Rolling UK Pop/Chart/"They're The New Scouting For Girls!!!" Thread 2008

Who the hell are Scouting For Girls?

So where did the Hoosiers love come from all of a sudden, then? ("Worried About Ray" is also back at #25, so there must be Something Going On.)

i always get scouting for girls mixed up with scissors for lefty and suburban kids with biblical names

Amy Winehouse, Scouting for Girls, Rihanna and the Hoosiers all with 2 entries... Timbaland with 3!...

we have no imagination. Bleeding Love sounds minging, though. I don't want to hear a song about that!

Woah, it's Swygart. What's up, homeboy?

Booty Luv is so robbed at #29.

I still think "Call The Shots" is great but the second half of "Tangled Up", basically, everything beyond "Control of the Knife" is either unlistenable or not worth bothering with and there's TOO MUCH BLOODY REPETITION even in the good bits.

This is a really, really awful Top 40.

More questions than answers, so:

1) Scouting For Girls - popular piano-MOR-pop with a sprinkling of London-indie-band 'charm'. Imagine if Ben Folds was illiterate.

2) The Hoosiers... I dunno, perhaps it's residual sympathy for them having a go at playing entirely live (i.e. instruments plugged in an' all) on TOTP and thus being made to sound like the weediest thing ever. More likely, it's because The Hoosiers are very much at home with a relentless promotional cycle for their records - they do seem like the kind of band who will turn up and play anywhere/anything in order to push their record. They make a very lightweight, shiny, catchy brand of pop that seems completely lacking in anything tangible - completely harmless, but simultaneously completely unengaging, making them perfect to fill in any gaps on any radio station in Britain today apart from, say, Radio 3.

But even so, that still doesn't quite explain how they're popular to this extent. They've had a number one album, they really have.

3) ESOJ, you poor sod. I have heard neither of those bands, but they probably don't deserve the besmirching.

4) To be fair, this chart's come out in a week with no new single releases, and was covering the week before the nation's NYE parties, so stuff from earlier in the year was always likely to creep back in this week, along with some of the Christmas stuff that's charted recently still hanging around from Christmas Eve and The Big Day Itself.

Question arising from this: to what extent does that make this chart more or less representative than any others?

5) I'm in Leeds, trying to do an essay about No Direction Home with minimal success. Oh, and it's cold. I will stick my head in on the US chart thread by and by.

Oh, and I have a blog now. Yaypaws.

6a) Pretty much.

6b) I'm really not sure on "Tangled Up"; the critical reception on both sides really isn't chiming with what I'm feeling, somehow. There's flat spots, sure, and it's nothing like as good as Chemistry (it's screaming out for a "Swinging London Town", or a "Some Kind Of Miracle", but then again, what album isn't?), but there's still an awful lot to like about it. Can I remember what "Crocodile Tears" sounds like? Of course I can't.

If nothing else, it is serving to remind me that, really, "Uninvited" was the best single of last year. An experiment that someone (perhaps not me) should try is playing Tangled Up and maybe the Freemasons or Booty Luv (or both) albums back to back on each other, and seeing what happens.

6c) It's not brilliant, no. Very vanilla in the modern British fashion.

Reason I realised "Tangled Up" was good: hearing that "Can't Speak French" was the next single and despite it being two non-bangers in a row, thinking "Excellent choice - best song on the album".

I like "Can't Speak French" a lot. It's one where the half-heartedness of the writing is kind of charming. By way of comparison, the last two albums were like multiple songs stuck together. On this one, when they get to the middle of the song they kind of repeat the whole damn thing (cf "Biology" which only has to repeat two bits out of about four equally brilliant sections), but on CSF it all comes together well.

And still, CSF would only JUST sneak into a Pick Only Twenty.

Glad to see you have an blog again. 2008 might see me come back from my enforced exile at this rate.

BAH TYPO: Tangled up WAS NOT good

You need for to do that, baaaad.

Also - BBC News Sound of 2008 has started! <A HREF=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7151422.stm>;Gigantic panel of music types</A> pick top 10 hot new things to be hot and new over the next year, with the BBC News site profiling the top 5 every day this week!

Thus far:

5. <A HREF=http://www.myspace.com/foals>;FOALS</A>! - <I>"We play guitar in a different way from pretty much any other mainstream indie band," declares Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis. "We have a piano which is used in a different way to how most other bands would use it."</I>

4. <A HREF=http://www.myspace.com/glasvegas>;GLASVEGAS</A>! - <I>The group have even got the seal of approval from Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of their number one musical hero.</I>

3. <A HREF=http://www.myspace.com/thetingtings>;THE TING-TINGS</A>! - <I>The pair have now successfully reinvented themselves and become one of the most credible and critically-acclaimed groups on the indie scene.
Their reputation rocketed in the summer when Steve Lamacq introduced them on a small stage at Glastonbury as "the next big thing", and their performance made it onto BBC Two.</I>

I'mma go out on a limb and suggest that the final two picks will be Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong and Adele.

Congratulations to me for forgetting to press the convert button, there.

Actually, that's fucked the links, hasn't it? Right, let's do it proper:

You need for to do that, baaaad.

Also - BBC News Sound of 2008 has started! Gigantic panel of music types pick top 10 hot new things to be hot and new over the next year, with the BBC News site profiling the top 5 every day this week!

Thus far:

5. FOALS! - "We play guitar in a different way from pretty much any other mainstream indie band," declares Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis. "We have a piano which is used in a different way to how most other bands would use it."

4. GLASVEGAS! - The group have even got the seal of approval from Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of their number one musical hero.

3. THE TING-TINGS! - <I>The pair have now successfully reinvented themselves and become one of the most credible and critically-acclaimed groups on the indie scene.
Their reputation rocketed in the summer when Steve Lamacq introduced them on a small stage at Glastonbury as "the next big thing", and their performance made it onto BBC Two.</I>

I'mma go out on a limb and suggest that the final two picks will be Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong and Adele.

glasvegas is great.

agree with yr final 2 tips too WBS, everybdy's loving Adele

foals are good.

there are joe lean-esque amounts of pretension in that quote tho.

I'm loving 'Tangled Up' more and more but has been said it's highs and lows are neither as high nor as low as the ones on their previous albums.

hearing that "Can't Speak French" was the next single

weeeeird choice imo, as much as i like it/find it incredibly catchy.

Glasvegas look like they might be something approximating my (favourite) worst nightmare (lolololol). :(

Foals have emerged from the insular Oxford music scene, which Yannis says is full of "drone bands" who are only interested in "making really weird music".

read: "making fucking awesome music, as opposed to we, who are SELL-OUT CHICKENS"

see: YOUTHMOVIES, another Oxford act, releasing their debut album in 2008, who will sadly NOT take the charts by storm.

1) Scouting For Girls - popular piano-MOR-pop with a sprinkling of London-indie-band 'charm'. Imagine if Ben Folds was illiterate.

A boy band version of Keane?

The Foals

"We play guitar in a different way from pretty much any other mainstream indie band," declares Foals frontman Yannis Philippakis.

"We have a piano which is used in a different way to how most other bands would use it."

Guitar effects pedals are employed to "mimic the sound of the solar system", he continues, attempting to explain what sets this five-piece apart from the average rock band.

"We're just different."

he's a pretentious retard but they're a good band

Yeah I'm guessing that last quote is one of these 'jokes' I've heard about

Foals - they make interesting noises, don't they? Lots of layers and texture and density and so on, all reet toe-tapping and head-nodding and stuff like that. There's a major lack of hooks or tunes within all that, though - much marks for style but I'm not getting a feeling that there's much behind it. Also, why does his voice have to be Kele Okereke discovering sarcasm?

I want to like Glasvegas more than I do - the big problem i have with "Daddy's Gone" is that it reminds me an awful lot of I Hate Scotland by Ballboy, but not as good - both had the big expositionary dialogue thing going on, but the Glasvegas lad is singing his and it sounds so... prating, really, very harpy. On the plus side, you can definitely see what he's saying with the doo-wop stuff; on the minus, that's what the Raveonettes were doing too, and if you look at the graphic atop Glasvegas' MySpace, you might spot a wee bit more that the two have in common... I dunno, they've got heart, clearly, and they can tap that drone nicely, but his voice and his sincerity seem more like obstacles at the moment. Probably worth keeping an eye on, though.

As for The Ting-Tings, I got very bored with them very quickly. Her vocals do the MIA/Neneh Cherry type thing, and the sound as a whole reminds me a lot of Mania for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. Something about it (possibly that I'm listening to it at quite low volume) means that I'm really, really not interested though, and I dunno quite what it is.

I sense big Adele discussions will happen very shortly. I get the feeling I'm not exactly sticking my neck out to suggest that "Chasing Pavements" is kind of a sure thing chart-wise.

Actually, let's have Adele discussions now, cos here's...

FIRST RADIO 1 PLAYLIST FOR THE '08!

A-LIST

Adele - Chasing Pavements
Arctic Monkeys - Teddy Picker
Booty Luv - Some Kinda Rush
Newton Faulkner - Teardrop
Foo Fighters - Long Road To Ruin
Girls Aloud - Call The Shots
The Hoosiers - Worst Case Scenario
Jack Johnson - If I Had Eyes
Lupe Fiasco featuring Matthew Santos - Superstar
Mika - Relax, Take It Easy
Kate Nash - Pumpkin Soup
The Pigeon Detectives - I Found Out
Plain White T's - Hate (I Really Don't Like You)
Robyn - Be Mine
Kelly Rowland - Work [Freemasons Mix]
Scouting For Girls - Elvis Ain't Dead
Soulja Boy - Crank That (Soulja Boy) [Travis Barker remix]
Sugababes - Change
Kanye West featuring Chris Martin - Homecoming

B-LIST

30 Seconds to Mars - From Yesterday
Dave Armstrong & Redroche featuring H-Boogie - Love Has Gone
Bodyrox and Luciana - What Planet You On?
Mark Brown featuring Sarah Cracknell - The Journey Continues
Cascada - What Hurts The Most
The Feeling - I Thought It Was Over
The Fray - Look After You
Hot Chip - Ready For The Floor
Jay-Z - Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)...
One Night Only - Just For Tonight
Radiohead - Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Rihanna - Don't Stop The Music
Jay Sean - Ride It
Britney Spears - Piece Of Me
The White Stripes - Conquest
The Wombats - Moving To New York

C-LIST

(NEW) Biffy Clyro - Who's Got a Match
(NEW) Mary J Blige - Just Fine
Elliot Minor - Still Figuring Out
(NEW) Goldfrapp - A&E
David Jordan - Sun Goes Down
The Maccabees - Toothpaste Kisses
(NEW) Kylie Minogue - Wow
(NEW) Out of Office - Break of Dawn 2008

"1 UPFRONT" LIST

The Courteeners - What Took You So Long?
* Simple Plan - When I'm Hone

biffy clyro are more z-list to my ears

Thoughts on Adele - there is something really, really fucking good straining to get out here, there really is. BUT THOSE FUCKING VIOLINS! THAT FUCKING CHORUS! This is full-on no-stone-unturned production, desperate to smash your head in with... what is the comparison for those strings? I'm leaning towards 1968 Eurovision (and this ain't a million miles from "Un Banc, Un Arbre, Une Rue", the 1970 winner), but BBC Light Orchestra, Strictly Come Dancing, the bottom 50 percent of Embrace's singles, the singer from Foals shouting "HERE ARE SOME VIOLINS. HERE ARE SOME VIOLINS. HERE ARE SOME VIOLINS." - do you understand? It's so desperate to cover every single one of its fucking bases (those violins, they could be a bloody Michael Ball record) that Adele's talents (which shows signs of being very good, even if she does reach too deep when she sings "leeeed") get buried in the rubble. And it repeats the chorus, and thus the metaphor (resplendent with fucking orchestral sweep), far, far too many times. Makes me long for "Foundations".

it seems undeveloped to me, like shes written the chorus, amped it up TO THE MAX (with the strings, aye), cut and pasted it a few times, and then only had 10 minutes to think of a verse or two in-between. Its unbalanced. to have an epic chorus that climaxes you need down-time too, which she doesnt bother with. This song is going to really annoy me (and etc.), and the first line of the chorus is the only bit anyone is going to be able to remember.

I don't know what you two are talking about, "Chasing Pavements" is magnificent, and I for one LOVE how over-the-top and epic-sounding the chorus is.

by the by here are the top 20 biggest selling singles of 2007:

1. Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
2. Rihanna ft. Jay-Z - Umbrella
3. Mika - Grace Kelly
4. Leon Jackson - When You Believe
5. Take That - Rule The World
6. Sugababes - About You Now
7. Timbaland ft. Keri Hilson & DOE - The Way I Are
8. The Proclaimers ft. Brian Potter & Andy Pipkin - (I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles
9. Mark Ronson ft. Amy Winehouse - Valerie
10. Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby
11. The Fray - How To Save A Life
12. Beyonce & Shakira - Beautiful Liar
13. Gwen Stefani ft. Akon - The Sweet Escape
14. Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah
15. Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls
16. Timbaland ft. One Republic - Apologize
17. Kate Nash - Foundations
18. Take That - Shine
19. Kanye West - Stronger
20. Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend

Wow I had no idea Avril had such a big hit. What was the highest chart position it got?

#2

'With Every Heartbeat', the best #1 of last year, was 24th biggest seller in the end

one place below 'Starz In Their Eyes' >:(

Well that's me told - next up in the Sound of 2008 List:

2. DUFFY! - "I started singing blues and soul songs when I was really young," the 23-year-old explains. "And I didn't really have a record collection that would explain that."

(n.b. to hear her actual songs you'll ned to scroll down the MySpace to the Youtube videos, cos the song samples are only a minute long)

hmm, that 'rockferry' song is surprisingly good! i listened to it with the intention of trashing it stone-heartedly, but it's won me over to a large extent. not that i expect her other tracks to be as exciting.

Yeah, I was going to say "What, no Duffy" there.

Welcome back WBS! I've missed the chart rundowns, but I just laughed out loud at your Christmas music blog rant at work and would be even more pleased to see more non-rundown posts.

Extended Foals chat on chart thread still a bit of a shock to the system. I like Foals' music ("major lack of hooks or tunes" seems a bit unfair given how often Hummer's been stuck in my head, but point taken) but often feel quite determined not to, like on reading these quotes, getting trampled by Foals fans talking loudly about not knowing who the band they've shoved their way to the front row of are but they must be shit because they're not Foals, watching Y rolling around running his fingers over his bare chest on that Beeb yoof drama thing I forget the name of, etc.

insular Oxford music scene, which Yannis says is full of "drone bands" who are only interested in "making really weird music"

This place sounds awesome! I must move there. Oh, wait, I'm there right now and surveying a gig guide which is half bands who sound suspiciously like Foals did 2 years ago and half tunefully dull look-we-have-trumpets schmindie crew.

I saw Oxford's drone scene out in force last month watching Axolotl + Birds of Delay. There were about ten of them, I think. Top night mind.

(Don't worry Louis, maybe THE KIDS will get into Youthmovies from frantic bidding wars over my copy of their split with the pre-Foals Edmund Fitzgerald. Crossing fingers now. Weird to think how they've swapped places hype-wise and then some.)

tunefully dull look-we-have-trumpets schmindie crew

HA! Come over here and say that. Good Nature, March '08, album of the year. :D

(I've met Youthmovies at a gig, and the funniest thing about them is that they're all about 5'3" and 7 stone except for the trumpeter, who's 6'2" and looks like he could comfortably have the others for lunch.)

Anyway, Oxford hasn't been the same since its early-90's guitar-indie heroes left for the big-time.

Everyone: "I doooon't caaaare about the colourrrrrs..."

I didn't mean Youthmovies by the trumpets thing! I actually forgot about theirs. (Here's one, but trumpets are quite the thing right now.)

I've had my bouts of thinking them desperately overrated (the Guardian declared YMSS the most math-rock band ever back when every song had the same kick-kick-snare beat) and of being excited for them and am now settled into being gently glad to see them occasionally. Did I post this last year on the Oxford thread or did I just consider it? Ah well. Al Youthmovies posted on ILM a couple of times so maybe I should watch my language anyway.

I feel like I ought to attempt to stay on-topic but if I try it'll only be complaining about SfG or Kate Nash which will show me up as even more of a corny indie fuck.

Well, I expected to be like that too but you really should give that Duffy song a go - it's pretty good!

YMVS' (no SS) new stuff is, on the evidence of the recent gig I saw, a quantum leap better than the old. I had a long chat with them about their album and it seems they've pulled out all the stops with overdubs, tweaking, outright perfectionism. I'm looking forward with mad excitement.

I dunno wi' Rockferry. I just keep hearing "Slow Graffiti" with a better singer but with a lot of the emotional pull taken out. I do love "Slow Graffiti", though, so I'm not exactly shocked or appalled or anything. It all seems a bit Ronson-ised, though - the black and white of the video seems to be deliberately inviting Cathy Come Home comparisons, and the sound all seems to have this very carefully aged texture to it.

Which kinda brings me back to the strings on "Chasing Pavements" - it's not the over-the-top-ness that I mind, it's that it's a very lazy kind of over-the-top-ness, the kind that seems to have been very specifically engineered to glide easily into the Radio 2 daytime schedule. The strings just so seem so generic, so deliberately in thrall to this idea of the "big band sound" as being the real proving ground for singers, like they've gone down to B&Q and brought a five-litre tin of "QUALITY" that they can just throw all over the song and it will then sound of "QUALITY". It sounds lazy, that's the thing: too obvious, too easy, much too unsurprising.

I really, really feel the need to try and expand my earlier comparison with Foundations here, but I'm honestly not sure I can come up with the words. Let's have a go anyway. The thing with "Foundations" - what past does it hark back to? What musical heritage has this thing come from? It ain't the future, no, but when all of Knash's contemporaries seem to be deliberately putting themselves in a kind of musical heritage in order to bestow credibility upon themselves by showing just how well they've learnt their history, just how deep they dug in them there crates, "Foundations" sounds strangely vital, alive - I'm not a huge fan of the vocals, the verses, or whatever, but the arrangement, the production, and the god-damn chorus are all really excellent. It reminds me of the job the producer, Paul Epworth, did on Bloc Party's first album, how he turned that into so much more than just another guitar record - So Here We Are, for example. That was a top 5 record. "Foundations" got to number 2. Dammit, the charts can be exciting sometimes, and "Chasing Pavements" feels like a kind of cop-out, somehow, like the record company has decided to give the public an Amy Winehouse who can walk in a straight line occasionally.

Let's discuss some more stuff off that playlist, cos there's a lot of it and some of it looks kinda intriguing.

You may have heard this track from the Lloyds TSB bank advert in the past. You may want to open several bank accounts after hearing this song.

That's how the Youtuber that put up the video for The Journey Continues by Mark Brown and Sarah Cracknell decided it would be best sold to the internet. The poor thing never quite gets past that appellation - the bumping bass augments the soprano peeps, but never really overcomes them. Cracknell is Cracknell, but, sadly, this ain't Etienne - she sounds a bit too much like a guest here.

I saw Oxford's drone scene out in force last month watching Axolotl + Birds of Delay. There were about ten of them, I think. Top night mind.

I think I know 3 of them.

First song that gets me properly excited on the R1 list - the return of Jay Sean. An early version of Ride It was met with widespread apathy in the Jukebox last year, but ooh, how it has grown in the intervening months. Essentially, we have ourselves a mini-epic in the style of "What Goes Around...///'''@@@[']#€€€...Comes Back Around", but it gets its job done in under three and a half minutes, doesn't kill Scarlett Johansson, and uses its expansiveness to lead you on and make you wonder exactly what else the young feller's got up his sleeve. For rest assured, Jay Sean is a canny motherfucker. He's not averse to dropping falsetto, but compare it to, say, Shayne Ward - it actually sounds sexy, as opposed to creepy, or as some kind of demonstration of range. He keeps his hooks wide and varied: "pulling me, pulling me, pulling me clooose...", "hooold ooon dooon't gooo", and that chorus - he knows something's going wrong, but he's led by his hormones into deeper waters. The balance of power keeps shifting: he tries to seduce her, she tries to seduce him, then the third party gets lobbed in at 2:20, leading to the big, chunky breakdown segment, and then the chorus takes it home.

It's really a bit fascinating, as is JS himself: originally came along in Radio 1's flurry of promotion for Bobby & Nihal, as well as the launch of the BBC Asian Network; once the hype had died down, he seemed like he might be on the scrapheap, thus fulfilling his billing as "the Asian Craig David". "Ride It" is a serious indication that he's got an awful lot more to offer.

doesn't kill Scarlett Johansson

This is a fault.

doesn't kill Scarlett Johansson

This is a fault.

He doesn't kill Thora Birch either, if that makes it any more palatable.

One of those bands this kind of thread was built for would appear to be The Feeling, who also have a slot on the B-list with I Thought It Was Over, the first single off their second album. They're the kind of band who rumble along near the foreground, never quite enough to get people talking about them, but there nonetheless.

