chart appearance since 2007 when she scored both her last solo hits and also participated in the Spice Girls reunion tour at the end of last year. By charting at Number 14 the catchy rock duet not only becomes Mel C's highest charting single since Next Best Superstar was a Top 10 hit in April 2005 but also Cardle's first Top 40 hit since his track Run For Your Life made an X-Factor inspired Number 6 in October 2011.

The official UK albums chart continues its summertime slumber, but this has resulted in the extraordinary sight of Richard & Adam stretching their run at Number One with The Impossible Dream to four weeks, now the longest continuous run not only of the year but also of any kind since Adele's epic 11 and 5 week runs at the very start of 11. Utterly barmy.

Finally, for those readers who enjoy my weekly columns on the UK charts so much they want to buy entire books of me talking about pop music you will be pleased to know you now have your opportunity. My book The Top 40 Annual 2012 is now available for Kindle (and other stores coming soon), featuring a detailing look at every artist and single to make the UK Top 40 last year. For more information just go to www.masterton.co.uk/books where you can also download a free sample of the first few pages.