This week's Official UK Singles Chart

This week's Official UK Albums Chart

Let's be straight with each other. We both know why you clicked to read this article. You've seen the UK charts this week and wondered what on earth THAT single is doing there. Well, I'll tell you, but you will have to be patient.

First, we should note that as was widely expected and if you will pardon the pun, Bastille storm to the top of the Official UK Album Chart with their debut release Bad Blood, one week after their first fully promoted single Pompeii reached Number 2. Not that it wasn't a closer run thing than might have otherwise been the case, the presence of Mother's Day in the calendar this week meant that Emeli Sande went on a late surge to narrow the gap to just a few thousand copies. If the week had been just one day longer, Bastille would not have topped the chart at all. They head up a particularly busy album Top 10 which also plays host to no less than four new entries. Second in line are The Stereophonics who are at Number 3 with Graffiti On The Train, a placing which returns them to the Top 3 for the first time since 2007's Pull The Pin and after their last release Keep Calm And Carry On in 2009 brought an end to their run of five consecutive Number One studio albums.

The returning Dido is at Number 5 with Girl Who Got Away, her first album since 2008s Safe Trip Home. Inevitably a headline-grabber thanks to her exploits over ten years ago when she set the benchmark for 21st century megahit albums, the relatively safe first week sale of the album puts paid for now to questions about her overall commercial viability after her big comeback single No Freedom limped to Number 69 last week, the single rising now to Number 51 on the back of the album release.

The parade of new entries is completed by Laura Mvula at Number 9 with Sing To The Moon, host to her current hit single Green Garden which rises a place to a new peak of Number 31 on the singles chart this week.

Onto the singles chart, and yes the full story of THAT single in just a moment. Before we do, it is congratulations to Justin Timberlake who retains the Number One crown with Mirrors and which thus takes the crown as his biggest ever solo hit given that Sexyback only managed a week at the top in 2006. Mind you, it is still only halfway to equalling the four week run of Madonna's Four Minutes on top of the charts and which he provided co-vocals in 2008. Mirror" undoubtedly continues to benefit from the fact that its parent album is still unreleased, a situation which will persist for the whole of this week as well.

Number 2 this week perhaps rather surprisingly is Bruno Mars who rockets 7-2 with When I Was Your Man after the slushy ballad spent no less than three weeks locked at its previous chart placing. The sudden surge is almost entirely attributable to an appearance the weekend before last on ITV's Jonathan Ross show and which seems to have finally lit a fire under a single which was otherwise struggling to advance up the chart. It is now Mars' seventh Top 3 hit of his career and his second Number 2 hit in a row rolling Locked Out Of Heaven.

Also climbing to a new peak are Pink and Nate Ruess with Just Give Me A Reason which climbs to Number 4 in its fifth week on the chart to eclipse her last hit Try and become the second Top 5 hit from her current album The Truth About Love. As lead singer of fun., co-star Ruess is no stranger to the slow burner, with their two hits last year taking seven and eight weeks respectively to reach their eventual chart peaks.

In a quiet week for major new single releases, the highest new entry of the week is the Number 7 hit Ready Or Not by Bridgit Mendler. The one time star of Disney Channel series 'Good Luck Charlie' needless to say becomes the latest teen star to gravitate to bubbly kid-friendly pop records via the Hollywood Records label. Her debut hit is by no means a bad record, far from it, but from the description I have just given you the achingly formulaic nature of the work should be instantly apparent.

Hence it is almost with a sense of relief we get to the issue that is almost certainly set to be occupying the minds of anyone who has cast a casual glance over the UK singles chart this week. Just what in the name of all that is crazy is Everywhere by Fleetwood Mac doing at Number 15, almost 25 years to the month since it was first a smash hit single. The achingly pretty Christine McVie-sung track is currently the centrepiece of a TV advertising campaign for the 3 mobile phone network, commercials featuring equally cute Shetland Ponies performing a variety of CGI dance moves to the song. As a result, two and a half decades since it first peaked at Number 4, the biggest hit single from the Tango In The Night album is back on the singles chart, and by a strange coincidence at the same time that the band's equally classic Rumours album remains a Top 20 fixture in the album chart. Early indications are at least that this week's sales surge is set to be something of a one-off, with demand for the track having already peaked.