And this single will not change that one tiny bit. It's 'a bit electro', kind of - not enough to induce dance or anything, the rhythm is very politely buried away behind some morphed guitar riffs, but noticeably enough so that people can go "ooh, haven't you grown!" But have they? If they're coming out of their shell, they're doing it bloody slowly - Dan Gillespie-Sells seems like a good egg, but his voice is really thin, very unengaging. This is about him realising he's still in love with someone. I know this because that's what the title says. There's lyrics, lots of lyrics, and you can make them all out, too, but how are you meant to care? It never puts a foot wrong, but it never dares to try - there's no danger in this, no conflict, no turmoil, it's just another love song.

Let's use that as an excuse to post the video for Party Fears Two - an unfair comparison, since it sets the bar that fucking high, and Billy Mackenzie's voice is the kind of sound you can go forever without finding comparison to, but it does this so much better - there's turmoil, peril, melodrama - all the stuff.

But I think we ought to talk about The Feeling. And Jay Sean. And Mark Brown and Sarah Cracknell. All the stuff. I don't want this being the kind of thread where songs get marooned within one post. Part of the reason for this thread is that I'm scared I don't pay enough attention these days, that I dismiss things too out of hand, and I get the horrible feeling everyone else does too. So have at it! (More songs off the playlist to follow)

It appears a passing space cadet bought all my friends releases on her label too.

OK, now that's embarrassing! Drunk old woman memorably not blending in with rest of audience who are almost a decade younger and all know the promoter shocker.

They're good CDs though and it's exciting to find drone/noise stuff locally, and I enjoyed the gig, especially Birds of Delay.

(I hope I didn't rip them or yr friend off, I realised at home that the compilation the merch guy sold me for the same price as BoD's cdrs has 3 discs and costs a lot more online; should have emailed the band to ask, and also your friend about one of the cdrs not playing, but it's been a busy couple of months)

You know you're old if every time someone talks about Duffy your brain fills in "Stephen Tintin", right?

Haha, it took me some time to realise that this Duffy I was seeing touted everywhere was not Stephen enjoying a belated critical renaissance.

So Soubd of 2008 ends with Adele as Most Hottestest Newestest Thingestest, which means my finger remains firmly on the musical pulse, yarrgh.

The rest of the top ten:

10. SANTOGOLD! - She is a slightly less crazy answer to her friend MIA and sang on Mark Ronson's album Versions.

9. MGMT! - A Brooklyn electro-pop duo whose name is said "the management".

8. BLACK KIDS! - "They have a heady mix which sets them apart from the army of bands we all come across every day." Neil McCallum, Channel 4 head of music

7. JOE LEAN AND THE JING JANG JONG! - A British band with jangling guitars and indie anthems who have supported Babyshambles and Kaiser Chiefs.

6. VAMPIRE WEEKEND! - They've been described as The Strokes covering Graceland-era Paul Simon.

Also, to helpfully cover their arsesdirect those seeking further hot, this year there's a 'best of the rest' bit for acts who don't need to be talked about by Channel 4's head of music:

11. Ida Maria
12. One Night Only
13. Alphabeat
14. Laura Marling
15. Cajun Dance Party
16. The Courteeners
17. Gabriella Cilmi
18. Late of the Pier
19. Black Mountain
20. Lil' Wayne

Yes, that's the rapper Lil Wayne.

daamn was hoping it was this guy:

http://www.lvmi.net/images/WDobson.jpg

(throws voice) "i like you"

who is this Lil Wayne? Is he another one of those cute little child rappers?

In a UK-capacity, is Alphabeat actually going to happen? "Fascination" is a marvellous single, like a 00s "Footloose", and in the right conditions should be a Number One, but won't be. Then, there'd be nothing stopping the brilliant "What Is Happening?" from following it there - but half the album is sadly very boring.

Late Of The Pier could be good but, now I've said that, I expect they are not.

Alphabeat are, somehow, The Sun's big tip for 2008.

You know you're old if every time someone talks about Duffy your brain fills in "Stephen Tintin", right?

I'm afraid that at 34 , I too also think of Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy.
What's your email Rebecca ? and i'll pass it on to my friend. she will fix you up about the cdr.

It's funny how I know a few members of the Oxford drone scene yet I've never been near Oxford or seen any of the bands.

i think of Keith Duffy from The Boyzones and Corrie fame

You young whippersnapper

http://www.rockzirkus.de/lexikon/bilder/p/power/best_brit.jpg

Of course there's always someone older to come along

Apropos of nothing, R2's playlist at the moment:

A LIST

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - ALBUM: Magic
CHRISTINA AGUILERA - Oh Mother
ADELE - Chasing Pavements
JOSS STONE - Baby Baby Baby
SCOUTING FOR GIRLS - Elvis Ain't Dead
JAMIE SCOTT & THE TOWN - Standing In The Rain
THE HOOSIERS - Worst Cast Scenario
GWEN STEFANI - Early Winter
JACK JOHNSON - If I Had Eyes
AMY MACDONALD - ALBUM: This Is The Life

B LIST

CELINE DION - Eyes On Me
JENNIFER LOPEZ - Hold it, Don't Drop It
TOM BAXTER - Better
MIKA - Relax, Take It Easy
JOSH RITTER - Right Moves
DAUGHTRY - Home
MADNESS - NW5
*NEW* ROBERT PLANT AND ALISON KRAUSS - Please Read The Letter
*NEW* MORRISSEY - That's How People Grow Up
*NEW* THE FEELING - I Thought It Was Over

C LIST

ROBYN - Be Mine
ONE NIGHT ONLY - Just For Tonight
RADIOHEAD - Jigsaw Falling Into Place
*NEW* MORCHEEBA - Enjoy The Ride
*NEW* RASCAL FLATTS - What Hurts The Most
*NEW* RICHARD HAWLEY - Valentine
MATT COSTA - Mr Pitiful

i've still not heard 'Early Winter'

And for the hell of it, here's 1xtra:

A-LIST

Addictive Feat T2 - Gonna Be Mine
Alicia Keys - Like You'll Never See Me Again
Chris Brown feat T-Pain & Nelly - Kiss Kiss (Remix)
Chris Brown - With You
Common feat Will.I.Am - I Want You
Craig David - 6 Of 1 Thing (Sticky Remix)
Delinquent Feat Kcat - My Destiny (Bassline Edit)
Dexplicit Feat Gemma Fox - Might Be
DJ Felli Fel Feat Akon, Diddy, Ludacris & Lil Jon - Get Buck In Here
DJ NG Feat Baby Katie - Tell Me
Fat Joe Feat J. Holiday - I Won't Tell
Jay Sean - Ride It
Kano - Bad Boy
Kanye West Feat Chris Martin - Homecoming
Kanye West Feat Dwele - Flashing Lights
Kelly Rowland - Work
Lupe Fiasco Ft. Matthew Santos - Superstar
Mary J Blige - Just Fine
Potential Bad Boy - For The Girl Dem
The Dream - Falsetto

B-LIST

Benga and Coki - Night
Busy Signal - Jah Protect Me
Chipmunk - How I Stay / My Life
Control S - Never Leave Me Alone
De Marco - Fallen Soldiers
DJ Q Feat Mc Bones - U Wot?
Freeway Feat 50 Cent - Take It To The Top
Lil Kim - Chillin' Tonight
Omarion & Bow Wow - Girlfriend
Rogue Soul - Be With You
Ryan Leslie - Diamond Girl
Snoop Dogg - Sensual Seduction
THC & Probe - Mr Jah
Tinchy Stryder - Breathe
Wahoo - Damn (You're Here)
Young Kof - You Must Be Dumb
Young Nate Feat Chipmunk - Mixed Messages (Remix)
Yves La Rock Feat Roland Richards - Zookey (Lift Your Leg Up)

C-LIST

Chingy Feat Amerie - Fly Like Me
Crissy Criss & Fumin - Sidetracked
Kid Sister Feat Kanye West - Pro Nails (Remix)
Wu Tang Clan Feat Erykah Badu - The Heart Gently Weeps

And 6Music:

A List

Adele - Chasing Pavements
British Sea Power - Waving Flags
Duffy- Rockferry
New Hot Chip - Ready For The Floor
Jay-Z - Roc Boys (And The Winner Is)...
New M.I.A - Paper Planes
New Morrissey - That's How People Grow Up
Kate Nash - Pumpkin Soup
Radiohead - Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Sons & Daughters - Darling
Supergrass - Diamond Hoo Ha Man
White Stripes - Conquest
The Wombats - Moving To New York

B List

Arctic Monkeys - Teddy Picker
New The Duke Spirit - The Step And The Walk
Lupe Fiasco - Superstar
The Kills - U.R.A Fever
The Maccabees - Toothpaste Kisses
New Laura Marling - Ghosts
Cass McCombs - That's That
Malcolm Middleton - We're All Going To Die
New Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Please Read The Letter
New School Of Language - Rockist Single
Super Furry Animals - The Gift That Keeps On Giving
New Those Dancing Days - Hitten

I know that's a fair wedge to be getting on with, but what the hell.

I read the wombats as the wombles

havent heard a couple on the 1xtra list, but i'll try a breakdown anyways:

Addictive Feat T2 - Gonna Be Mine
Delinquent Feat Kcat - My Destiny (Bassline Edit)
Dexplicit Feat Gemma Fox - Might Be
DJ Q Feat Mc Bones - U Wot

bassline! now hopefully you'll have read some media puffpieces already, saving me having to describe it, but basically post-'heartbroken' b-line aka boshing bouncing sorta tinny speedgarage is the legitimising excuse glue we're looking at to open all kinds of floodgates and save 2008. all of these are a/ on youtube, and b/ good. also be aware of the likes of kym myles and h20 & platinum, proper 90s throwback cheese that bassline will also be responsible for popularizing to a greater or lesser extent. kym myles, kym syms, kim mazelle - it is the circle of life.

DJ NG Feat Baby Katie - Tell Me
Wahoo - Damn (You're Here)

these two are more on the sultrier/classier funky house tip. the dj ng in particular is mooted as a smash; everyone likes one bit of noir once a year, in the manner of 'cure & the cause'.

Yves La Rock Feat Roland Richards - Zookey (Lift Your Leg Up)

cheesier side of funky house here, bit like the weird bob sinclar thingy last year who's name i forget. both use the neat trick of incorporating actual dancehall riddims (coolie dance here) to ram home what's going on. (if you havent already noticed, a lot of tricking of people is apparently involved in making them comfy with the whole dancing thing.)

Potential Bad Boy - For The Girl Dem

there's always a dodgy drum n bass song knocking about the 1xtra chart BUT again this one makes explicit a further ratification-via-bassline - namely you're finally free to like clownstep, kids! boing! the bassline on this is pure rofflez, and i love it dearly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08tYgi2CcSM - addictive/t2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDMKB1lkE6U - gemma fox (finally her time!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izesw44SoCQ - my destiny (all flavours)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk3LjhpOKd0 - dj ng
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iJ0PF1CnXM - wahoo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMpnngrZAQ4 - yves la rock (socabeat also at play here obv)
http://www.playazonline.co.uk/audioclips/jhr/jhr009aa.mp3 - potentialbadboy clip

New top 40:

Leon still kingy, Soulja Boy climbs to 2. Nickelback's bizarre rise continues, as "Rockstar" gives them their first UK top 10 hit since "Someday", four-and-a-bit years ago.

Our highest new entry is Basshunter's "Now You're Gone" at #14, which used to be called "Boten Anna" when it was first a hit in Sweden about a year and a half ago. It was about a chatbot back then. The video featured both a Mini Moke AND a pedalo. Neither of these things apply now, but it's still shit anyway. The only other new entry looks to be The White Stripes at #30.

No, the big thing here is re-entries and climbs for the aged. Rihanna still has three singles in the top 40, with "Don't Stop The Music" climbing to 12 and "Umbrella" - yes, still - at number 18. Also on three hits - Mika. "Relax" is at 20, "Grace Kelly" 35, "Happy Ending" 39. The Hoosiers, Scouting For Girls, Take That, Sugababes, Timbaland and Kate Nash all have to make do with two each. Best of all, "Ruby" is back at #27. Oh, Januarypaws.

Radiohead are the lone new entry in the album chart, going straight to number one. Elsewhere, it's sales-time, so lots of predictable climbers who aren't worth my time naming.

Nicklelback in the top 10?????

the power of Virgin Radio should not be ignored. Also, rather disappointingly, only Kiss FM is playlisting Cassie.

I didn't realise people still listened to Virgin Radio.

That new version of the Basshunter track is horrible. I really like the original version.

I gather that In Rainbows managed to top the album chart with just 50,000 physical sales.

44602

Which isn't so bad for this time of year, the no1 album for this week last year (Take That) sold just under 30k

4 new things on R1 list this week: Basshunter, who is apparently gonna be #1 this weekend (cos there can be miracles when you believe, possibly), Craig David's "6 of 1 Thing", Duffy's "Mercy", and "What's It Gonna Be" by H-Two-O ft. Platnum. Also, two other new additions which really aren't very new at all - Paramore's "Misery Business" (presumably cos it's doing well in the US now, so it might chart inside the top 30 over here this time around) and Mark Ronson's version of "Just" with the trumpets and so on, which Everyhit refuses to believe ever charted (I'm sure it did though... surely?)

No, amazingly enough, "Just" flumped in at #48 on its initial release in March 2006. Two years ago.

Midweeks:
1 (14) BASSHUNTERS
2 LEON
3 SOULJA BOY
4 TIMBALAND
5 (10) BRITNEY
6 NICKELBACK
7 TAKE THAT
8 (12) RIHANNA
9 LEONA
10 RONSON/WINEHOUSE

ALBUMS

3 (13) NEWTON FAULKNER
7 (12) SCOUTING FOR GIRLS

13 NEW TOM BAXTER

Still maintain that Basshunter is ever-so-slightly cobblers, but his interview on Popjustice is quite good fun. He's celebrating his number one by playing World of Warcraft and drinking scotch. Good on him.

I had to review Tom Baxter's single "Better" for our student radio distributer. The review was so caustic I didn't actually send it off. He has to be one of the worst songwriters of all time.

OK, at work, at a loose end, so let's go-a looking at stuff that's not been covered on this thread yet.

Kick off with the bottom track from that 6Music playlist, 'Hitten' by Those Dancing Days. Five girls from Sweden, who have one of those electric keyboards that sounds a bit like an organ, makes all the gliding noises and such. Some very cutesy drumming-with-skipping-ropes in the video, the song seems to mostly be a chorus attached to aforementioned organ noise. Early prediction - this song will not do anything, anywhere.

School of Language look much more promising, however, being as they are one-third of Field Music, who I seem to like more than most other people despite (because of?) never having heard either of their albums. Anyway, as one might expect given SofL's previous, they're kinda doodly indie - the various individual parts sound like they're all coming down individual internal mailing tubes, with the tube with the drums in sounding nicest. Struggle to see them finding an audience outside, er, me, to be fair, but apparently Stuart Maconie's a fan, which is nice. Tempted to compare it to Quasi, that may not be entirely accurate.

This isn't much of a hitbound preview so far, is it? Fear not, cos next up is Laura Marling, already hotly-tipped by people who want to try and stand out from the people hotly-tipping Adele or Duffy or whoever. Note to all women - the UK is going to be very bored of you by about March. You should probably just go back to playing bass or something. This, weirdly enough, isn't exactly any less shambling in structure terms than School of Language: but it's much more nice-sounding. When I say nice-sounding, I mean T-Mobile-advert-sounding. Very quiet, very unassuming, picks up a bit in the final minute and ends on an long fiddle note. Am tempted to compare it to Jens Lekman if only cos I couldn't really make out many of the words either when I last saw him live.

More nicey-nice: The Maccabees. Note to acoustic guitars: the UK is going to be very bored of you by about February. You should probably just go back to being a table or something. There is occasionally another instrument. This is making me think of something Travis might do as a B-side, except it has a bit more nous, a tiny bit more adventure. Dawdling once more, the band actively sound like they're killing time, softly.

Sorry to sound like a bloody music journalist, but it really isn't enough to just not hate something, is it? I'm gradually getting those "You are a MEAN OLD MAN" voices in my head again, but really - someone explain the appeal of these last two. They're so... idling. Gentle, cosseting, and I can picture the whole of the Cockpit going quiet or whistling along when they drop these live, but.. Not Enough. Not Enough.

The Duke Spirit? May as well. Unfortunately, the songs on their MySpace all seem to cut off early, so it might be possible that 'The Step and The Walk' gets fantastic late on, but thus far it's all a bit BRMC meets Echobelly (seriously, guitar music, the fuck you done to my vocabulary? I listen to this sort of thing and feel utterly useless). Sounds like whiskey. Lots of "whoo-ooo-ooo-ooo" in the back, guitars sound like driving round ghost town at night slightly too quickly with some whisky. Whisky whisky whisky. From Somerfield. Or Superdrug. Do they sell whisky?

No, fuck this. Let's talk Hot Chip. Let's luxuriate in the full-fat joys of the video for Ready For The Floor. Let us marvel at Alexis Taylor's Trevor Horn Halloween costume. Let us wonder why no music video has previously felt the need to point out how hard it is to wheel a drinks trolley over a rug without spilling anything. Let us get all doe-eyed at the "You're my number one guy" bit, and they way the keyboards dip and slouch in the chorus. Let us perhaps leave it a bit before we try the Morrissey single.

I think there was a new entry this week onto the British charts of "Piece Of Me," a song by Britney Spears. Remember Britney? She cemented the original Swedepop/teenpop invasion back in '99, went on to some club tracks, then took some time off for cheerful domesticity. Good to have you back, Brit.

There was, yes, didn't notice it on Sunday cos I thought it might already have entered. Going top five this weekend, according to that feller from about four posts ago.

It is quite good, yes.

i have witnessed first hand the indie boners that afro-haired lead girl out of those dancing days provokes, write them off at yr peril.

um well when i say first hand

(Will, I'm guessing from this thread so far that you're not wanting it to be about Murrican songs that happen to be charting in Britain, but for anyone who's interested I'll link to Anthony Easton's ten things I like about nickelback's rockstar. (Anthony said later, in writing up "Rockstar" for his top ten country songs of the year, "I'm shocked that I am writing this, because like all right thinking critics, I hate Nickelback---if I start saying nice things about Hinder next take me out behind the bar and shoot me." Anthony seems to think John Rich of Big & Rich co-wrote "Rockstar," but I don't think this is correct, even though Rich was one of the cast of thousands to appear in the video.))

(If there are American acts that are hitting in Britain but not America - The Gossip or the Scissors Sisters, for instance - this might be a good place to talk about them, should they re-enter the charts.)

(Godwin's Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nickelback or Hinder approaches one.)

(And Travis Tritt's cover of Nickelback's "Should've Been" was one of my favorite songs of 2007. Jack Ingram's cover of Hinder's "Lips Of An Angel" was not one of my favorite songs of 2007, but was bearable. And now I'll shut up about N and H.)

(Er, that's "Should've Listened," not "Should've Been. Now I'll really shut up about them.)

I'd say "Rockstar" is very much up for grabs, just cos its success here is so utterly out of character, but I really, really Do Not Mind. This thread is not my exclusive property, it's not like people are allowing their dogs to shit on my lawn or anything.

This thread might not be the most productive place to discuss Hinder or Travis Tritt, mind.

Re: Those Dancing Days. When was the last time a Swedish guitar act really did anything in the UK? Peter Bjorn & John had to re-release "Young Folks" about 74 times to get in the top 20, and that was kind of off the back of at least one advert, possibly more. I can't imagine it had much to do with the truckload of charisma that is Victoria Bergsman...

That said, your opinions of any of the stuff discussed or linked to thus far would be plenty welcome.

Actually, this being a Rolling [...] Thread 2008, we need a Myspace to rally round. It's traditional.

I humbly submit, for your consideration, Radio 1 B-List star David Jordan.

One of these blog posts was written by David himself; one was written by his label. See if you can spot the difference:

07 Dec 2007

New single ’Sun Goes Down’ out Feb 4th - hear it on Radio 1 this weekend!

David's new single 'Sun Goes Down' is set for release on Feb 4th and you can hear it on Radio 1 tomorrow (Sat 8th Dec). Tune into Fearne & Reggie around 5.30pm to hear it and then again on Trevor Nelson's show from 7pm! If you like it let Radio 1 know about it!

Plus don't forget to see David on The Royal Variety Performance on Sunday ITV1 8pm.

08 Jan 2008

the CraZy BITCH UP STAIRS
Current mood: cheerful

THE bitch upstairs her names Evonne, well clever .. bitter,,, girl, was lying in bed fast asleep, when suddenly this noise was fuking CRAZAY loud... so i told them to turn it off, and spoke to my land-lord ( whos problem it wasnt) anyway i went to confront her about the noise.. and aparently im very very dissrespectful for playing my music... ( watching the prince of egypt--- yeas very loud music.) anyway i tryied to explain when this crazy cow never calmed down she soon had me shouting bak,,, she shouted something about touring and a bout my career,,, that gave me the impression (jelousy) never seen what it looks from the othere side,,, i didnt come to her as a 'pop star' i came to her in my pj's as a neighbour, with a problem and she said 'ra , ra, ra when your touring and singing,ra ra ra...... by this time i'd said to her ' go to hell 'and was slamming my door shut..
BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(His single, "Sun Goes Down", sounds like Danny John Jules singing Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Yet to decide if that is good or bad.)

