This week's Official UK Singles Chart

This week's Official UK Albums Chart

I'm not a bad person for being bored of Adele being Number One on the Official UK Singles chart am I? OK, so it has only been three weeks (so far) but once more she is still so far ahead of the competition that the chart race has barely resembled a contest for most of the last month.

That said there are signs that things might be about to get interesting. Her total streams this week of Hello were a still phenomenal 4.7 million, but they were only a shade above the 4.5 million achieved by Justin Bieber with Sorry who similarly remains locked in place at Number 2. In actual sales however, Adele has the edge - 80,000 to 48,000 meaning she ended up over 35,000 chart sales ahead come the final tallies.

Ben Haenow may have been the voted winner of the 2014 season of X Factor but few were in any doubt that it was runner-up Fleur East who was always going to be the breakout star of the show. You may remember she was the lady who shook up entire release schedules last December when her performance of the then-unavailable Uptown Funk shot to the top of the iTunes download rankings and prompted a rush release of the Mark Ronson original. Needless to say, she was snapped up by Syco in short order and this week arrives in the Top 10 with her first ever chart single Sax.

The Number 3 single this week is a dramatic, exciting and extraordinary funk record and one which firmly and unequivocally announces her as the next big British star of the moment - she really is that good. It must however also be noted that Sax is to all intents and purposes Uptown Funk minus the bits that it appropriated from The Gap Band. It is the best pop record of late 2015 by a country mile, but only by dint of sounding note for note like the best one from last year.

Quibbling aside, whilst Ben Haenow (down this week at Number 29) was shoved into a corner at the end of a marathon two and a half hour performance show two weeks ago, Fleur East was granted the full-blown superstar slot on last week's X Factor results show. Her Number 3 position this week leaves you in no doubt who the true winner of the show was meant to be.

Also new to the Top 10 this week are hot new R&B/rap hybrid group WSTRN whose debut hit single In2 shoots to Number 4 after charting at Number 60 on streams alone last week. They are one of a handful of upcoming new acts being backed to the hilt by the Official Charts Company themselves, featuring in the current series of travelling Friday night 'Official Charts Afterparty' roadshows which are popping up at student unions across the country.

It may only have been a few years, but it feels like the annual TV commercial for John Lewis department stores and its accompanying soundtrack of a melodic cover of a pop or rock standard is now an essential part of the Christmas build up. This years' commercial is the story of a man on the moon gifted an eyeglass by the telescope sporting little girl who has spotted him. Singer of the song that features in the commercial is the suitably interstellar-named AURORA, a 19-year-old singer-songwriter from Norway and who finds herself in the same predicament as Gabrielle Aplin was in 2012 - launching her career with a cover version which seems set to define her forever. The song in question is Half The World Away, originally recorded by Oasis and which first featured on the b-side of their single Whatever exactly 21 years ago this Christmas. The original is best known for being used as the theme to the BBC sitcom 'The Royle Family' but until now has never been a UK chart single. Now it does so twice - the AURORA version from the TV commercial landing at Number 11 whilst the Oasis original makes its own chart bow at Number 56 in sympathy.

Coldplay have been dropping hints that their forthcoming seventh album A Head Full Of Dreams may well be their last for some time, thus making the arrival of its first single something of a notable event. Adventure Of A Lifetime makes what may seem to some to be a rather understated debut at Number 14 this week, but Coldplay singles rarely follow established chart rules and have a habit of burrowing their way into people's consciousness at the most random of times. Keep an eye on this one, suffice to say that for now, it is their 18th Top 20 hit single in a career stretching back to 2000.

There are more startling events taking place at the top of the Official UK Albums chart this week as to the surprise of many the Elvis collection If I Can Dream retains its crown at Number One with yet another strong sale - enough to ensure it now commands both the second and third highest weekly totals of the year. It is only the second album this year to spend more than a single week at a time at Number One and the first to actually increase its sales in the process. The long-deceased star thus relegates two very much alive and active British acts to second and third place on the chart, Little Mix with their third album Get Weird at Number 2 and Ellie Goulding with Delirium one place behind. Little Mix have yet to have a Number One album, Get Weird their highest charting to date. The Top 5 is rounded off by the reappearance of one of the biggest selling albums of all time. A new deluxe edition of 1 by The Beatles ensures the collection of hits reappears at Number 5, its first appearance in the Top 10 since September 2011 and its highest chart placing since January 2001.