Ongoing hazard of this thread = accidentally playing Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong and Santogold over the top of one another. God that was horrible.

JLATJJJ don't sound as comically useless as I'd expected them to, just a bit dull. Disappointing.

Basshunter does indeed proceed to the top spot. What's interesting is what happens behind him - Britters did in fact wind up at #2, ahead of Soulja Boy and - oh yes - Nickelback! Leon slumps to number five, so that's that for him, then. A Rihanna Single (does it matter which?) goes to number six, ahead of... Lupe Fiasco. Where did that come from, eh? 'pologise is number eight, Wiccans Rule The World #9, and The Third Scouting For Girls Single is YOUR number ten.

Kanye & Chwis is new at 14. 'Be Mine!' is the hit the internet knew it would always be at, er, #23, ahead of 'I Fought The Lloyds' by Oystar at #25. Que? Kylie's 'Wow' re-enters at 29.

British Sea Power's chart return commences with 'Waving Flags' at #31. The Wombats fit their way in among the long-distance runners at #37.

In the albums... Amy Macdonald is number one. Eh? Is there a sale on at Tesco? More climbers, most significant maybe Plant & Krauss at 6. Tom Baxter is, indeed, new at 12.

Steve Brookstein, incidentally, only ever had the one hit single.

Oystar, ladies and gents. It's like Dan Le Sac & Scroobius Pip gone acoustic. On Radio 2 on Saturday lunchtime.

Amy MacDonald CD was on sale for £4.99 at HMV when I was in last week.

BSP for #1 next week?

Ceefax had "going to New York" as being by the Wombles.

The Amy MacDonald CD was on sale for a fiver everywhere this week, and both HMV and Virgin (I refuse to use that stupid Z*vvi alias) seemed to have it glued in their CD players, but since Ms MacDonald tends to sing as though attempting to unglue her mouth this is perhaps not surprising. Just what we needed - a female Paolo Nutini.

Download rule consequences watch ahoy!: With its #68 placing this week, Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" has the second longest chart run ever with (spook!) 68 weeks, beating Judy Collins' 67 weeks in 1970-1973 with "Amazing Grace". Still 54 weeks off beating "My Way", though.

Not bad going for a song with no discernible tune.

where can i get naked basshunter pix why because he look intersting

THIS WEEK IN PLAYLIST:

Our Boy Dave Jordan (no-one's with me on this, are they?) is promoted to the A-List, along with Biffy Clyro, The Feeling and The Brown-Cracknell Connection. Hot Chip, annoyingly, remain marooned on the B, alongside Duffy, Basshunter, Simple Plan, Goldfrapp, Cray Day Vay, Radiohead, and Our Boy Jay Sean (if I keep dubbing people this it will happen).

Oh, and Men of Achievement 2008 Nickelback, getting on the Radio 1 playlist for the first time since... goodness knows.

Also new this week: Taio Cruz ft. Luciana, Marco Demark ft. Casey Barnes, OneRepublic, KT Tunstall, Alphabeat, The Ting Tings, Vampire Weekend and Benga & Coki. Run for the middle ground!

OK, so I'm watching The Hits this evening for the first time in ages.

Thoughts:

1) Will 'Paper Planes' actually be a hit? There's no reason to believe so beyond it being excellent, but it's weird that The Hits is playing it. Something going on?

2) I'd like that Feeling song much more if it was by Erasure. And, well, was Sometimes. It wouldn't have the guitar solo, for starters.

3) The Freemasons mix of Work by Kelly Rowland. I know that earlier I said the The Feeling were the kind of band that were made for this thread... but that's bobbins. I kinda need to get that most recent Freemasons album stat.

Also, Vince Clarke has a nicer guitar than The Feeling.

oh wow that remix!

they really are the guys that just throw the completed rubik's cube back over to you like "oh yeah this thing"

'Paper Planes' video is pretty shit i.e. it actually has paper planes in it. shame they had to change the gun sound also.

That's pretty much my reaction, yeah. 2008 is kind of going alright thus far, primarily due to that (i.e. Freemasons).

The vid for Paper Planes that The Hits plays appears to be very badly lip-synched. Is that intentional?

And on The Hits now - Just Fine. I want this to be a hit, really I do, but somehow... I dunno, it feels a bit out of sync with modern times. Is the UK ready for Mary to sound like Donna Summer? Is the UK ready for anyone to sound like Donna Summer?

that 'work' remix has in turn reminded me of sarah whatmore's 'automatic' despite not necessarily sounding that much like it. so that's nice.

holy mother of god you did not just bring back sarah whatmore's 'automatic'

Hits now has 'Hey There Delilah'. Most irritating thing about this video, I have just realised, is the way his head pulls back the same way every time he does the "Urrrgh, s'what you doodermeee..." That's pretty much Leon Jackson Clutch Of Destiny annoyance, there.

I kinda need to get that most recent Freemasons album stat.

Yes! Their most recent one is basically just all their "original" tracks from Shakedown with a few extras, so if you have Shakedown already, you only need the following:

Rain Down Love (Walken Edit) (the radio edit)
Uninvited
If

And is it true that the Freemasons are mixing I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE? That's what their Wiki article sez (no source though) and I'm not exaggerating when I say I jumped out of my chair. Please be true!!!

i'm a one lover based lovin lady!

xp whatmore

daamn she is hotter than i remember

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/music/article694840.ece

gotta love it

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00420/HtwoO_420148a.jpg

lol, quite so

glorious tune btw if i didnt already say

OK, this will teach me to dismiss playlist songs before listening them.

As you may see upthread, 'Night' by Benga & Coki is now on the R1 playlist. It's dubstep. On daytime Radio 1. Admittedly, this is only the 1-Upfront list, but still. At some point, daytime Radio 1 will play this record. God knows what it'll do...

Rubbing shoulders on that 1-Upfront list: 'Fascination' by The Sun's top tips, Alphabeat. Six of them, from Denmark, several primary colours, play their instruments like they're made of foam rubber. You see what I mean about 'Night' perhaps not fitting in that well.

Anyway, big, catchy, sung with bloody gigantic smiles across their faces... too perfect for their own good, perhaps? It feels like it will slot ever-so-smoothly into the post-Scouting For Girls hyper-jaunt niche, except it's several times more sugar-rushy and whirlwindy and sweep-you-off-your-feety. This, remember, is a Scandinavian pop act. In the UK. Something Is Going To Go Wrong.

Midweeks, just so's you know:

1 BASSHUNTER
2 (7) LUPE FIASCO
3 BRITNEY
4 RIHANNA
5 NEW ADELE
6 SOULJA BOY
7 NICKELBACK
8 NEW MADNESS
9 SCOUTING FOR GIRLS
10 NEW COURTEENERS

ALBUMS

5 NEW BRITISH SEA POWER

As you may see upthread, 'Night' by Benga & Coki is now on the R1 playlist. It's dubstep. On daytime Radio 1.

prrw prrw prrw! never underestimate the massed underground ranks of the british pigeon fancier; many a time i have seen gerry francis giving this tune the gunfingers on a friday night in shoreditch.

I hear Robyn is going to stall at 11.

MADNESS! Oh you Britishes are so quaint.

Big on Radio 2 innit.

Will this be the first UK top ten single to feature a London postcode in its title?

cilla black's 'NE1 who had a heart' takes that cake, sorry

^ ban

I said London postcodes, not Newcastle ones!

So the Splogenessabounds single about the female plumber didn't make it then?

'west 10 girls' wasnt worth the effort so i thought i'd risk it

I've been trying to come up with one. bah. Of course I knew NE1 was Newcastle... ach come onnn,,,,,.....

West One (Shine on me) The Ruts.

Oh if it had only been a bigger hit.

Indeed - a great single.

I think I'm safe in assuming that Tory Suggs is also the only artist to have/appear on hits with songs named after adjacent areas of London, since he scored in 1995 with "Camden Town" which has been scientifically proven to be the worst record ever made.

Nickelback are from Canada, please we have enough to answer for here in U.S.

Everybody Salsa by Modern Romance has the lyric "this ain't Puerto Rico, this is London E18"

which is Wanstead, incidentally.

The elephant in this particular room is clearly East 17. If only they had recorded a song named after them in the line of "Motorhead," "Visage" &c.

So, if you're anything like me, you'll be looking at the Radio 1 playlist, and you'll be thinking: "Simple Plan? Eh? What are those perenially mid-table Canadian gobshites doing there, given that they've never done anything of note in the past and, in all probability, will never do anything of note in ever?"

Well, it turns out that they've become Maroon 5, a bit. Girl is informed that she will miss him when he is gone because he's all up in the advertising hoardings, using a Samsung mobile phone and drinking a bottle of cool, refreshing Tuborg imported lager. There are times when you think this may be worth paying attention to, but then they just get all ker-flump all over again. Good Charlotte shit them, shall we say.

Chartuss:

Basshunter is now credited to Basshunter ft. DJ Mental Theo. It's still number one, but breathing down its neck is... Adele! DUN DUH DUHHHHHH! "Chasing Pavements" is number two on downloads and will doubtless go top either next week or week after or whenever. Mrs Oh My God That Britney's Shameless is number three (what would we make of 'Piece Of Me' if recorded by Kerry Katona?), ahead of The New Nickelback, Lupe Fiasco. Rihanna Sings Estefan is five, The Old Nickelback (i.e. Nickelback) slip to six ahead of Soulja Boy. Scouting For Girls climb to eight. Huh? Kanyis Martest #9, and 'Be Mine!' allays everyone's fears by sneaking in at number ten.

Beyond that: Wombats roar up to thirteen, with The Courteeners debuting at 20. Leonwatch - down 12 to 17. Madness' midweek promise fades to number 24, with Radiohead new at 30 (is this a proper single, or just the song released to radio? Or are those the same thing these days? Bloody young people). Possible single of the year thus far, Kelly Rowland's 'Work', makes its debut (I think) at #31.

Scouting For Girls knock Teh MacDonald off the top spot, presumably their album was available for £4.97, offering two pence more value. It's a buyer's market. British Sea Power at 10 and You Will Never Need Any Other Neil Diamond Album at 34 are your lone new entries in a mostly static chart, the Wombats' climb from 31 to 13 being the lone major movement. Except I hadn't noticed Winehouse's debut album, Frank, is having an actual resurgence in popularity, up from 32 to 24.

Which version of "Work" has been playlisted? The Freemasons mix, I presume?

There's a 2-for-1 deal going with Frank in Woolie's I think.

Re. SFG - it's all the fault of Al Murray As The Pub Landlord's Happy Hour since they were on it this week.

Why the wombats suddenly getting love?

Radiohead new at 30 (is this a proper single, or just the song released to radio?

It's a proper single. Well, you could buy it last week on 7" in Fopp...

it came in last week at #99 but just have to say Ringo Starr's 'Liverpool 8' single really is the worst single of the 00s if not ever (but maybe this should be posted on FT instead to attract defiant outrage from his many fans).

Righto, I've got slack on this thread lately due to minor fear about accessing Youtube at work.

But tonight, I have a plan. Something I've been thinking about for a while, but never actually managed.

Tonight - I propose we have a mass listen-along to Zane Lowe's first programme of the New Year, between 7 and 9 pm. Should we be feeling sufficiently dangerous, we can have a crack at Colin Murray's programme between 10 and midnight, too. Hell, maybe even Lamacq's bit between the two.

Who's with me? Starts at 7PM UK time, which is just under seven hours from now. I think the online listening feature should work around the world, and it's at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1.

I've got to get up early tomorrow, so I might do this!

B-b-but Vera Duckworth's died!

I don't think she would have posted anyway.

Nevertheles, the sacrifice being requested here is I fear too great.

Listening to Zane Lowe's aerosol can of a voice for more than two seconds is for me impossible.

Flip, I missed the first 20 minutes... tune in now and they appear to be playing "Do You Want To?" Lowe's name-dropping Franz Ferdinand.

Here's an Adele album track, I think... unless they've let their bed over-run, this has a kind of "Unfinished Sympathy" thing going on, accompanied by snatches of not-really wonderful funk guitar noodle.

Lowe sounding a touch tense this evening, not sure why. Mark Ronson-produced, that Adele track, and... hmm. The problems with "Chasing Pavements" don't seem to have gone away - the production is a touch clod-hopping, the song-writing messy, and the vocal touches that enable her to sing "up" without sounding the letter p are still quite prevalent, and quite irritating.

Hottest Record In The World: Summat off the new Supergrass album.

Worrying sound of the "return to form" about that. Guitars be wailing all over the place, Gaz's vocals on the shouty side, but they sound... not tired, more exhausted. They've seen the world, and now they don't quite know what to do next.

Here's some d'n'b sounding stuff now.

Lowe sounding a touch tense this evening, not sure why

He knows that the millions of ilxors around the world are listening to him.

Breaking news: RATM funk-groove directly responsible for 45,000 moshers not getting injured.

This is probably the first time I've seriously listened to radio 1 this millennium.

TC and Subfocus, apparently. Kinda not making the most massive impression right now. Sort of sounds like filler.

Lowe asking about who the listeners thought were the best guests hosts in his absence, fair bit of variance in reply. Now talking about his trip to the Big Day Out, leading to one of the big problems I have with his style - he sounds like he's talking in press releases, sometimes, like full-formed paragraphs spill from his mouth. It makes listening to him quite difficult sometimes - there's a certain rigidity to it, a lack of warmth or spontaneity. Maybe he is being spontaneous, but it just doesn't feel that way. I remember really liking him on XFM when I was a bit younger - perhaps it's the Beeb that's brought this change?

He's playing some RATM now. Listen along: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1.

Sounded a little more alive in that link, speculating and teasing his listeners with where Rage might be playing this summer. Sounded a little more light-hearted, playing about - shorter links seem to suit him more.

Ting Tings now. Still not head over heels on these, it is fair to say.

Listening to this - did anyone watch the Morley programme in BBC4's pop season, and if so, what did you make of the bit with New Young Pony Club? Cos the sound of that Ting Tings song really, really reminds me of them - that kind of record that sounds like it was only made for people in London, somehow. 'Pop for grown-ups', not in a good way.

Anyone with any idea what that Chris Moyles advert was about, answers on a postcard.

And now - Talib Kweli.

We Are Scientists, funny how second rate 'Evening Session' bands in 2008 sound just like the second raters from 1988.

"Very underground", apparently. Very dull, too - it flows nicely in and out of the rest of the programme, but not much more. Still, flow's very important to the programme: constant motion, the need to keep the energy level up. Never standing still, things seem a bit less wondrous that way. Lowe likes things sounding special, and so he cross-promotes a lot - already teasing talk of a re-run of the week where he played classic albums in their entirety from last year, an idea I still think is pretty decent, albeit that the choices could be debated, to say the least.

We Are Scientists. Interpol fused with, ooh, let's say Hot Hot Heat, but with a fair bit less sneer. Again, though, feels a bit filler-y - there's synths here that remind of the Bravery, and his voice feels a bit wafer-esque. Certainly the best thing I've heard by them, to be fair. Zane's Single Of The Week.

Does It Offend You, Yeah? now. It's entitled "Rock Stars". One can imagine it working significantly better live, when they can throw a bit more energy behind it. Here, it is reminding me of that Medicine8 album I thought was rubbish. Digitised voices and everything.

Mystery Jets are back! And, um, sounding a little like Clearlake...

Then again, I like Clearlake. And there's a girl singing on this with a fairly decent voice. And it's being arranged rather nicely, sampled string shimmer in the chorus. It's actually sounding a little bit Johnny Boy-esque towards the end there. Tentatuve thumbs-up, and segued very nicely into a record featuring someone who sounds a little Thom Yorke-like. May even actually be Thom Yorke, but I've not lisened to Radiohead in a while so I don't know.

Strangely magisterial, slow, floaty. I am intrigued, cos they still didn't say what it was... cos now it's gone into Benga & Coki. It strikes me that I haven't heard a jingle on this show since the Chris Moyles advert. Benga & Coki is let flow, bass thumps and everything. And now a brief jingle buried deep down, into a looped bass intro with Zane talking over it. That run was very nicely done. Now Zane's talking in paragraphs again a bit.

It was Radiohead, btw, and the girl with the Mystery Jets was Laura Marling, which is nice cos I was a bit mean to her upthread.

And now - Operator Please.

And this is OK, y'know. It's rather conventional, in the vein of the girl-punk stuff Lamacq used to play quite a lot that wasn't as good as Sleater-Kinney. This is like that, except now it's not as good as Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Do you know what I mean? I'm no longer sure that I do. It's all very orderly.

Album Of The Week is Top Five Superstar Lupe Fiasco. Tonight, it's the title track.

Pretty decent too, though took a while to get into, or perhaps I wasn't paying attention. Lupe on how the pursuit of cool turns one into an arsehole, all intelligent and conscious and stuff, but something isn't clicking. We need to discuss 'Superstar' on here at some point, mind, cos I sense it's gonna be a much bigger hit here than the US.

This flowing radio has an interesting effect on time - makes it a little difficult to tell when the programme started, or how long it's got to go. It's quite filling, but does make things sound a little indistinct. Anyway, flow gets interrupted a touch by a new song off the Bullet For My Valentine album that sounds really rather uninteresting indeed. More cross-promotion for the Rock Show, and now for Rob da Bank.

Malakai - "carrying on that traditional Bristol sound". Sounds like South covering Kasabian.

Apparently Zane's tension is due to jetlag, having flown halfway round the world. He's talking about his banana cake. I like him when he loosens up like this. He really isn't that unlikeable at heart, but his style gets quite frustrating. Plus a lot of the hype he gives out to bands can come off a bit... hollow.

Oh, and he's not interviewed anyone yet. Remembering his Eminem interview, I can imagine that helps the quality of the programme a bit.

Now - Skepta.

The hip-hop that gets played on the show is all a bit worthy, which grates after a while (one minute into Talib Kweli). I kind of long for some banging. Not Does It Offend You, Yeah?, though. That said, the Skepta was easily the most engaging example thus far, even awash as it was with Kanye chipmunks. Nice little analysis of him and his wife's relationship.

Zane contemplates his dinner. Chatroom pushing for chicken risotto. Now I think it's a set of new bands. Currently, it's The Brute Chorus, some English kids who have heard the White Stripes and whose name I have forgotten. Slowly-unwinding bluesy stuff, unfolds into crunchy guitars and the vocalist sounding a little like Matt Bellamy. In contrast to DIOY,Y? (which was an increasingly worrying amount of posts ago), I can imagine this being pretty useless live. Much flailing, poor sound mixing and so on. It goes on a bit.

I don't know how anyone has the patience or discernment to spot any difference between any of these bands. Oh has the world changed or have I changed? Either way this isn't really the radio show (or thread) for me.

That last one sounded exactly like The Automatic's Monster.

As I say, I think the flowing radio concept is perhaps to blame for this a bit - everything runs into everything else, so it gets a bit difficult to remember what came where or who did what, especially if it's a first listen to the song. Nothing they've played tonight has really made me sit up and take notice, with the possible exception of Radiohead and maybe Skepta and The Mystery Jets.

This is a three-band run of new bands, btw, being thrown out for the chatroom and listeners to react to. The Brute Chorus, This City and The Gravity Crisis. All go on for absolutely bloody ages with no end in sight, not in an epic kind of way, more because these bands all sound very, very new and very, very green. The Brute Chorus are The White Stripes with a bass; This City... I think the closest comparison I got was Funeral For A Friend, but I know that's rather inaccurate - it wasn't as interesting as them; and The Gravity Crisis are like a far more sprawling and less coherent Maximo Park.

There is then a big mess of noises, leading into Santogold.

(This City Kids with Fireworks were the Automatic soundalikes. Bit more earnest though.)

Yes, that's probably closer. There's been at least one song this evening that sounded exactly like the Automatic's other single that wasn't 'Monster', but I can't remember what.

Santogold big and stompy, pretty alright really. Zane and assistant read out chatroom and text room feedback for the Fresh Meat tracks. The Brute Chorus are voted top. Zane agrees.

Morrissey? Morrissey.

This City sounded like Bloc Party going metal,sadly not in a good way. Brute Chorus sound like a potentially great band in the future, but they need a bit of working on.

A Morrissey single from the past five years, there. Seven minutes left, so everyone else gets a bigging up. Colin Murray is apparently joined by Chris Rock tonight. Cripes.

Here's some clown-footed rap-rock. Did I mention that Skepta was getting played off a recommendation by Hadouken?

Christ, this is the worst record of the evening by a fair mile. He used to play stuff like this all the time on XFM. I have no idea who it was.

And closing it out... Stush. 'Dollar Sign'. This sounds like it has been touched by the hand of someone who is not necessarily any good. It is much slower now for some reason. And they've decided to make their cartoon squelch beats several times louder than her. It's not the best way to be ending this, really.

Can I be arsed with Lamacq... probably not.

Did I mention that Skepta was getting played off a recommendation by Hadouken?

For FUCK'S SAKE R1.

No, it turns out I can, because dammit, I like that Vampire Weekend album, and he's opening with their one about fancying a girl at Any American University In Any Film Ever. Lamacq doesn't sound like he's aged a day since the mid-nineties. Entirely possibly this is because he has always sounded like he's in his late thirties.

Actually, does Lamacq sound perkier than usual? Perhaps only having an hour is putting a fire under him.

Ida Maria there. Another song that seems to ramble all over, Swedish lady with a voice that's unafraid of cracking at any point. All too ordinary, though - it sounds like emotional distress, but doesn't feel like it.

Now music news, which he rattles through efficiently, leading into Los Campesinos! getting their first mention on this thread. I can't remember which of theirs this is, but it's pretty great.

Hot Chip get to recommend five songs that they then get to talk over bits of. Devo, Noze, Fred Frith, Van Dyke Parks and Royal Trux's version of 'Money For Nothing'. Cheeky Cheeky And The Nosebleeds are played, and they have estuary accents and are annoying. Listeners send in band recommendations. A band is recommended for sounding like a cross between Cable and Stapleton. Here's the head of Hull's uni radio to talk about their local music scene. A nice idea for a feature, but again, there's no time to play the records in full, so you just get snatches which don't sound that interesting, but there is much bigging-up of the place by various people, which is nice. The girl from Sandman magazine recommends Fonda 500. Hmm.

Ok, I'm giving up now, partly cos I have this horrible feeling I'm ruining this thread, but also cos this interview with Johnny Flynn is THE MOST BORING THING EVER. Dammit, Steve.

http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2244402,00.html

Scouting For Girls - the new Rihanna.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2007/07/10/richardlittlejohn460.jpg

You couldn't make it up.

whoever wrote that guardian article doesn't listen to radio 2 which seems to always be playing either Scouting for Girls or Amy McDonald. or know fuck all about anything, come to think of it.

Thrusting Thatcherkids are too busy downloading old Supertramp songs onto their iPod to listen to the radio or know about things!

Ailsa just put me off ever listening to Radio 2 now

The unchampioned Scouting For Girls are also on the Radio 1 A-List at the minute.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/playlist/

New on YOUR Radio 1 playlist this week: The Futureheads! Who I'm managing to avoid seeing for something like the fifth or sixth time this Sunday. Arse. Also, The Young Knives, Delinquent ft. KCat, Royworld, and, er, Utah Saints, with something called 'Something Good 08'. I am nervous about that one, but kind of excited. G'won the Utahs.

Unsurprisingly, the lone song from last week's '1-Upfront' list to not get promoted beyond that level is Benga & Coki, thus pretty much putting the gold seal on it getting to number one. Timbaland ft. Keri Hilson & Nicole Scherzinger are also on the C-List, don't remember them actually being added in the first place, but never mind.

H2O & Platnum have made it up to the B-List, along with Marco DeMark's version of 'Tiny Dancer', which is not perhaps the straight house reworking you'd expect - remember it being a bit more 'Young Folks' in tone - but still, a touch uninspiring. Taio Cruz and OneRepublic also get shifted upwards.

At the peak of the peak of the peak (the A-List) - Nickelback! Despite this being the week they fell from 4 to 6, perhaps suggesting 'Rockstar' is running out of momentum. Also taking the bizarre ride - The Feeling, Goldfrapp, Mark Ronson, that Freemasons remix of Kelly Rowland, and... Simple Plan. I smell bad things a coming with that last one.

Those increasingly misleading midweeks:

1 BASSHUNTER
2 ADELE
3 (6) NICKELBACK
4 RIHANNA
5 LUPE FIASCO
6 BRITNEY
7 SCOUTING FOR GIRLS
8 SOULJA BOY
9 ROBYN
10 KANYE WEST

13 (31) KELLY ROWLAND
17 NEW JAY SEAN

ALBUMS

3 NEW LUPE FIASCO

Somewhat dodgy article about Radio 1 shifting from 'rock' to 'pop' by Caroline Sullivan in the Grau today. Scouting For Girls topping the album charts seems to have precipitated a lot of this kind of discussion/panic, largely down to people shitting themselves about not having seen The Hoosiers coming.

Note: SFG have, thus far, had all their singles playlisted on Radio 1. In the little video bios that the specialist DJs did for Radio 1 last year, SFG got bigged up by Huw Stephens, of all people. I remember that at the same time as their first single got playlisted, Radio 1 also chanced their arm on Cherry Ghost - similarly 'melodic' (which seems to be rapidly becoming a horribly arrogant euphemism for 'nice things that I like because I, unlike thee, am not a twat') stuff. I'm pretty certain The Hoosiers have received similar levels of support. Also, the affordability of these albums doesn't seem to get mentioned.

Oh, and:

How the ambitious Kaiser Chiefs would respond to being classified alongside the Wombats is open to question.

Erm...

Since all of the artists mentioned are regularly playlisted and featured on Radio 2, does this not count as a duplicate of services already provided, and as such why should Radio 1 exist as a separate station at all? Why should two stations which play the same music receive any public funding?

I suppose because one might play JCullem/KTunstell/KMelua, and the other will not.

Dingbod OTM. (x-post)

The definition of pop here just seems to be stuff that is championed by Jo Whiley. Attempting to lump The Wombats, of all the stuff, in with this is absurd - the suggestion that they are anything other than Lowe/Murray fodder is really quite ridiculous. If you're going for 'pop' as being 'melodic', and if you're going for 'melodic' as being 'has chorus that gets repeated lots and lots', why not mention the current Biffy Clyro single, merrily gracing the A-List as we speak?

Worse still is using The Feeling as some kind of jump-off point. The Scissor Sisters' success begat The Feeling's. The Darkness' success similarly begat the Scissor Sisters'. This Is Not A New Thing.

I wish I'd brought up the Morley documentary on this thread, cos the thing that pleased me most about it was its refusal to impose a definitive, sweeping narrative (unlike, say, Pop Britannia's 60s episode, which basically went "Cliff? BOO!" to "Beatles? RAH!" with no Joe Meek in between [unless he was in the 50s episode, cos as we all know, he pretty much peaked with 'What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For']), instead focusing on colouring the specific instances but never suggesting that they were everything that happened, that they told the definitive story of pop.

It seems the antithesis of this article, which just isn't about... anything at all. The use of the word 'melody' is like the way they use 'quality' on Match Of The Day - it doesn't seem to mean anything, it's just kind of... there.

Anyone know of a torrent for that Morley doc? I'm kicked off UK N0va at the minute so that's no good.

Tried signing up for th3b0x.bz? Think they may still be taking registrations...

In other news, Popjustice links to a Daily Star story that reveals a wee bit more about that H2O ft. Plat'num video. Looking at the photo, I've just realised Plat'num himself used to be in Blazin' Squad...

Thanks Will.

But staff at Dulwich College are not happy about it, with one commenting: “Why on earth these filthy subhumans have been allowed into such an institution is quite unfathomable.”

That new Biffy Clyro single, in case you're interested, which I kinda hope some of you might be. They've pulled three decent singles off Puzzle, but I somehow still found it stunningly dull.

There's a word that describes that, um, I forget it for the moment, it'll come back to me...(xpost)

Biffy Clyro keywords: compulsory, National, Service, six, months, Territorials.

They'll come out a lean, mean, emo machine!

"There's a word that describes that, um, I forget it for the moment, it'll come back to me"

QUALITY

(without the 'e')

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/chartblog/2008/01/how_to_destroynickelback_1.shtml

Third week for Mental Theo's Mate, staving off Adele once more. Nickelback are now up to number three, but surely that's as far as they'll go... surely? RihannaLupeBritternee follows, then Kelly Rowland is all the way up to number seven, which is obviously a fantastic thing. Scouting For Girls are still number eight, which is obviously not. Soulja Boy and Robyn follow in close order.

Our Boy Jay Sean is the highest new entry at 11, which (hopefully) his record company will see as being a pretty damned respectable position. Our Other Boy, David Jordan, makes his top 40 debut at 22 with 'Sun Goes Down', and 'Just Fine' debuts at 28. LEONWATCH: #27, a drop of 10 from last week. Bullet For My Valentine go trudging into the stagnant morass of the 31-40 run at #34.

Scouting For Girls continue to change everything with a second week atop the albums, with Plant & Krauss rising to #2. Lupe Fiasco debuts at 7, but what's that at number ten? It's Nickelback, that's what it is...

Infinite Garth Brooks is at 11, Somebody Needs An Eels Compilation is #26, but who's that at #32? Cat Power? With the sequel to The Covers Record? Well blow me over...

New R1 Playlist Action:

On the A-List front, seems to be a fairly quiet week - H'two'O get the big bump up, though, pretty much cementing their future-number-one-hood. Confusingly, they're joined by One Night Only, who to all intents and purposes seemed to be the new Morning Runner or Thirteen Senses or something. Maybe they will yet be. Who knows. Ting Tings, Vampire Weekend, The Futureheads, OneRepublic, Young Knives all ascend to B-List status, which is where 'Ready For The Floor' is still marooned.

Benga & Coki have made the C-List! New on C this week: Editors, Panic At The Disco, We Are Scientists. On 1-Upfront: Chromeo, Foals, MGMT and T-Pain. Yes, T-Pain's finally getting a push in somewhere that isn't America. It's 'Church' that they've gone for, btw.

Dangit, not leaving this thread hanging out to dry. Unfortunately, I'm having trouble putting my thoughts into words on a few of these things - for instance, Goldfrapp's 'A&E' very tangibly clicked with me this morning. I still can't figure out precisely (linguistically) what it is that underlying 8-bit synth glide in 'Ready For The Floor' does to me, but it feels quite awesome. Then there's rtc's picks upthread - 'Tell Me What It Is' is definitely SOTY at present; 'Gonna Be Mine', once it gets its fully expanded proper-proper version, will almost certainly be challenging it (that bit where the vocals drop out and the beat gets all stuttering and bullet-time in particular - yummmmm); and then there's 'What's It Gonna Be', which keeps melting into and out of those two.

That Mystery Jets single Zane Lowe played is also growing on me rather rapidly. The vocals and lyrics are fairly simplistic, but there's something very lovely at the heart of it that I think needs a-tapping. And The Futureheads single - Actually Really Great! 'Return to form' isn't quite the phrase to use, it's more a reinvigoration. The drums have been tweaked for extra sharpness, so 'The Beginning Of The Twist' is full-on hard-hitting toe-twisting hyper-speed glory again. Beyond that utterly useless stream of adjectives, I've not really got much constructive to say beyond that sort of horrible fanboyish burble I usually come out with.

What else... I've been listening to Cameo on 1Xtra a bit, and there's this Wiley track he keeps playing called 'Wearin' My Rolex', and it is well mint and I can't find the bugger anywhere. Craig David looks kinda scary nowadays, like he's borrowed someone else's shoulders. The bit in '6 of 1 Thing' where he goes "And why you gotta front?" keeps jutting out and whacking me in the face. I should give the Out Of Office single a listen. 'Something Good 08' is apparently the Van She remix of the original, and first listens seemed promising.

R1 also did this the other week. Emmy The Great is suddenly a Hotly-Tipped New Thing, which is fair enough. Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip... not so much.

Whaddya know - 'Gonna Be Mine' has now got its extended version, with video and everything. The sound quality of that particular upping of it, however, is less than awesome.

Here's me having a first-draft-tastic stab at corraling my thoughts on the Goldfrapp single.

DO IT DO IT DO IT NOW
SAY SAY SAY IT NOW

OK, Basshunting Adele's Back is still the 1-2-3, but Hot Chip have actually had the first proper top 10 new entry in goodness knows how long at number six and I am well made up even if I didn't actually contribute to it in any way. See also Kelly R making number four. RiRi is at five, Britters at seven, Lupe at eight. Nine and ten are less explicable - One Night Only, For Fuck's Sakes (as I have decided I shall now call them) and Our Boy David Jordan. I should kinda stop calling him since I don't especially go for his single, though.

FINE-FINE-FINE-FINE-FINE-FINE-FINE-FINE-FINE-FINE climbs to 16, ahead of, er, Elliott Minor at 17. It's a banner week for middling-to-shit British pop, ain't it? Brown & Cracknell make their bow at number 24. Adele gets a second hit, with Hometown Glory entering at 32, and URBNRI's 'Young, Free And Simple' gets to 34. They're Scottish, apparently.

Albumwise - Adele goes straight to the top, thus ending Scouting For Girls' reign of neverending change. Nickelback, accompanied by the theme from Jaws, ascend to number three. Bullet For My Valentine are new at five, a Billy Fury compilation is number 15.

Scouting For Girls have not changed things enough for Vampire Weekend to get higher than 22. KD Lang is 35, the Sweeney Todd OST is 38, and TEN FUCKING YEARS OF CELINE FUCKING DION makes it to #39.

The chart show was all "Elliot Minor have their biggest hit with their fourth single at no 17"

Is that short/long way of saying "Elliot Minor are now shit out of luck, career ends!" ?

Hopefully. Here's the video - it's probably their best one so far, but that really isn't saying much. God, them is some annoying guitar solos.

How clever of XL to release the Adele and Vampire Weekend albums in the same week, thus ensuring that the former entirely cancels out the latter.

Are their marketing people naturally stupid or do they practise?

Emmy The Great is suddenly a Hotly-Tipped New Thing

Hey that's good news. Saw her along with The Mountain Goats at xmas, was quietly impressed.

Midweek so it's time for the midweeks:

1 BASSHUNTER
2 NICKELBACK
3 ADELE
4 NEW WET WET WET
5 (10) DAVID JORDAN
6 RIHANNA
7 KELLY ROWLAND
8 HOT CHIP
9 BRITNEY
10 LUPE FIASCO
11 NEW MORRISSEY

ALBUMS

1 NEW JACK JOHNSON
3 NEW HOT CHIP
6 NEW MARY J BLIGE

1 BASSHUNTER
2 NICKELBACK

So close I can taste it...

Oh yes, and this week's LEONWATCH: #42.

Quiet week in R1 playlist terms: Kylie and OneRepublic get bumped up to the A-List; Taio Cruz, Paramore (any idea why R1 are getting behind this now? Did they before?), PATD, Utahs and Vampire Weekend move up to B; T-Pain goes up to C-List. New on: Hard-Fi (am I misremembering, or did their last single kind of not chart?), Leona Lewis, Jimmy Eat World, and that surprisingly good Mystery Jets/Laura Marling song.

So let's look around the other playlists - to start with, 1xtra:

A
Addictive Feat T2 - Gonna Be Mine
Alicia Keys - Like You'll Never See Me Again
Craig David Feat Ryan Leslie - 6 Of 1 Thing (Remix)
Chris Brown - With You
Craig David - 6 Of 1 Thing (Sticky Remix)
Delinquent Feat Kcat - My Destiny (Bassline Edit)
Erup - Click My Finger
Estelle Feat Kanye West - American Boy
Flo-Rida Feat T Pain - Low
H Two O Feat Platinum - What's It Gonna Be
Kano Feat UK Apache & Shy FX - Bad Boy (Remix)
Kano - Bad Boy
Kanye West Feat Chris Martin - Homecoming
Kanye West Feat Dwele - Flashing Lights
Kelly Rowland - Work
Lupe Fiasco Feat Matthew Santos - Superstar
Mary J Blige - Just Fine
Potential Bad Boy - For The Girl Dem
Snoop Dog - Sensual Seduction
Soulja Boy Feat I15 - Soulja Girl
Soulja Boy - Crank That
Taio Cruz - Come On Girl
The Dream - Falsetto
T Pain - Church
Wiley - Wearing My Rolex

B
Alix Perez Feat Lil Wayne & Jay-Z - Crooklyn (Remix)
Benga and Coki - Night
Benga and Coki - Night (Digital Soundboy Remix)
Busy Signal - Pon Di Edge
Chipmunk - Who Are You?
Crissy Cris & Fumin - Sidetracked
DJ Drama Feat Marsha Ambrosius & Outcast - The Art Of Story Telling Part 4
DJ Q Feat Mc Bones - U Wot?
Doneao - Devil In A Blue Dress
Hoodman & Lyrican - Home Of The Brave
J Holiday - Suffocate
Jammer - It's A Lot
Janet Jackson - Feedback
Lil Wayne - La La La
Missy Elliot - Ching A Ling
Mavado - I'm On The Rock
Rihanna - Don't Stop the Music (1Xtra Bassline Refix)
Sway Feat Stu$H - F Ur X
Timbaland Feat Keri Hilson & Nicole Scherzinger - Scream
Trey Songz - Can't Help But Wait
Yves La Rock Feat Roland Richards - Zookey (Lift Your Leg Up)

C
Cool Kids - 88
Dennis Ferrer - How Do I Let Go
Gemma Fox - Voicemail
Kid Sister Feat Kanye West - Pro Nails (Remix)
Raheem Devaughn - Woman

Radio 2:

A LIST
THE FEELING - I Thought It Was Over
KATIE MELUA - If The Lights Go Out
KATE RUSBY - The Village Green Preservation Society
DUFFY - Mercy
KYLIE - Wow
DAVID JORDAN - Sun Goes Down
*NEW* AMY MACDONALD - Run
SHERYL CROW - Love Is Free
B W O - Sunshine In The Rain
WESTLIFE - Us Against The World

B LIST
*NEW* BETH ROWLEY - Oh My Life
ASA - Fire On The Mountain
THE CORAL - Put The Sun Back
ONE NIGHT ONLY - Just For Tonight
*NEW* KT TUNSTALL - If Only
FEIST - My Moon My Man
CRAIG DAVID - 6 of 1 Thing
MORRISSEY - That's How People Grow Up
ONE REPUBLIC - Stop And Stare
GOLDFRAPP - A & E
WET WET WET - Weightless

C LIST
*NEW* ALPHABEAT - Fascination
BADLY DRAWN BOY - The Time Of Times
*NEW* GABRIELLA CILMI - Sweet About Me
LENNY KRAVITZ - I'll Be Waiting
MARK RONSON FEAT. PHANTOM PLANET - Just
ALICIA KEYS - Like You'll Never See Me Again
LAURA CRITCHLEY - Sometimes I

Yes, that BWO is indeed Bodies Without Organs. What it's doing on 2 rather than 1 is anyone's guess. Also, that Kate Rusby one - was that not the theme for Jam And Jerusalem a good year or so ago now?

Vorgin:

Adele - Chasing Pavements
Released: 21/01/08
Amy Macdonald - Run
Released: 18/02/07
Amy Macdonald - This Is The Life
Released: 10/12/07
Duffy - Mercy
Released: 25/02/08
The Enemy - We'll Live And Die In These Towns
Released: 03/12/07
The Feeling - I Thought It Was Over
Released: 11/02/08
Feist - My Moon My Man
Released: 11/02/07
Foo Fighters - Long Road To Ruin
Released: 03/12/07
Hard-fi - I Shall Overcome
Released: 10/03/07
The Hoosiers - Goodbye Mr A
Released: 08/10/07
Jack Johnson - If I Had Eyes
Released: 14/01/07
Kt Tunstall - If Only
Released: 03/03/08
Lenny Kravitz - I'll Be Waiting
Released: 25/02/07
Mark Ronson - Valerie
Released: 15/10/07
Newton Faulkner - Dream Catch Me
Released: 23/07/07
Newton Faulkner - Teardrop
Released: 10/12/07
Nickelback - Rockstar
Released: 19/11/07
One Night Only - Just For Tonight
Released: 28/01/08
Onerepublic - Stop And Stare
Released: 03/03/07
Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah
Released: 03/09/07
Scouting For Girls - Elvis Aint Dead
Released: 17/12/07
Scouting For Girls - Shes So Lovely
Released: 03/09/07
Sheryl Crow - Love Is Free
Released: 11/02/07
Tom Baxter - Better
Released: 03/12/07
The Wombats - Moving To New York
Released: 14/01/08

Hard-Fi (am I misremembering, or did their last single kind of not chart?)

i looked up hard-fi at wikipedia 'cause i kinda forgot who they were - they're the ones with the ironic minimalistic artwork that popjustice kept making fun of and not maximo park - and apparently their last single got to number 1. in peru. and 45 in the uk.

nice to see cool kids on the radio 1 playlist.

sorry, the *1xtra* playlist...

BWO is launching in the UK. With a three-year old single off their first album? I mean, yes, their third album was awful, awful, awful, but this is very odd indeed.

dennis ferrer on the radio 1 c-list! is he to become the uniting face of minimal and house and go forth to take over the pop charts? that radio 2 list is slit-your-wrists awful, apart from feist which was last year.

Yes; Feist, Kylie and Goldfrapp are the only ones I'd keep from that playlist, and as you say two of those are from last year.

The Radcliffe/Maconie show in particular should be freed from playlist requirements; every time I hear that bloody Sheryl Crow "Never Let Her Slip Away" ripoff I have to turn the radio off, or over.

i missed the goldfrapp, i like it although the only mix i've heard is the hercules & love affair and i doubt terry's playing that.

Indeed not.

(best ever Wogan link out of a record - Travis' "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" - "Because you're a whingeing little twit!")

The Kate Rusby Jam and Jerusalem thing I think warrants NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST IN TWO MINUTES and Ray Davies may well agree with that assessment.

I haven't heard the Duffy single, if it's as good as the Rockferry single I may have to check out the album.

I presume that the Rusby song is a Kinks cover, if Radio 2's picked up on her has she went for an airbrushed Corrs style makeover?

Pretty much so, with additional needless repetition of chorus to pad the record out and that IRRITATING voice of hers. Number 27 with a bullet I don't doubt.

Duffy has a reasonable pair of pipes but the surrounding hype is stupid and she should go for pop rather than this grimly polite template of pseudo-soul which Radio 2 never played in the sixties in the first place.

The new Elbow single carried off the seemingly unachievable feat of making me feel nostalgic for "Just The One" by the Levellers.

The new <A HREF=http://youtube.com/watch?v=KE2orthS3TQ>;Duffy video</A> I just find depressing beyond words. It's not like I've exactly been averse to Northern Soul pastiches in the past, but this just lays it all on so bloody thick, like there literally is no bloody way forward so we're stuck in Wigan Casino forever, and it's not even like it's got anything to say about the bloody thing, it's just "Look! Mods! Wahey!"

Re: Rusby and the Corrs - <A HREF=http://youtube.com/watch?v=So5g9hY9pcI>;how soon we forget</A>...

Bloody BBCode. Those links again:
Duffy - Mercy
Kate Rusby, Top 40 Superstar

Oh my, that Duffy single's disappointing. I didn't have the heart to check out Kate Rusby after that.

I'm dipping into the R2 playlist now, and think you may be being a little harsh. The general impression is that the UK is going to be fed women until it explodes this year, but hi ho.

Gabriella Cilmi's pretty decent, anyhow, regardless of just how bloody cynical the tagging on that video is. The lyrics don't make a heap of sense, but the chorus is nice and hooky, the beat rumbles along, lovely sort of fiddly noise pops in at a few points... I'm really tempted to compare it to Imani Coppola. Or Morcheeba. I realise that this is not the most enticing of comparisons, no, but it does sound lovely. She has a certain sparkiness in her voice, a kind of gleam in the eye that's rather appealing.

The Beth Rowley single was sounding OK, but the YouTube channel she has gives you exactly one minute of it then cuts off. Who says the British record industry can't handle the internet? I am also kinda fond of the Alphabeat single (though I'm going through a bit of a Danish phase at the moment anyhow), and the various bits of ad-libbing chucked in on 'Like You'll Never See Me Again' also leave me quite tickled.

1Xtra playlist is lacking the v pleasant new Badu single

The backing on that single sounds like it was made on Garageband. Lifeless.

Duffy single that is. Ooops.

I am watching Sound now. The little bit on Duffsty has sold me to her a bit more.

Gabriela Cilmi = more attractive Winehouse, single is OK if you can get past the extraordinary coincidence of her look and sound being such an obvious rip on Amy

Paramour singer also cuet

but now it's Biffy Clyro so turning off

It strikes me that I have never actually watched Sound, I don't think. Vague memories of Annie Mac presenting some programme where bands were performing at what looked like the big stage-across-the-lake thing in Crystal Palace Park come to mind, but I can't remember if that's the same thing or no.

Anyway: No. Just... no.

Oh god. There's already a German (?) group that does something like what I imagine this would be: Gregorian influenced (in arrangement, though they're not chants) recordings of popular songs.

Worst thing I've ever heard.

FIVE GLORIOUS WEEKS - Nickelback move up to the second slot, leapfrogging Adele. Rihanna is at four, David Frigging Jordan is at five, Our Kelly R is six. Hot Chip are your number seven guy (how did I not come up with that last week?), then Britto & Loo-Pay ahead of the week's first new entry, which is Wet Wet Wet. Their label is called Dry. Aha-ha-ha-ha.

The Brown-Cracknell Connection climbs to 11, with The Feeling entering just behind them. Moz be 14, and YOUR ACTUAL SINGLE OF THE FUCKING YEAR, 'A&E', begins its Road To Wembley at 18. 'Wow' breaks the top 20 at, er, 20, after about nine months. Jay Sean, incidentally, is still number 19, making it three weeks inside the 20 for him. Good work fella.

Kanye & Chwis debut at 23, Biffington Clyroid make 27, Michael Jackson vs. will.i.am.'s "Twattageddon 2K8" is at 32, and Timbaland and Keri Hilson and Nicole Scherzinger are all at 36 together. Aww.

The 3 for £20 chart this week sees Jack Johnson on top of the heap. Hot Chip at 4, MJB at 6, Billy Fury climbs to 10. Dionne Warwick is at 26, David Frigging Jordan is 2-frigging-7.

HMV had lumped all their Morrissey single variations/formats at the number one position, Ealing.

Could it be so?

almost want Nickelback to make it to #1 as some glorious 'seeeee, songs can slowly climb the charts all the way to the top just like the good old days, seeeeee' moment

I was excited to see that the chart show has a podcast now, but of course you can only download it if you like the UK. Fuckers.

Nevermind, its only a 10 minute chart rundown anyway.

Gonna say, presumably without any music on it, right?

I'm guessing. I just got momentarily excited that I could download something to hear the music.

I hope the "almost" is doing a lot of work in your last post, steve.

I also note that "danger here" articles are starting to appear in a valiant if probably Canute-like attempt to turn the tide, e.g.:
http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/story/0,,2254227,00.html

So Tanya's writing for the Guardian now?

there is no 'worst nickelback song' for they are all that in their own way.

Can God make a Nickelback song so bad that he can't listen to it

And the worst thing is: I assumed - and I think we all did - that they'd well and truly disappeared from view this side of the Atlantic.

I mean, the album came out in 2005, and only now have they got a hit from it. Sometimes you think you've won ... but you never really have.

I feel the same about Lenny Kravitz

"Rockstar" is the fucking jam, heads just ain't ready yet.

If it's good enough for Chuck Liddell and Nelly Furtado, it's good enough for you.

"Rockstar" is the jam if rick buckler had been the leader.

Rock star Lenny Kravitz has been admitted to a hospital in Miami with severe bronchitis, a spokeswoman for the singer has said.
The 43-year-old musician has been suffering from a series of respiratory infections and flu since last month.

A statement said doctors had advised him to check into hospital "due to extreme dehydration and fatigue" .

He has postponed a trip to Europe to promote his latest album It Is Time For A Love Revolution.

It Is Time For The Official Receiver morelike

I turn my back and there's gothtards dissing "Rockstar"? PAUL WALL, MUTHAFUCKAS

PAUL DANIELS morelike

"The most disorganised live broadcast featuring Fearne Cotton. The most disgusting dish featuring kiwi fruit. The most ridiculous-looking pair of shorts. Some absolutes may never be pinpointed, but there is now finally an answer to one of pop's most enduring mysteries: what is..." "YAHHH TRICK YAHHH"

Nickelback no1 in midweeks

it's the 'Think Twice' of the 00s

The midweeks:

1 NICKELBACK
2 BASSHUNTER
3 ADELE
4 DAVID JORDAN
5 NEW DUFFY
6 RIHANNA
7 (12) FEELING
8 (18) GOLDFRAPP
9 KELLY ROWLAND
10 BRITNEY
11 NEW PARAMORE

ALBUMS

4 NEW MICHAEL JACKSON THRILLER 25
5 NEW ONE NIGHT ONLY
6 NEW MORRISSEY

Presumably not Thriller 25 in the Chicago XXV sense.

I dunno, 25th Reissue, possibly!

1 NICKELBACK

YES!

ALTOGETHER NOW!

I'M SICK OF STANDING IN LINE AT CLUBS I'LL NEVER GET IN

This week in playlist:

Upward bumpings to the A-List for Taio Cruz, Duffy, Rongsong, TIMMUH-LAND'S REDDANWHITE ARM-EH! (CLAP, CLAP, CLAPCLAP CLAP), and, er, We Are Scientists. Climbing B-wards we have Alphabeat, Hard-Fi, Leona and Pants, with The Kooks' new one debuting on the B-List, thus possibly suggesting big things. Or that they're gonna go the way of Starsailor. Other New - on the C-List, Gnarls Barkley, Guillemots, Sugababes; on the 1-Upfront list, Flo Rida. That last one may well do things - I was looking at a lot of the commercial stations' playlists the other week, and it's kinda prevalent.

Flo Rida "featuring T-Pain" of course (in the US, those words are practically a mantra). and it's been number one there for eight weeks: I suspect, like Soulja Boy, it will do better than I initially expected (though, unlike Soulja Boy, Radio 1 are presumably playing it unrocked).

i kind of feel like i should dril my head into a patio for not having a problem wih that nickleback tune. i imagine it as the song celebs use to skewewr other celebs with and it comes across as faux-naive-bright in a way that should never work for nickleback.

Nickelback down to no2 now (behind Duffy)

if the Nickelback song was 'ironic' I think it would be ... marginally worse even than it is now. part of me can't believe a band can be so unreconstructed, another part of me dispassionately admires them for actually pulling it off (as long as I never, ever have to hear them). I mean, they could have happened at just about any time in my lifetime and longer.

they're easy punchbags of course. but easy punchbags should still be punched, if only for the energy you let off.

Oh, I don' tmind them exactly, yeah to that last sentence.

It's just that, famously, Nb have the last "rock" single to get to number one in the USA some years ago, and there is a danger it could happen here!

Duffy is Queen Of Charts for the first time ever, and also becomes the first Welsh person to make number one since... Christ, I think it might well be Kevin out of Liberty X, way back in 2002. She's also only the third single to go to number one this year. Sir Chad And The Knights Who Say Not Very Much At All hold second spot, Basshunter slips to three, David Jordan moves up a spot to number four. Adele five, MamaSeMamaSaMamaKuSa six, and our second-highest new entry finds itself at number seven - H 'Two' O and Plat'num. Work at eight, The Feeling at nine, Next Week's Number One at ten.

Only At Morrisons make their non-Timbaland chart debut at 11. Paramore's "Misery Business" gets a second shot at the UK charts, and this time it gets to 17, a whole sixteen places higher than what it managed last year. The Timbaland-Hilson-Scherzinger 'thing' debuts at 28, the remix of 'Something Good' is new at 31, and Flo Rida sets about proving yr man Carmody right (or possibly wrong, I couldn't quite tell) at 40.

The Neil McCormick Hot List: Jack Johnson is still atop. The reissue of Thriller gets to 3, All Morrissey Ever is at 5, One Night Only's No, Seriously, We Do Actually Exist debuts at 10. David Jordan's album continues to fly up the charts from seemingly nowhere, and is now at number 13 from last week's 28. And Radio 1 haven't updated past number 20, so that's presumably enough of that for now.

Next Week's Number One at ten

think so?

why DOES it take so long for websites to update the chart incidentally? BBC should update it online LIVE in tandem with the radio show (which i haven't listened to for many many years now and probably never will again)

they did in the Wes days (which were also the final days I listened to the rundown: ha, remember the chart prediction league?), but then stopped. that infuriates me, as well: I was reduced to checking Ceefax.

Nickelback not being number one is worth a modest celebration, I think.

Next Week's Number One at ten

think so?

You can't mess with destiny.

Nickelback not being number one is worth a modest celebration, I think.

-- February Callendar, Sunday, 17 February 2008 20:23 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

For Chad, it must feel like the bottom of the ninth and he's never gonna win.

and also becomes the first Welsh person to make number one since... Christ, I think it might well be Kevin out of Liberty X, way back in 2002
how dare you deny the Welsh Nickelback - Stereophonics their place in history? It's a shame "Crazy Chick" never made it to number 1 - miles better than "Dakota"

Ah, I'd kinda forgotten all about that...

"Dakota"'s ok. But, yeah.

I think I may as well just post the new R1 playlist in lieu of the usual update, it's been long enough since I did it last.

A-LIST

* Taio Cruz featuring Luciana - Come On Girl
* Duffy - Mercy
* The Feeling - I Thought It Was Over
* The Futureheads - The Beginning Of The Twist
* Goldfrapp - A&E
* H 'two' O featuring Platnum - What's It Gonna Be
* Hard-Fi - I Shall Overcome
* David Jordan - Sun Goes Down
* Kylie Minogue - Wow
* Leona Lewis - Better In Time
* Nickelback - Rockstar
* One Night Only - Just For Tonight
* OneRepublic - Stop And Stare
* Rihanna - Don't Stop The Music
* Mark Ronson featuring Phantom Planet - Just
* Kelly Rowland - Work [Freemasons Mix]
* Timbaland ft. Keri Hilson & Nicole Scherzinger - Scream
* The Ting Tings - Great DJ
* We Are Scientists - After Hours

B-LIST

* Alphabeat - Fascination
* Delinquent featuring KCat - My Destiny
* Marco Demark featuring Casey Barnes - Tiny Dancer [The Camel Rider mix]
* Foals - Cassius
* Gnarls Barkley - Run
* Guillemots - Get Over It
* Jimmy Eat World - Always Be
* The Kooks - Always Where I Need To Be
* Panic At The Disco - Nine In The Afternoon
* Paramore - Misery Business
* Sugababes - Denial
* T-Pain featuring Teddy Verseti - Church
* KT Tunstall - If Only
* Utah Saints - Something Good 08 [Van She Tech remix]
* Vampire Weekend - A-Punk
* Young Knives - Up All Night

C LIST

* Benga & Coki - Night
* Chris Brown - With You (out now)
* Cascada - What Do You Want From Me? (out now)
* Editors - Push Your Head Towards The Air
* Elbow - Grounds For Divorce (10/3)
* The Enemy - This Song Is About You (out now)
* Estelle featuring Kanye West - American Boy (24/3)
* Flo Rida featuring T-Pain - Low
* Girls Aloud - Can't Speak French (out now)
* Alicia Keys - Like You'll Never See Me Again

"1 UPFRONT"-LIST

* Chromeo - Needy Girl [Lifelike remix]
* MGMT - Time To Pretend
* Mystery Jets featuring Laura Marling - Young Love
* Royworld - Man in the Machine
* Sam Sparro - Black And Gold (31/3)

One Night Only - worse than The Kooks? I've just seen their infomercial on The Hits, and I think it may be possible.

The midweeks, but bear in mind these are pre-Brits figures:

1 DUFFY
2 H TWO O FT PLATINUM
3 NICKELBACK
4 (18) KYLIE
5 BASSHUNTER
6 DAVID JORDAN
7 ADELE
8(11) ONEREPUBLIC
9 RIHANNA
10 KELLY ROWLAND

18 (31) UTAH SAINTS

ALBUMS

1 NEW FEELING
7 NEW JONATHAN ANSELL
15 NEW SHERYL CROW

Oh... I thought H Two O would have been a dead cert for #1. 1.5 million YouTube views in just over a month, you know...

What is going to debut higher, "Denial" or "Can't Speak French"?

I'm gonna go for 'Can't Speak French'. Dunno why.

BUT IN THE CHART NOW:

Duffers holds it down for a second week, heading off the bassliners at the pass. Knickersback and Basshunter at three and four, while Kylie completes the slowest, most numbing run into the top 10 as 'Wow' makes number five. Then an Adele, a David, and a Rihanna before OneRepublic go all "I can write, my own shit too!" at number nine. The remix of 'Work', fresh off its ten-second appearance accompanying Kelly Rowland's taking the stage at the Brits, is at 10.

Next Week's Number One (DAMMIT) is number 16. Timmuhlann, Utah Saints and Flo Rida are a hat-trick of Ominous Looming at 20-22, with Taio Cruz also looking handy at 23. Simple Plan, who I managed not to notice sneaking in last week, are at 28. Ronson and Phantom Planet get to number 31, Cwis Bwown is number 35, there are some people in this country who don't get the urge to kill at the sound of the MacBook Air ad which is why Yael Naim is at 36, and has Craig David's '6 of 1 Thing' charted before? Cos it's at 39 now.

The Album Chart, In Association With The Brits: The Feeling come out on top. Nickelback are runners-up. The Brits Effect propels Deluxe Amy Winehouse to 3 (Standard Amy Winehouse is at 12; Early-Period Amy Winehouse is at 27), Mark Ronson to 4, Mika to 5 and Kylie to 24 (up 14). Adele drops three places to 7, oddly. Jonathan Ansell's 'Tenor At The Movies', which cannot possibly be a stinking sack of shit in any sense of the word, is number nine. Joe Brown Ain't Dead is at 16, Plant & Krauss apparently re-enter at 18, Sheryl Crow is new at number 20. Andrea Bocelli Live In Tuscany is 30, Simple Plan are 31, and the Foo Fighters re-enter at 40 (possibly due to their double Brits triumph).

Weirdly enough, the Arctic Monkeys don't turn up anywhere.

Back when it wasn't a single, I thought "Just" was irritatingly flimsy. Now, it's just flat-out bad. Plays to none of the strengths of the singer or the song.

"Can't Speak French" is #49. Beat the Babes easily. I think it's their next Number One, still.

I think Can't Speak French is shit, easily the worst Girls Aloud single in a while...I don't get it. And I love love love Denial. But I didn't like About You Now all that much so what do I know?

"About You Now: is one of the most overrated songs of the last year or so. By its writers' standards, it's bloody awful. It's not even anywhere near Dr Luke's average, let alone Cathy Dennis' zeniths. "Can't Speak French" is not only NOT shit, it's commercial paydirt (No 1 or No 2) and stronger than either of the 2007 cover singles and a bit better than "Sexy! No No No". It's a bit short of "Call The Shots" and "Something Kinda Oooh", but those are lofty peaks.

But it's so blah! Can't Speak French and Call the Shots suffer due to terribly weak choruses. At least Sexy! No No No had some oomph. I was hoping Control of the Knife or Black Jacks would be singles...at least those two were somewhat interesting.

This week's highly exciting midweeks:

1 DUFFY
2 H TWO O
3 NICKELBACK
4 BASSHUNTER
5 ADELE
6 KYLIE
7 DAVID JORDAN
8 ONEREPUBLIC
9 RIHANNA
10 KELLY ROWLAND

15 (22) FLO RIDA FT T-PIN

ALBUMS
TOP TEN AS LAST WEEK DUFFY STILL AT 1

And probably will be, for the rest of eternity, i.e. until about April.

Ooh eck, forgot playlist.

WELL:

The A-List is less than noteworthy, except that R1 have taken their side in the 'Denial'/'Can't Speak French' wars by putting the Babes on the A and the Girls on the B. Also promoted are the Kooks, the Utahs, and PATD. David Jordan, Kelly Rowland and One Night Only are shuffled off to Buffalo.

Thinking about the list in terms of the vanished gets more interesting when we hit the B, because that remix of Tiny Dancer has just vanished into ether, without even charting or anything. 'Misery Business' also departs, though that had long since had its run. Much upward-punting here anyhow - alongside Th'Aloud, Chris Brown, Cascada, The Enemy, Estelle and Flo Rida all make the leap.

Benga and Coki is still on the C-List after about a year or something now. Its new friends this week: Bullet For My Valentine, Mariah, Courteeners, Newton Faulkner, Kate Nash, and Snoop Dogg. The Count & Sinden ft. Kid Sister are new to 1-Upfront; the only casualty of either of the lists is 'Like You'll Never See Me Again'.

See those thrilling midweeks? The reality's almost as good! The top ten is almost COMPLETELY unchanged from last week; David Jordan slipping from seven to nine, with Rihanna and OneRepublic each moving up a place as a result, is the only difference.

Still, things get a smidge more interesting below below: Taio Cruz climbs to 11 for a start, and Flo Rida is nestled very cosily in his slipstream. The really nice production job on "Scream" puts it at 16, while "A&E" falls a place but does at least swerve by "I Thought It Was Over" on its way down. "With You" climbs into the 20 at 19. "Valerie" is still at 13, and "Rule The World" is still in the top 20, at, er, 20.

Your highest new entry, then, is at 23, and, in a move that will doubtless have Ed O, Jess P and The Sun's 'Bizarre' column squealing with delight, it's Alphabeat. Yootahs at 25, and Jay Sean is showing surprising longevity at 27. What the hell "Relax (Take It Easy)" is still doing at 28 is anyone's guess.

Delinquent and Kcat (according to the advert, it's pronounced "cat") are at 32. "Call The Shots" and "Can't SPEAK French" go all Riggs and Murtagh at 34 and 35; The Third Coming Of Leona begins at 38, and at 40, a Westlife song entitled "Us Against The World". Would that be less enticing if it were actually a Space cover? (I know the title is a bit different, yes...)

The £10 Woolworths Voucher From Auntie Maureen chart: Imperial Winehouse is your new number one, beating Seventh Tree by a short head. Donny Osmond Can't Take His Eyes Off Your Mother is at eight, and that Billy Fury best-of breaches the top 10 at 10. From last week's top spot, The Feeling slump to 11. Johnny Mathis, Auntie Iris, And A Motel Room In Pasadena is new at 29, and the Collector's Edition of Simply Red's Stars (free sticker album with tomorrow's Independent!) is at 31.

Looks like "What's It Gonna Be?" is going to be this year's "Music Sounds Better With You" then.

My chart anorak mate from Birmingham pointed out the previous week's Top 40 contained no brand new entries whatsoever, just climbers from lower down. Was this a first?

Don't think so; I remember many eighties charts were like that in weeks when there were no big name new releases. There's one I particularly recall from March '84 where the only newcomer was "The Lion's Mouth" by Kajagoogoo, up from 41 to 37.

Did Vampire Weekend manage to gt themselved banned from t'chart for violating format restrictions? (7" single and CD single only available TOGETHER!)

They're only up to #61 this week so I assume they've had points deducted...

Anyone know the percentage of download sales to physical?
With the likes of Woollies only stocking a fabricated Top 20 with the same obvious pop titles in each week (as well as overstocked titles like the Spice Girls' recent Headlines megaflop) it's no wonder that titles hang around for months and months on end.

I thought that the introduction of downloading would mean more quirky one hit wonders hitting the chart (not nasty novelty ones, but offbeat titles like It's Immaterial's Driving Away From Home, or Laurie Anderson's O Superman or something) but it seems the opposite is happening.

I never thought I would lose interest in the Top 40 but I'm starting to!

my attention was drawn to this week's #98: Benga & Coki's 'Night'. apparently a big anthem at dubstep-type nights last year, very interesting to see this breaking thru in this way (#98 is big for this sound and it may climb this week - there's a video on youtube). i'll be surprised if it ends up denting the top 40 eventually but if it did it would be one of the weirdest and most uncompromising hits for some time - more than, say, 'Dooms Night' before that crossed over.

Midweeks time:

1 DUFFY
2 H TWO O
3 NICKELBACK
4 ONE REPUBLIC
5 (11) TAIO CRUZ
6 BASSHUNTER
7 (40) WESTLIFE
8 KYLIE
9 (23) ALPHABEAT
10 RIHANNA

14 NEW WE ARE SCIENTISTS

ALBUMS

1 NEW DUFFY
3 NEW NICK CAVE

I quite like the remix of Alphabeat.

The new Taio Cruz song is AMAZING.

If it's Thursday, that means I forgot to post about the R1 playlist yesterday. So what's new?

Well, it's surprisingly busy this week. New to the A-List are Girls Aloud, Guillemots and Gnarls Barkley, who qualify at the expense of The Feeling, Goldfrapp (dammit) and the Ronson. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the A-List is that 'Don't Stop The Music' is still on there, the lone survivor of the first Radio 1 playlist of the year. Nickelback have also yet to depart...

B-List is insanely busy this week too, with much bumping and culling. Winners: Mariah, BFMV, Courteeners, Newton Faulkner, Snoop, Sam Sparro. Losers: Tunstall, Vampire Weekend and Young Knives. That, one imagines, will impact particularly hard on the Young Knives, whose single hadn't even had a sniff of the top 40. Vampire Weekend and Tunstall's hadn't either, but VW have America and Tunstall's single was off an album that, it is fair to say, is quite old now. The Young Knives, however, were launching the follow-up to their Mercury-nominated debut with that one; squeaky-bum time round their way, one would suspect.

On the surface, the C-List is really busy too: Akon, Radiohead, Scouting For Girls, Foo Fighters, and Kanye West ft. Dwele. Also 'Toca's Miracle 08', and Elliott Minor giving 'Parallel Worlds' an entirely called-for re-release. Fingers, meet pulse. Benga and Coki finally get bumped off, along with Editors. The life-cycle of the Editors and Tunstall songs make me wonder: were they actually put out as singles? Count & Sinden ft. Kid Sister gets nudged up from 1-Upfront.

And the 1-Upfront itself: debuts for Funkerman, Black Kids and The Last Shadow Puppets. Dumpings for Chromeo and Royworld. It's a harsh game, this pop lark.

Well, turns out the Tunstall has a video if nothing else, cos it's just been on The Hits. Want to see KT Tunstall being rubbish at ski-jumping? Walk this way!

On a further Hits-related note - jesuschristAntonDuBeke'sgrinURRRRRGH. Put it away.

Chartward Ho!: Yeah, still Duffy and Hayeech-Too-Ohhh and Knickersback, but things are gettin' mad fluid behind that. Beanz Meanz OneRepublic at 4, Taio Cruz makes Cray Day Vay's career look even more insecure at 5, Alphabeat massively exceed my expectations at 7 (in the grand Scandinavian tradition, just watch that second single sink like a stone), Westlife's "We Don't Need Any Of Youse Bastards" climbs 32 to 8, Flo Rida's route to number one continues at number 9 (if that happens, will that make it the first song to go from number 40 to number 1?), while Basshunter and Rihanna make sure the curtains don't get too unfamiliar at 6 and 10 respectively.

Strikingly/worryingly, We Are Scientists have yr highest new entry proper at 15. Delinquent and Kcit Kcat rise to 19, with "Can't Speak French" clinging to its coat-tails at 20. Chrissie Broon is number 16, Yootahs 13, Timbaland's Bargain Balaclava Bonanza 17.

Dotted in the hardy perennials below that, Leona Lewis climbs to 23. The Futureheads debut at 30, and with physical release still to come, they might yet eclipse "Hounds Of Love"... possibly.

Four intriguing-looking newies below that - Get Cape Wear Cape Fly appears to have some kind of posse, since he's come back and his new single's at 33; Doug Walker's "The Mystery", which I have absolutely no clue about, is at 36; Jimmy Eat World make their return to UK chart action at 37; and, most befuddlingly of all, Hercules & Love Affair's "Blind" is number 40. They've been heard of by real actual people? Really? Cripes.

The "Like LeAnn Rimes, cos they're all about value" chart: Duffy shocks no-one by going straight to the top. Number four is a bigger surprise, though, as Dancin' Nick Cave scores his biggest ever album in the UK by quite a distance (Murder Ballads got to number eight in 1996 - ain't Everyhit a peach?). Also lands Mute two top 10 albums, with Goldfrapp at number five. Various ups and downs beyond that, two new entries: The Cardigans' Best Of at 32, Billy Bragg's newie at 33. What was the last big-chartin' album on Cooking Vinyl, I wonder... I'm guessing maybe XTC?

Beeb brings stats - Duffy has fastest-selling album of the 08, shifts 180,000 of the blighters, outsells rest of top ten put together. Also, Adele is apparently the biggest-selling album of the year thus far.

were industo-media moshakers this tediously accurate at predicting biggest selling debut artists of a year in advance 10-20 years ago?

Last big Cooking Vinyl chart hit?

34 Wedding Present I'm From Further North Than You Single Feb 2005

Most befuddlingly of all, Hercules & Love Affair's "Blind" is number 40. They've been heard of by real actual people? Really? Cripes.

Wasn't the "raunchy" video premiered on The Sun's website, though? (Same goes for H "two" O...)

Those midweeks:

1 DUFFY
2 ONEREPUBLIC
3 H TWO O
4 NICKELBACK
5 ALPHABEAT
6 TAIO CRUZ
7 FLO RIDA FT T PAIN
8 (23) LEONA LEWIS
9 (13) UTAH SAINTS
10 BASSHUNTER

12 NEW HARD-FI
16 NEW ELBOW

ALBUMS

2 NEW ONEREPUBLIC
6 (16) LEONA LEWIS
7 NEW MGMT
11 NEW GET CAPE WEAR CAPE FLY
12 NEW YOUNG KNIVES
15 NEW TEMPTATIONS
17 NEW HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR

Quite striking result for MGMT there.

Leona Lewis is at no2 in the Wednesday/Thursday midweeks, around 5k behind though.

Ah, but Sport Relief is on Friday, and her song is the anthem of that, so she'll probably pick that distance up easy enough.

ANYWAY - Playlist time.

Biggest news would be the adding of Madonna straight onto the A-List, the first time that's happened in... ooh, quite a while. Can I remember when? No. Qualifying through the play-offs: Estelle, Newton Faulkner, Sam Sparro. Removed from duty: Rihanna, Nickelback, the Ting-Tings (who never charted, but I take it that was a limited release?) and, weirdly, H Two O. I thought that might still have a bit of momentum, but never mind.

On the B-List: remember all those second/third/fourth singles off yonks-old albums that were added last week to the C-List? They've all been moved up to B-List, excepting Akon. Yes, Elliott Minor are on the B-List again. Why? Those departing: T-Pain, Delinquent, Jimmy Eat World.

And on C: I don't think anyone's been culled from here this week. Akon, Elbow, Count & Sinden and Knasher still survive; Black Kids and The Last Shadow Puppets get promoted; added are Tashbed, Goldfrapp, The Wombats (an entirely necessary new lease of life for 'Backfire At The Disco'), and, in an attempt at heading off a second Basshunter Fiasco, September's 'Cry For You'.

1-Upfront: Funkerman, MGMT and Mystery Jets still survive, but the last two will surely be gone next week. Your adds: Cahill ft. Nikki Belle and, at the start of what will surely be a glorious run to at least number 14, Wiley's 'Wearin' My Rolex'.

Nah, "Wearing My Rolex" is a straight-up top tenner. First top 10 single for a Wire cover artist since "There There", surely?

I am listening to the top 40 for the first time in ages. Fearne & Reggie, while not necessarily being 'good', are vast improvements on Wes and They Who Shall Not Be Named.

Currently playing Foals, who are, like number 26 or something. This is not as rubbish as I remember the album being.

Leona's Sport Relief single is number 25. Possibly having two singles out at once will not be helping her quest for number one. This reminds me of when I used to listen to Capital FM when I was a nipper, and every other record was either Wendy Moten's 'Come Out Of The Rain' or Billie Myers' 'Kiss The Rain'. Lots of rain, the early 90s.

This is fairly crap.

Oh god, the Westlife key-change-plus-gospel-HEEEEEEAVE. Cos that never gets old. Or new. Or good.

24 is Puh-pologiiise; 23 is the Freemasons remix of 'Work'. Which is still absolutely divine in every possible way. Jiggitbabygedditbabyjiggitbabygeddit...

Got my wires crossed and thought the French house guy Cassius had a single in the charts called "Foals".

: /

Man, scmindie drummers never get tired of that rinky-dinky post punk meets "disco" beat do they? buh-tiss buh-tiss buh-tiss buh-tiss buh-tiss buh-tiss...

At 22, Adele. Who should really do Eurovision at some point, I reckon she'd come at least fourth. I am trying to find the Eurovision channel on Youtube with all the songs... with not much luck. Hmm.

21 is Big Dave Jordan, who gets skipped over. They're still doing that. I think what they do know is play most of the top 40 but skip over bits in order for banter-time. Which is a little annoying in theory, but kind of works - Fearne and Reggie do go very well together, they're surprisingly likeable.

F-HEADS AT 20!

Excellent confusing of 'know' and 'now' on my part there. Have I made it clear that I do very much like 'Beginning of the Twist'? I feel I should. It is right bluddy good, all fast and tight and no space to move and shouty and echoey and hefty and yum yum yum.

Number 19 is Elbow. I am wondering about who exactly on their team thought "THAT'S the single!", but I get Southall's point about the production - the shift in the sounds is very intriguing, nicely atmospheric and so forth.

Number 18 is Westlife.

Westlife not as awful as they were. 17 Kylie, 16 Grills Alood. Fearne's referred to Nicola as Nicole. Hmmph.

Christ on a bike, them is loud drums. So loud it makes me think the producer has some kind of massive grudge against people with, like, speakers.

Top 5 albums now come before the top 15.

Top 5 = Winehoose-Leona-Nickelback-OneRepublic... with a Duffy on top.

They played a track off the Duffy album, which Reggie said sounded like a cover of a really classic song. Bit of a hint - that'd be 'Give Me A Little More Time'. By Gabrielle. Just so's you know.

'Denial' overtakes 'Can't Speak French' at number 15 and is sort of OK. The new Chris Brown single is at 14 and is... well, it's unspectacular, y'ken? "Hearts all over the world tonight", is it? Perhaps he's reaching a bit, there. "Without you, I would - die!" No you wouldn't, Chris. If Alicia Keys had been singing that, I could believe it, cos she'd have arpeggiated through about three different octaves in the space of that sentence, but you... you're just kind of there, aren't you, Chris?

And now PATD are at 13 and Brendon Urie is getting interviewed over the phone. It's all a bit standard.

Pre top 10 - Timbaland's travelling circus parks up at 12, with 'Don't Stop The Music' (which people never seem to talk about, oddly) at 11. Fearne and Reggie seem to have decided that Nicole Scherzinger's surname is unpronounceable.

Top 10 kicks off with Basshunter.

And is followed by the Utah Saints remix (by the Van She). Which is a bit bloody intense, isn't it? Weirdly, for a dance track's radio edit, the abrupt ending is really good, it sounds a bit like it's exploding.

I think this is Taio Cruz at 8. Embarrassingly, I have still not ever got round to hearing this song in full.

I... dunno about that. Somehow, I think Unklejam may be sat somewhere in London being all "THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN US!" The hell ever happened to them, anyhow? Myspace was last updated in December-ish.

Flo Rida is at 7. I think it may be the case that "Can't Speak French" has wrecked the speakers on this stereo, or is it that the vocoder on T-Pain's voice sounds that horrible? Actually, is there any vocoder on his voice on this one?

Danes On Sherbet climb to 6, with 'Rockstar' at 5. Amusingly, the radio edit of this has 'drugs' bleeped out. What on earth for?

Wales' Aimee Duffy gets a fifth week atop. 'Better Without You' is wedged at 2 (from whence there may not be much return?), with H Two O at three and The Taste The Difference One Night Only at four.

Other albubum chart stuff, incidentally - A Temptations Compilation is new at eight, MGMT wind up still doing pretty handily at 12, The Best Of Clannad at 20, Young Knives return at 28, GCWCF 30, and Herc & Lover at 31.

I missed a couple new entries before 26: Hard-Fi were at 35 and Mystery Jets made number 34.

Overall, this is a much-improved chart show. Amazingly, for a Fearne Cotton-related product, there has been a great reduction in unnecessary faff and noise. Fearne and Reggie do go well together - stretching the chart across the three hours gives them a nice bit of space, and it's a much more relaxed affair than it used to be. They do sound like they're genuinely interested in what's happening in the charts, too, which helps.

'Better In Time', not 'Better Without You', obv.

Eurovision Youtube channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/esctoday?ob=1

And I've just thought, with the midweek talk, is this thread de-indexed?

word on the street is that the lovely Estelle could be heading for the top spot this week. woohoo!

Monday's a smidge early for those words, isn't it? (Though if true: go her!)

Midweeks not being released on Monday = RACISM.

Estelle at no2, Leona no3, both quite close to Duffy.

The Woolworths midweek chart used to be released on a Monday, it might still be, but it was never that accurate anyway and has been way off since downloads were made chart eligible. Mind you, I think the physical release of the Estelle one is next week.

Top 5 with sales

Singles
01 Duffy - Mercy 12.5k
02 Estelle feat. Kanye West - American Boy (Download) 11.9k
03 Leona Lewis - Better In Time / Footprints In The Sand 11.5k
04 One Republic - Stop & Stare 7.2k
05 Nickelback - Rockstar 6.8k

Albums

01 Muse 19.9k
02 Duffy 19.6k
03 Elbow 9.3k
04 Bryan Adams 8.6k
05 One Republic 7.7k

The Madonna song wasn't out until today though, so that's not in the midweeks yet.

Have we just gone back to 2001 via a timewarp? Did I miss a meeting?

End of.... well, something:

"High street music chain Zavvi is to stop stocking singles, reports EUK.

In a move bound to upset both luddites and the low of attention span, the retail bigwigs are set to stop buying singles, including all 7" and 12"-only releases, from March 31.

They may, however, deign to consider big releases where physical sales forecasts are high - that'd be your X-Factor winners, charity fluff etc."

In a move bound to upset both luddites and the low of attention span, the

OK, WTF????

Get ready with that de-indexing - it's midweeks time!

1 NEW ESTELLE FT KANYE WEST
2 DUFFY
3 LEONA LEWIS
4 ONEREPUBLIC
5 NICKELBACK
6 FLO RIDA
7 UTAH SAINTS
8 (16) GIRLS ALOUD
9 H TWO O
10 BASSHUNTER

15 NEW MADONNA
20 NEW GUILLEMOTS

ALBUMS

2 NEW MUSE
3 NEW ELBOW
4 NEW BRYAN ADAMS
6 NEW MIKE OLDFIELD
10 NEW VAN MORRISON
11 NEW WE ARE SCIENTISTS
13 NEW TAIO CRUZ

I copied that from Drowned in Sound so, y'know.

(x-p)

PLAYLIST:

On the A: Chris Broon, Foo Fighters, Scouting for Girls. Off the A: Taio Cruz, We Are The Science, Hard & Fi.

On the B: Tashbed, The Last Shadow Puppets (which I only realised last week is The Alex Turner Side Project - it's pretty decent, kind of), September, Goldfrapp. Off the B: Foals.

New on C: Adele, The Hoosiers (was it just me or did their last single not chart?), Simple Plan (again?), Britney, Urrshurr. Up to C: Cahill. Off the C: Elbow.

And 1-Upfront: MGMT and Mystery Jets both bite it this week. Only one song replaces them, "Stop!" by Against Me! Wiley still marooned on this too.

I'm so happy that September is finally cracking a big market...Cry For You deserves to be a hit and it's been a long time coming. Unfortunately the UK radio mix isn't as good as the original radio mix.

Compare: UK mix vs. original radio mix.

The old vid is better too.

I don't agree about the mixes. I think the UK mix sounds better. There's a crispness to the beat in the old mix but the new mix seems to bring out the richness of the chords, pads and pizzicato-like synth. Definitely a fuller sound.

quite liking Ghostt's 'Number 1 Fan' right now, think it's been re-released? Music's like Kano's 'Ps And Qs' remixed by Bobby Valentino, shades of 'Ice Box' and Jodeci too. v US-standard slickness for UK RnB. can't find the (crap) video on youtube tho but it's on itunes plus and deserves to be a hit. to be honest i think people would go crazier for it if it Ghostt were GURLS.

OK, Fearne's just blown the gaff on Duffy not being number one any more BEFORE THEY'VE EVEN STARTED THE FUCKING TOP 40, which is kind of 12 zillion minus points on her.

And 'Elvis Isn't Dead' has re-entered at 40 and they're playing it in full sweet mumsy christ...

Delinquent at 39. Gabriela Cilmi is first new entry at 38, Fearne heroically avoids her surname altogether. No song so far this year has been about nothing to the extent that this one is, but, y'know, the beat's all nice and "Legend Of A Cowgirl" redux. Yes, she's probably heard an Amy Winehouse record, spotter's badge to you.

Yr first skipped record this week: Foals at 37. Two more hits than Terris managed. Elbow and their lovely mastering get played in full at 36, tho.

Reggie has just accused Fearne of being a feeder.

They've just had a discussion on where are the popstars now and it was fairly excruciating. JK & Joel would have done it worse.

"Valurghray" is 35 after exactly half a fucking year, and F-Heads fall 14 to 34. "Rule The World" is skipped at 33, and your second new entry at 32: Gnarls Barkley. They're never having another number one again, one suspects. Then Britternee at 31, which means 40-31 is:

40: Scouting for Girls - Elvis Ain't Dead
39: Delinquent ft. Kcat - My Destiny
38: Gabriela Cilmi - Sweet About Me
37: Foals - Cassius
36: Elbow - Grounds for Divorce
35: Mark Ronson ft. Amy Winehouse - Valerie
34: The Futureheads - Beginning of the Twist
33: Take That - Rule The World
32: Gnarls Barkley - Run
31: Britney Spears - Piece of Me

And Westlife kick off the top 30.

This discussion of faded popstars has hopefully reached its nadir with Fearne's attempt at a Dutch accent. Hopefully. Reggie's having a few moments of self-awareness, he's exclaimed "We're being pretty out of order here" more than once...

No, now they're watching Coolio's cooking show on Youtube.

Dave Jordan is skipped over for a second week running at 29, and One Night Only and their horrid, horrid drums get played in full again at 28. This continuous *toosh-toosh-toosh-toosh-toosh-toosh* on the cymbals, all the way through the verses - it's a horrible noise, so bloody cack-handed and shrill.

Next new entry - Tashbed and Sean Kingston at 27. Reggie announces that he is "not sure" about this.

There appears to be some horrid vocoder on that Tashbed song. Either that or autotune, but she buzzes appallingly quite a lot.

Leona skipped at 26 (I think that's her Sport Relief number), and then at 25, the Travis Barker remix of Soulja Boy. Anyone other than me remember this? And then he went on to produce Snow Patrol...

A fucking interminable interview with Kelly R leads into a live performance of 'Work (Freemasons Remix)' from 1Xtra Live in Cov yesterday. By live, I mean that they play the Freemasons remix and Kelly sings over it occasionally, and her band do some drum rolls that cheerily redefine incongruous. They attempt to segue into the Jay-Z remix of "Mundian To Bach Ke" and cover up the cack-handedness of this with some vintage Jools Hollanding on the piano.

Oh, and another new entry at 23 - Sam Sparro, Black & Gold. Which is pretty sturdy, but I can't remember where I've heard his backing there before...

Puh-pologise skipped over at 22, and "Wow" is at 21, which leaves 30-21 looking like this:

30: Westlife - Us Against The World
29: David Jordan - Sun Goes Down
28: One Night Only - Just For Tonight
27: Natasha Bedingfield ft. Sean Kingston - Love Like This
26: Leona Lewis - Footprints in the Sand
25: Soulja Boy Tell'em - Crank Dat (Soulja Boy)
24: Kelly Rowland - Work
23: Sam Sparro - Black & Gold
22: Timbaland ft. OneRepublic - Apologise
21: Kylie Minogue - Wow

The top 20 is opened by the new Guillemots steez, which is half-decent.

This week, Nicole Scherzinger's entire name is unpronounceable, so she's just "That one from the Pussycat Dolls". "Scream" is yon number 19, which suggests that it may possibly have peaked in chart terms. Even with its fucking ridiculous sex noises. Adele is number 18.

Another live version, this time Chris Brown's "With You" at 17. Every woman in Coventry appears to be squealing at him. Literally, every single one of them. Chris Brown's hype-man barks "Wave your cell phones!" They presumably do. While squealing. "WAVE UM! WAVE UM!" Not bad for a feller with the build of an ironing board. He's 18, you know.

"Don't Stop The Music" leads into the album chart, which in reverse order is:

Elbow-Leona-OneRepublic-Muse-Count Duffula

Fearne sounds bamboozled at the possibility of Duffy having been number one in the albums for three weeks. Sugababes at 15.

I am dancing to PATD. Am I right? Am I wrong? Or am I just bored? Alphabeat pop up at 13 to remind me that Gabriela Cilmi doesn't exactly have the monopoly on songs that aren't really about anything (except this one is rather about having fun and jumping up and down screaming your fucking head off - I for one am delighted that there are still people who dress like children's TV presenters [back when they had a distinct dress sense]). As the whistle blows to stuff up Arsenal's season, Taio Cruz charts at 12.

Then Basshunter. Not the most interesting run, I'll grant you.

20: Guillemots - Get Over It
19: Timbaland ft. Keri Hilson & Nicole Scherzinger - Scream
18: Adele - Chasing Pavements
17: Chris Brown - With You
16: Rihanna - Don't Stop The Music
15: Sugababes - Denial
14: Panic At The Disco - Nine In The Afternoon
13: Alphabeat - Fascination
12: Taio Cruz ft. Luciana = Come On Girl
11: Basshunter - Now You're Gone

Hayeech Two Oh-hooo at ten. Girls Aloud at nine - and they're playing the French version. Le hmm...

I am not as good at understanding French as I used to be.

Utahs at 8. Remix or no, I still get chills. I should really be listening to it in the bath for full effect. Never mind.

Then NEW MADONNA ft. NEW JUSTIN ft. NEW TIMBALAND and it's some honking and it's rather boring. Justin sounds a lot like Zac Efron, oddly. Listeners are SPLIT on it. "MADONNA IS OLD" says one. "JT IS FIT" says another.

Against this backdrop, "Low" climbing to 6 is something of an anti-climax, isn't it? To say nothing of "Rockstar" still being at 5...

they sure know how to kill any tension wrt who's going to be number 1.

OK, so Leona is at three. Thus meaning that we know the number one single as the number three single is played. Someone at Radio 1 has massively dropped the ball here.

Still, they have 'stelle in the studio with them, and her reaction is brilliant. "I'm just so glad people want to hear good music again..."

Which leaves us looking like this for the top ten:

10: H Two O ft. Platnum - What's It Gonna Be
9: Girls Aloud - Can't Speak French
8: Utah Saints - Something Good 08
7: Madonna ft. Justin Timberlake - 4 Minutes To Save The World
6: Flo Rida ft. T-Pain - Low
5: Nickelback - Rockstar
4: OneRepublic - Stop and Stare
3: Leona Lewis - Better in Time
2: Duffy - Mercy
1: Estelle ft. Kanye West - American Boy

Fearne: "Here's this week's number two, 'Mercy', Duffy - who you beat!"
And Estelle starts to laugh just as they press play...

Is it just me or is the new Westlife song very very good?

Incidentally, remember "Gonna Be Mine"? Looks like it peaked at 47 last week, and is down to 51 this... :(

Midweeks:

1 ESTELLE FT KANYE WEST
2 DUFFY
3 (6) FLO RIDA
4 (23) SAM SPARRO
5 MADONNA FT COLIN AND JUSTIN
6 LEONA
7 NICKELBACK
8 ONEREPUBLIC
9 (17) CHRIS BROWN
10 GIRLS ALOUD

15 (65) JAMES BLUNT

ALBUMS

2 NEW PANIC AT THE DISCO
3 NEW FOALS
4 NEW GUILLEMOTS
6 NEW COUNTING CROWS
11 NEW RACONTEURS
13 NEW SUPERGRASS
14 NEW DAVID GARRETT

CHARTSCHNOZZ: Estelle gets two weeks. Flo Rida makes the big leap to number two, ahead of Duffy, with Sam Sparro making a honking great climb to number four, nudging aside Madonna and My Two Timberpeople. LeonaNickersBroonTescoDansk to round out the top ten.

Beyond that - Urrshurr debuts at number 19 and gets Young Jeezy his third piece of UK chart pie (Soul Survivor got to 18 in 2006, his guest spot on Christina Milian's Say I-I-I-I-I-I got to number 4 a bit afterwards. Did I get that off Everyhit? Well, yes). James Blunt gets a second hit off his second album at 20. "Sensual Eruption" debuts at 24, with Yael effing Naim climbing back into the chart at 30. T-Pain makes his solo UK chart debut at 35, and Scouting For Girls' fourth single rears its head at 40.

Albums - Duffy holds off PATD and Foals respectively to remain up top. Also new in the 10 - Raconteurs at 8, Guillemots at 9. Counting Crows have a number 12 album on their hands; David Garrett (did he used to be in G4 too? I'm not finding out) is at 17, Supergrass 19, Mike Batt 24.

And the playlist in full is:

The A List

* Chris Brown
* With You

* Estelle featuring Kanye West
* American Boy

* Newton Faulkner
* I Need Something

* Foo Fighters
* Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)

* The Futureheads
* The Beginning Of The Twist

* Girls Aloud
* Can't Speak French

* Gnarls Barkley
* Run

* Goldfrapp
* Happiness

* The Kooks
* Always Where I Need To Be

* The Last Shadow Puppets
* The Age Of The Understatement

* Leona Lewis
* Better In Time

* Madonna featuring Justin Timberlake
* 4 Minutes

* OneRepublic
* Stop And Stare

* Panic At The Disco
* Nine In The Afternoon

* Scouting For Girls
* Heartbeat

* Sam Sparro
* Black And Gold

* Utah Saints
* Something Good 08 [Van She Tech remix]

* Kanye West featuring Dwele
* Flashing Lights

* The Wombats
* Backfire At The Disco

The B List

* Adele
* Cold Shoulder

* Natasha Bedingfield featuring Sean Kingston
* Love Like This

* Black Kids
* I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You

* Bullet For My Valentine
* Hearts Burst Into Fire

* Cahill featuring Nikki Belle
* Trippin On You

* Mariah Carey
* Touch My Body

* The Courteeners
* Not Nineteen Forever

* Elliot Minor
* Parallel Worlds

* Flo Rida featuring T-Pain
* Low

* Fragma
* Toca's Miracle 08

* The Hoosiers
* Cops And Robbers

* Radiohead
* Nude

* September
* Cry For You

* Snoop Dogg
* Sensual Seduction

* Britney Spears
* Break The Ice

* Usher featuring Young Jeezy
* Love In This Club

The C List

* Against Me!
* Stop!

* Akon
* I Can't Wait

* The Count And Sinden featuring Kid Sister
* Beeper

* * The Feeling [d/l : now]
* Without You

* * Lupe Fiasco [d/l : now]
* Paris, Tokyo

* * One Night Only [d/l : now]
* It's About Time

* * Pendulum [d/l : 21/04]
* Propane Nightmares

* * Jay Sean [d/l : 14/04]
* Maybe (J Remy & Bobby Bass remix)

* Simple Plan
* Your Love Is A Lie

* Wiley
* What Would We Do (Wearing My Rolex)

The 1-Upfront List

* * Cajun Dance Party [d/l : 21/04]
* The Race

* Funkerman
* Speed Up

* * Hadouken! [d/l : 21/04]
* Declaration Of War

* * Infadels [d/l : 14/04]
* Make Mistakes

* *Santogold [d/l : 28/04]
* L.E.S. Artistes

David Garrett is a violinist who looks a bit like David Ginola and lends his virtuoso skills to such classical mainstays as "You Raise Me Up." Only £8.97 at Tesco.

How interesting is this week's chart?

Well, Your top two of "Tell em wha gw'aan blud" and "WIT THUH FURRRRR" remains unchanged. The Kooks are new at 3, then Super Sparrio followed by Duffy. Here's the American video for 'Mercy', because, in this post-9/11 world, Americans just ain't ready for combustible trousers. Mariah Carey's World of Yoo-Toob is new at 6, then "Forda cooda livvy vouch ooh", Madarrnerr, "Wivvyoowivvyoowivvyoowivvyoo", "PLAY BOY BUNNEH WIDDA BLEACH BLONN HAARE" to round out the 10.

The only thing that happens in the rest of the top 20 is The Courteeners being at 19. Radiohead are new at 21, there's climbs for Snoop and Britney at 24 and 25, that completely necessary redoing of "Toca's Miracle" enters at 29 and that's about it.

Oh, actually, one more thing - "Valerie"'s bitten the dust at last, after pushing 30 weeks.

This Week In Woolworths Sale: REM depose Duffy after four weeks. The Estelle album debuts at 6, PATD drop from 2 to 11 and Foals from 3 to 16. Gnarls 19, Snoop 23, Michael McDonald (no, really) 27, The Absolutely Definitely Best of The Specials 28, "Mail On Sunday" 29, and then, just to prove how big a week it's been: Gaby Cilmi's at 31, and the Black Keys - no, really, The Black Fucking Keys - are at 34. I can't remember which ones they are, I always got them confused with Black Dice...

Playlist in brief:

A:

NEW: None.
UP: Adele, Flo Rida, Urrshurr.
OFF: Futureheads, Girls Aloud, Gnarls Barkley.

B:

NEW: None.
UP: The Feeling, One Night Only, Pendulum, Wiley, Simple Plan.
OFF: Bullet For My Valentine, Snoop Dogg.

C:

NEW: The Kooks (LP tracks), The Pigeon Detectives, The Raconteurs, Robyn, The Script.
UP: Santogold.
OFF: The Count and Sinden.

1-UPFRONT:

NEW: Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip.
OFF: None.

Good old None.

I'm off to download "nothing" from itunes!

Been a while since we put the 1xtra playlist on here, hasn't it? Here it go:

A

Akon - I Can't Wait
Chris Brown - With You
Damian & Stephen Marley - The Mission
DJ Q Feat Mc Bones - U Wot?
Erup - Click My Finger
Estelle Feat Kanye West - American Boy
Flo-Rida Feat Timbaland - Elevator
Flo-Rida Feat T-Pain - Low
Garage jams Feat Clare Evers - Snowflake
Jay Sean - Maybe (J Remy & Bobby Bass Remix)
Jay Sean - Ride It
Jay-Z feat Timbaland - Ain't I
Kanye West Feat Dwele - Flashing Lights
Lil Wayne Feat Static Major - Lollipop
Madonna Feat Justin Timberlake & Timbaland - 4 Minutes To Save The World
Mariah Carey - Touch My Body
Mavado Feat Jay-Z - I Am The Rock (Remix)
Mavado - I'm On The Rock
NeYo - Closer
Sincere Feat Natty - Once Upon A Time
Snoop Dogg - Sensual Seduction
Soulja Boy Feat Arab - Yahh
Taio Cruz - Come On Girl
Usher Feat Young Jeezy - Love in This Club
Wiley Vs Mz Bratt - Wearing My Rolex (1Xtra Exclusive Mix)
Wiley - Wearing My Rolex

B

Brotherman - Heart Of Dem
Busy Signal Feat Demarco - Face To Face With Life
Busy Signal - Pon Di Edge
Chipmunk - Who Are You?
Common Feat Marsha Ambrosius - The Light '08 (It's Love)
Danny Byrd - Shock Out
DJ Felli Fell Feat Ne-Yo, Kanye West, Fabolous & Jermaine Dupri - Finer Things
Doneao - Devil In A Blue Dress
Elephant Man - Boasy Bounce
Gemma Fox - Voicemail
Ice Cube Feat Nas & Scarface - Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It (Remix)
Jammer - It’s A Lot
Janet Jackson - Luv
Kelly Rowland Feat Gym Class Heroes - Daylight
Kenny Ken - Everyman (Benny Page Remix)
Lupe Fiasco - Paris, Tokyo
Quentin Harris Feat Margaret Grace - My Joy
Rihanna - Take A Bow
Sean Garrett Feat Ludacris - Grippin' On The Bed

C

Cahill feat Nikki Belle - Trippin' On You (Wideboys Remix)
Erykah Badu - Honey
JTJ Feat Sophia & Sanchea - It's You
Serani & Bugle - Doh

Been a while since I posted the midweeks, so here goes:

1 ESTELLE
2 FLO RIDA
3 SAM SPARRO
4 MADONNA
5 MARIAH
6 DUFFY
7 KOOKS
8 LEONA
9 CHRIS BROWN
10 ONEREPUBLIC

11 (84) BLACK KIDS
16 NEW ELLIOT MINOR

ALBUMS

1 NEW COURTEENERS
4 NEW ROLLING STONES
6 NEW JAMES

James?

Yep. First album in nearly a decade with classic Larry Gott-including line-up and some ace songs to boot! I thoroughly recommend it.

I knew they'd reformed, was expecting the album a classic In/out at number 45 scenario. Wondered if you missed out "blunt" or summat..

Please to explain?

54 (74) Don't Stop Me Now - Queen
57 (77) Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns & Roses
62 (164) Flowers - Sweet Female Attitude
72 (100) Jump Around - House Of Pain
83 (54) I'm A Man - Spencer Davis Group
94 (142) Paint It Black - Rolling Stones
97 (-) Push The Feeling On - Nightcrawlers

54 (74) Don't Stop Me Now - Queen

On a Cadburys TV advert.

"I'm A Man" - talking Volvo TV advert dog.

"Paint It, Black" - current Sopranos ad.

62 (164) Flowers - Sweet Female Attitude

is there a bline remix? gimme

Sam Sparro needs to go away.

the video is kinda captivating

Right, s'been too long.

CHART (SINGLES VERSION): M'darner got to number one for no real reason this week, thus making "American Boy"'s four-week run at the top the shortest since "When You Believe" (which was by Leon Jackson. Remember him?). The increasingly annoying rise of "Black & Gold" was also curtailed by this event, and it drops to number three from last week's two, also taking Flo Rida down a peg with it. September, on the other hand, is clambering up four to five, nicely along the way to fulfilling its role of being this year's "From Paris To Berlin". Slipstreaming it at 6 is "Love In This Club", with YOOO TOOOB and "yeeeh, yeeeh, yeeeh" filing neatly down two places each. The Alex Turner And His Mate Orchestra are at 9, which is probably about as high as they'll get, with "Argh'm a man on thur seeeen" at 10.

Your climbers and new entries below: Scouting For Girls' policy of being on all music channels ever at once gets them number 14, just ahead of Mecha-Britney, while will.i.am and Cheryl Cole are making very worrying advances at number 18 (the worrying bit will be eludicated later on). Black Kids have dropped nine to 20, by the way, but I think their getting to number 11 at all is pretty noteworthy.

Actual Proper Highest New Entry - Goldfrapp at 25. Kanye and Dwele debut at 29. Cahill's "Trippin' On You" climbs six to 31, suggesting further steady climbs to come. Roll-on deodorant advert propels Gaby Cilmi back into the top 40 at 34, being the last song played in this series of Skins gives MGMT a chart debut at 35. Incidentally, being the last song played in the previous episode of Skins got Adele's "Hometown Glory" to 38 last week. Final new'un of the week is Nelly's new single, which gets to number 39.

CHARTS (ALBUM VERSION): Men On Scene debut at number one, ahead of Leona, Mariah and Duffy. TAKE THAT, WOMEN. Beyond women: MEN. Scouting For Girls, Elliott Minor (noooo...), Nickelback, REM, Courteeners, OneRepublic - MEN. New entries: Sarah Brightman at 13, The Montana Cyruses LIVE at 29.

PLAYLIST: Yeah, it's getting unwieldy. Notable presences on the A-List: the Freemasons remix of "Disco's Revenge", godawful Irish Maroon 5-but-with-a-rap types The Script, Pendulum and dear old "Wearing My Rolex". Questionable presences on the A-List: The Hoosiers, whose single I could swear was already out and has failed to chart; Panic At The Disco, whose single has been out for a gajillion years now; and The Wombats. I can't remember when "Backfire At The Disco" was first on the A-List, but it was A Very Long Time Ago Now, and it's pretty much into some serious shit-or-get-off-the-pot territory.

On the B-List: will.i.am and Wor Cheryl are a new addition after three weeks on the chart. This means this song has legs. And will not be going away for a while. Enh. Much guitar morass here - The Fratellis and The Zutons are back at the same time! (Pigeon Detectives on the A-List!) - with Santogold, Jay Sean and The Wideboys ft. Shaznay Lewis among the more notable other stuff. Cahill are still lurking in here, too.

Now, C-List and 1-Upfront seem to be getting more interesting, because they look to be rotating with much greater frequency. Songs that were added to the playlist less than a month ago - Cajun Dance Party, The Infadels and Lupe Fiasco - are gone already, along with Against Me!, Simple Plan and Akon. New additions this week: Alphabeat, Taio Cruz, Duffy, The Futureheads, Guillemots, Royworld (a second chance for them - hmm, worrying) and Vampire Weekend on the C-List, with DJ Disciple, Kids in Glass Houses, Late of the Pier and Natty on 1-Upfront.

TODAY: Two weeks for "Four Minutes", with Sparro rebounding to 2 ahead of 'stelle. Big new entry at four, though - Wiley's a party guy, and the UK knows it, even if the radio edit squidges the song too much and splatters his vocals all over the place rather than letting the beat take over which is a bit bloody daft if you ask me oh well never mind. September holds five ahead of Flossie and Usher, but then it's a case of PHEAR THE LURKERS - "Heartbreaker" and "Heartbeat" rise to 8 and 10 (sammidging Duffy) despite both being turd on a stick.

Beyond that, 11-20 is riddled with long-service medals and two new entries - Pendulum's "Propane Nightmares" manages to be peculiar without necessarily being any good at 16, and Adele gets a third top 40 hit at 18. 21-30 is mainly notable for the climbs of Cahill, Nelly and Little Miss Roll-On at 25 to 27, and the new entry of The Script's "We Cry" (I've only called it godawful once on this thread, which is remarkably restrained of me) at 30. More newies in 31-40 - Ashleeee at 34, Hoosiers 35, Robyn 38 and Wombats at 40.

ALBUMS: Last Shadow Puppets utilise The Power of Newsnight Review to soar topwards. A Whitesnake Album (new?) is at 7, and A Chris De Burgh Album (no) is at 12. Only other notable action is Cilmi ascending from 35 to 18. She just needs her single to get to number 11 and she'll overtake Fall Out Boy's "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs" as the most successful deodorant promotion in UK chart history.

Incidentally, The Script are from Ireland. What do they have to say about this?

<B>"Irish people have soul," according to Danny. "It comes from generations of pain, and generations of understanding emotion to be able to physically get that in a solid sound."</B>

"how did that gobshite get a record deal?"

4 Wiley - Wearing My Rolex

^^^called this in December

Yeah but so did like, Record of the Day and stuff so it doesn't count.

I remembered Palladium earlier and realised that they aren't gonna get big and it made me feel good.

Nah, when they get into Geir's top 40 albums of the year they'll taken off from then.

Music Video

The video shows some girls dressed up as foxes. Wiley does not seem to be in the video. Rumours were that he was scared of foxes but Wiley said that he is 'scared of no animal' and if he saw foxes at night he would feed them 'chicken bones'. The video is filmed around Finsbury Leisure Centre, which is, rather oddly, not in Finsbury, but in Islington.

--DonCapri 15:35, 23 April 2008 (GMT)

"They'll be back, and they'll be big."

- Me, last year, signing off on a Palladium gig review for the paper.

Most blush-inducing sentence of 2007, that one...

she'll overtake Fall Out Boy as the most successful deodorant promotion in UK chart history

Room 5 to thread

How could I possibly have forgotten them, eh...

This week's singles chart is basically a spot of the old shuffling of the pack. Madge stays top, with Sparro holding two and Wiley climbing to three. Urrshurr now finds himself at four, ahead of Estelle, September, Flossie and "No, YOU'RE a heartbreaker!" "No, YOU are!" "No, YOU are!" etc. Our lone bold venturer into the ten is Pendulum, who are at number nine somehow. Scouting For Pricks round out the list.

Beyond that, URRGH URRGH NO URRGH climb to 15, Jay Sean's the highest new entry at 19, and this week's CILMIWATCH - number 20. Nelly's at 22, Hoosiers climb to 24, Robyn to 26, Ashlee to 30. Second new entry is Duffy at 29. Two other n00bs - Kelly Rowland and Him From Gym Class Heroes (no, not the drummer) at 36, and URRRRRRRRGH YEUCH at 37. Here they are in session for Jo Whiley:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radioassets/photos/2008/4/30/40962_2.jpg

Picture worth a thousand words, there.

Albu-bu-bums - Madonna pips Portishead at the post for the top spot. Sparro new at 5, A Platters Compilation at 9, and CILMIWATCH: ALBUMS EDITION - number ten. The Only Rick Astley Record You Will Ever Need, Ever is at 17, and there's a 16-place jump for the Robyn album at 23.

Most interestingly of all, though - The Fall have got their first top 40 album in about 15 years, Imperial Wax Solvent debuting at 35.

RUKP/C/"TTNSFG!!!"T2008 QUESTION OF THE WEEK:

Has there been a more blatantly fibbing album title this year than One Night Only's Started A Fire?

v small fire, fag in wastepaper basket deal, out in a second

Any chance of "Wearing My Rolex" getting to number one?

From what I can tell, it ain't out physical yet, so maybe.

HOLY SHIT:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7394927.stm

Okay, someone please fill in the blank:

"Usually drink, usually dance, usually _____________"

Bubble? Babble? I'm assume it's bubble, bubble being brit slang?

Yeah, like anything other than ULTIMATE SCOOTER TRIUMPH matters this week, but LET'S GO:

Madge stays top but Wiley climbs to two, switching with Sam's Sbarro. FAR TOO MUCH OF UK UNDER DELUSION THAT "HEARTBREAKER" IS ANY GOOD sees it climb to 4, with Usher, Stella and September all obligingly ceding a spot despite "HEARTBREAKER" BEING HALF-ARSED ONE-NOTE CODBOLLOCKS. Coldplay wanna be the Delgados (YOU WILL NEVER BE THE DELGADOS BECAUSE YOU SUCK) at 8 and are highest new entry, Flo Rida slips to nine and Kylie's "In My Arms" climbs to 10 fae 46.

Kelly Rowland Stays Out Past Her Bedtime ft. Him From Gym Class Heroes climbs to 14, one ahead of Cardiff City's cup run unnecessarily prolonging the career of James Effing Fox. "Warwick Avenue" and The Nelly Single continue to loom on the rails at 17 and 19 respectively. New entries for Ne-Yo (22) and the Pigeon Detectives (24) sandwich the Cilminator (23), with Massive US Smash Hit Sara Bareilles making her top 40 bow at 30, thus making her much bigger than Colbie Caillat in this country at least. Wideboys and Shaznay Lewis debut at 32, and Santogold is bigger than MIA at 37.

ALBUMS = SCOOTER! SCOOTER! SCOOTER! The suspicion that this may not be the hardest field for them to have overcome is perhaps helped by Def Leppard being at 10 and Hadouken at 12. Some Willie Nelson Compilation gets to 16, and Jack McManus is at 22. Seriously? People wanna LISTEN to that? Fuck me. A Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons Compilation is at 25, one ahead of Delays, and a Steve Winwood record is at 31.

(it's "bubble", almost certainly, btw)

More chat on Scooter on Scooter: C/D

Why exactly did this happen?

VERY quiet wk for new albums, by the looks of things, but as pointed out in BBC piece Scooter ain't done much in the UK in recent years (their current single is at around number 49 or there-ish) and their previous highest position was 6 for their singles collection in 2002, so it's still a fairly huge shock. The version on Amazon has this album plus a Greatest Hits disc, though...

Ah, now that makes sense. A little.

Actually, no it doesn't. Or maybe it does.

Incidentally, if you're wondering what's happened to Juan Knight And His Onlies, their smash hit "It's About Time" has kind slipped from 37 to 78. Entirely coincidentally, their album's now £5 in Virgin.

So, the Ting Ting's to be number one this week?

What about Rihanna's "Take A Bow"? It's #1 on iTunes, with the Tings at #2.

where are the people who can tell us?

HI DERE!

Singles:
1 Ting Tings YAY!!!!!
2 Rihanna
3 Madonna
4 Will.i.am with Cher.yl.cole
5 Wiley with Heather.m.ills
6 Sam Sparro
7 Coldplay
8 Usher
9 Estelle
10 September

13 (24) Pigeon Detectives

Album new entries:
1 Neil Diamond (I haven't actually heard this yet! Is it any good, anyone?)
2 Pendulum WTF IS HAPPENING HERE???? (cue Eddy Temple Morris orgasm)
3 Scooter (not of course a new entry but they are unlikely to drop to e.g. 27 as cynics predicted)
6 Jay Sean
7 Iron Maiden
10 Death Cab For Cutie YAY!!!

The charts are definitely getting better these days.

Mmm!

Wot, Madonna does live gig, shown on BBC1 with nice interview, album plunges downwards? (OK, number four, prob...)

Maybe punters are slowly realising just what a bad album it is.

MVE prediction - four weeks.

Oh, and that guitar was tuned to open 'E', btw.

Nice, if youre Nick Drake and fashioning intricate / unplayable chords...

Not so if yr playing "Satisfaction" via white paper strips on your fretboard.

Regarding Neil Diamond, what I've heard on Radio 2 - where it is 'album of the week' - has been half wonderful and half god-awful. What reviews I've seen have pretty much agreed with this.

Yes, I got the general feeling that it wasn't as good as 12 Songs.

Pendulum are massive, seemingly everyone under the age of 25 likes them.

I recall when only Eddy Temple-Morris liked them and MVE were refusing to take any more copies of Hold Your Colour.

1, 2, 3 - "YOU NEED THIS!"

They call me STAY-See.

Eddy Temple-Morris is doing the opening DJ set on the current Pendulum tour, as it happens. It's been slowly creeping up on me how on-the-QT massive they are; it doesn't seem like five minutes since the last tour, either.

Ting Tings definitely my tune of the week. They were awfully good on J.Ross a couple of weeks ago, which must have helped.

Haven't heard Mr Diamond yet, owing to a massive backlog of new purchases.

Where you getting yr chart stats from Dingbod?

And so The Ting-Tings make it two number ones for the BBC SOUND OF 2008 alumni, with Duffy's "Give Me A Little More Time" probably following them there too. Rihanna's completely necessary new single debuts just behind, which I think must be the first time the top two have both been new entries this year. Four Minutes To Break The Heart Of My Rolex, Sam Sparro Makes Love On Violet Hill To An American Boy In September.

Duffy's second single slipstreams her first and rises to 13. Pidgeys scoot to 14. Cilmi's back up to 19. Baa Baa Reilles climbs to 23, Ashlee rebounds to 26, one ahead of Santogold. Taio Cruz gets his fourth ever hit ever at 30. Roy's Wold are at 35, ahead of The First Ever Proper Solo UK Hit for Lil Wayne at 39 and Fall Out Boy ft. 27 Yards Of John Mayer at 40.

ALBUMS: Neil Diamond, Pendulum and Scooter are the top 3. This is the world we live in. Oh oh-oh. Jay Sean gets to number six, with Cilmi reaching new peak of 8. Man, women must be well sweaty this week. Some Frank Sinatra Compilation debuts just ahead of Some Searchers Compilation (10-11), followed by Some Iron Maiden Compilation at 14 and Some Bobby Vee Compilation at 18. Josh Groban Comes Alive at 22, a re-jigged Kelly Rowland is at 23, with Death Cab For Cutie becoming the most successful act to have ever put anything out on Truck at 24. Santogold debuts at 26 ahead of Moby (?) at 28 and Martha Wainwright giving Drowned In Sound a top 40 album at 29. Sunday Best nab one too, Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip getting to 31, one spot ahead of Flight Of The Conchords. Izzy Campbell and Marky-Mark Lanegan's second jaunt is at 38, one spot ahead of the for-money version of The Charlatans' new album. Whew. There will now be no albums released for the next three months, lest the shelving system at Zavvi go into meltdown. Rumours that Mayor Boris will be introducing on-the-spot fines of £50 for anyone who has not yet bought the David Jordan album remain unconfirmed.

Sad to see that the Shortwave Set album didn't chart.

Is Santogold the most repulsive album cover ever?

And it's medium-sized YAYs for Bon Iver at #43 (which gets better with each passing week) and Martina Topley Bird at #88 (so at least one of the Dangermouse productions gets to chart).

Oh, and let's also hear it for Yazoo's "Nobody's Diary", which crashes into the singles charts at #100.

Quite astounded to see the Bon Iver album advertised on TV while watching Brokeback Mountain on C4 last night. Deserves the exposure, though.

As Van Morrison never said, Into The Midweeks...

1 Rihanna
2 Ting Tings
3 Madonna & J.us.tin
4 w.i.l.l.i.a.m. & wife of UNLUCKY SICK AS A PARROT ASH.LE.Y.COLE
5 Samsparro
6 Heather's Rolex with Wiley input
7 Usher with Young Jeezy
8 D*ffy
9 Estelle
10 Cold Plays

Ne-Yo and Sara Bareilles rising to 15 and 16 respectively.

New album entries:
1 Ting Tings!
6 Beth Rowley
8 Cistercian Monks
11 (re-entry?) The Best Of Neil Diamond
14 Mick Hucknall
15 Yet Another Osmonds Best Of

Sara Bareilles

^^^ this shit sucks

Debacle, diaspora etc. - Andy Abraham hasn't made the top 40. Further up, Rihanna launches herself off the shoulder of The Ting Tings and into the top spot. Duffy's the only new inductee into the top 10, 'Warwick Avenue' climbing to 7. Everything else is so much shuffling, with 'American Boy' being the song to make way. It slips to, er, 11. Ne-Yo rises to 12, Baba O'Reilles to 16. I can't remember if Nelly climbing to 14 is a significant upward shift. Highest new entry is Alphabeat at 23, slotting neatly in behind 'Fascination', which spends something like its fifth week at 22. Ashlee & Simpson yo-yos back to 24, with The Fratellis and The Zutons tag-teaming their way to 27 and 28. Fall Out Boy and John Mayer climb to 31 this week, and a zillion months after debuting on the Radio 1 playlist, 'Great DJ' lands at 33, possibly due to being featured that fucking heavily in BBC3 smash hit Delta Forever for no particular reason. The Freemasons' re-rub of 'Disco's Revenge' peaks at 34, and 'Rhythm Is A Dancer' re-enters at 36.

Ting Tings Top T'albums, with Beth Rowley entering at 6 (eh?), A Neil Diamond Best Of at 8, some monks at 9, Best Osmonds Ever at 11, (Mick) Hucknall's tribute to Bobby Blue Bland at 18, Foxboro Hot Tubs at 27 and a top 40 debut for Pendulum's first album at 38. Nothing to get too excited about, basically.

with The Fratellis and The Zutons tag-teaming

This is a mental image I would rather never have experienced.

Yeah, soz for that. I get to input TV schedules onto a database for a living, and it seems that MTV2 are basically running this kind of system with the two bands, though - session from one followed by video compilation of the other, and vice versa a couple of days later.

1) Why the sudden love for VamWeek? And RhythDancer?

2) that's it.

"Rhythm Is A Dancer"? Use your BRAINS, Mark...

Anyway, the rather boring midweeks:

1 Rihanna Buy The Whole Album Again Why Don't You
2 Ting Tings
3 Will.i.cantbebotheredwiththerestofit
4 Duff E
5 Colin & Justin
6 I'm Only A Poor Little Sparro
7 Ne-Yo
8 September
9 The one about the Rolex
10 Usher

New at 14 - the long-awaited sweaty new single from Paul Weller.

New album entries:

1 Usher He's Back Back Um Back
4 Pigeon Detectives Slowest Week Ever?
10 Spiritualized
13 Futureheads
14 Kids in Glass Houses
21 Sandi Thom

Exciting week, to be unsure.

This week's chart round-up can be found at my blog, where I've done my first listening-along-to-the-top-40 writeup more or less since I stopped doing them for Stylus. I did Pick of the Pops too. It was quite a nice afternoon. (Spoiler - Andy Abraham does not go top 40)

Kinda left off the albums, tho, so: Usher wins, Pigeon Detection is fifth, Spearchulized at 15, Paolo & The Futreheads at 17, Russell Watson's "THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION - SPECIAL" (for when one superlative just ain't enough) at 19. Another Neil Diamond compilation (I think it's different from the one that entered a couple weeks ago) is at 22, Someone Still Loves You Sandi Thom at 25, Kids In Glass Houses 29.

Ah so the iPod ad is Ting Tings is it? Well that's the only 20 seconds of them I ever need to hear then.

In fact, further to Shock Andy Abraham News, Yahoo music reveals the only Eurovision song to be inside the top 75 is Kalomira's "Secret Combination" (the Greek entry) at 71. One spot behind Sharon Shannon & Steve Earle. Also outside top 40 - Kat de Luna at 41, Scooter 47, Guillemots 49, Flo Rida & Timbaland 52, David Cook 61, Jesse McCartney 66. Future top tenner/mayyybe number one "Two Doors Down" is beginning its lurking at 53.

Wow, so many artists I've never heard of. The Pendulums? September? The Clik Clik? Taio Cruz? I'm outta touch (same as it ever was).

Ok I just opened seven youtube links from yr blog simultaneously in different tabs, then turned on my stereo. The cacophony was awesome.

Mint Royale for the number one then. Weird times these.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7433445.stm

Seems so...

BTW, Andy Abraham was 67 last week, and 93 after the Eurovosion boost to sales.

Now here's a 'ting..

I got the TingTing's "name" single for Amber and Alice. And was surprised to find 1) that the 7" runs at 33rpm for no discernable reason 2) that on the b-side was a whole host of inserts of people saying their names as asked for on their website.

So, if all the people who contributed bought one, no wonder it got to number one so decisively.

(also, when I gave the red vinyl single to Amber, she tried to unscrew it while saying "how do you open this case then?")

Anyway, the puddle has meant a number one, as predicted by myself on ILM when the original commercial came out. Sara Bareilles and Climi Fisher both go top ten. Brains hydrates up to 23. Morrissey new at 24, Alex Gaudino/Shena at 25, C4 Yoof ad break plugged Mystery Jets hurtle up to 28, Maroon 5 never see Rihanna's face again at 29, "Jumping All Over The World" finally goes Top 40 (at 36), some old record about creeping comes in at 37, Elbow elbow in at a derisory 39.

In albums, the excellent new Weller album debuts at the top, EMI clutch at old straws at 4 (Best of Radiohead), exciting new Zutons album You Can Do Nothing Morelike in at 6, Alphabeat at 10, Rihanna con redux back up to 12. Alanis Morissette in at 15 (did more than 15 people buy it?). Disturbed rip off Westlife album titles at 20. HMV helps G N'R's Greatest Hits back in at 21, The Essential Paul Simon at 27, Opeth at 34 and then it's old songs by Hall & Oates (35), Tom "Rabbit" Petty (38), Eddie Cochran (40) and CCR (46). Royworld creep in at 52 (be very afraid), and bravely in at the fourth time of trying at an enviable #75 - LADYTRON!

Talking about creep, "Creep" in at thirty seven or so.

Oh, you said that. EDIT

And in the lower reaches of the singles chart: All Hail the power of the NME tour, as Does It Offend You, Yeah? and Joe Lean & his Jingy Jangy Jongy Thingy crash in at #91 and #93 respectively.

is there nothing nice to talk about in the chart? we don't need to talk about...those people.

how about KAT DELUNA and her awesome pop-dancehall banger lurking just outside the top 40? i thought she'd hit big with 'whine up' last year but it was never released here - but 'run the show' appears to be doing v well for itself with little to no promo. hopefully it can go much much higher...

also i eagerly await the imminent world domination of 'no air', this week's no 74.

Midweeks:

1 Puddle Jumper
2 Rihanna
3 Ne-Yo
4 Sara-No
5 Ting Tings
6 Duff Y
7 Gabriela Climate Change
8 FT's Chris Brown
9 Sparro Can't Sing
10 Will Im Not

Feeder in at 12

Albums:
1 Fratellis WHY
12 N*E*R*D* STILL GOING?
13 Li'l Wayne, humorously described as an "obscure rapper" by Radcliffe and Maconie, for whom it's obviously all been downhill since "Snot Rap."

Apparently, all bets on the frats being number one depend on the sales of um coldplay's new album, out on thursday.

Will Livin' La Vida Loca prove the Dangerous to I Saw Her Standing There's Achtung Baby?

Mint Royale get a second week. Interesting thing - the single is credited as being out on Syco Music, as opposed to Mint Royale's regular label. Rihanna stays at number two (not sure why), with Ne-Yo rising to three ahead of the Ting-Tings and PLONK PLONK PLONK PLONK. The Inexorable Rise Of The Cilmi continues at 6, then "We'll spend an hour, but no more than two", "Look what I can do with my feet!", "Mrrmm-mmrrrm", and Everybody Is Well Aware Of What Will.I.Am Is, Thank You Very Much.

What news elsewhere? Entirely Necessary Pigbag Reworking climbs 10 to 16 in a fairly static top 20. Fall Out Boy And Friend climb to 21, ahead of the highest new entry which, at long bloody last, winds up being "No Air". Fearne and Reggie were unimpressed, Reggie reckoning it sounds like an 80s ballad. No such considerations stopped them jizzing over the brilliance of The Mystery Jets Mit Saxofon when that climbed to 24, though. Feeder got to 25, somehow, and there was a ten-place climb for SCOOOO-TER! which Fearne and Reggie were even less impressed by. Flurry of new entries in the rearguard - 'Madge' at 36, presumably making We Are Scientists 'Harold' at 37, with The Music as 'Bouncer' at 38 and Flo Rida as 'Mark Little, whatever his character was called' at 40.

Albums was Coldplay O'Clock, obv, with the Fratellis winding up at 5. Various best ofs seem to have leapt up this week's chart, presumably for Father's Day. This year, fathers be diggin' Paul Simon (12), Guns N Roses (13), The Platters (15), Nickelback (not a best of, but up 13 to 19), Willie Nelson (21), Bobby Vee (22), Hall Of Oats (29) and Eddie Cochran (31). Possibly fathers are also responsible for new entries by NERD (20), Lil Wayne (23), Dolly Parton (35), Whitesnake (38) and Emmylou Harris (40). Possibly not.

More on the Ting's single, as mentioned above.

Amber and Alice played it accidentally at 45rpm, and decided they like it better that way.

the ting tings may actually be the ~worst band~ i have heard this year. her stupid voice makes me want to kill. if this is the closest these boring hos can get to dance music they shouldn't have bothered. "and the drums and the drums and the drums" ad nauseam may actually be the worst pop moment in, like, a decade or something (or maybe "EEE-EEE-EE" is worse?). also THEIR NAME WTF

Nice to see Joan As Police Woman's brilliant new album in at 56.

Also good to see "No Air" up from 74 to 22 and Bryn Christopher's not half bad "The Quest" in at 45.

Well, lex.

The kids love it.

That's good enough for me.

Mint Royale had a best of out last March. Who knew?

Can they resist the temptation to reissue you know what and give the Culture Show presenter her first number one?

You know when "A clockwork orange" was made, and how it was Malcolm McDowell's 'improv' that added "I'm Singing in the rain" while beating someone up, so Stanley Kubrick went straight out and bought the rights to the song so they could give themselves permission to use it, and not have to spend tons on performance payment, etc?

I just wonder if good old Simon used his 'insider knowledge' to nick off and buy the song off whoever bought it off Kubrick?

Morecambe and Wise, wasn't it?

Well, I guess their widows met SiCo in a dark carpark, where he says "oh, I've always loved the song, I might sing it myself"...

two weeks later, "Oh! Imagine"

If only Eric Morecambe were alive to give Cowell a good slap around his cheeks.

Actually, Si made an appointment with some shifty biz characters via locum, and found himself in a carpark staring at... George Sampson!

"OK, kid, hand over the rights. You think you pretty smart huh? Well, let's put it this way. I got some friendly faces standing next to the voting lines... Right lads?"
"Wy aye Simon man!"
"shurrup dec man, they'll hear us!"

Can they resist the temptation to reissue you know what and give the Culture Show presenter her first number one?

Hmm... given that that song was fairly explicitly about her then-boyfriend Malcolm Middleton ("it's gonna be officially summer") and Laverne is now married to someone else entirely, I'm suspecting not.

Darren Styles is number four in the album chart.

Lex otm upthread

So it's HISTORIC FIRST EVER CLODPLAH NUMBER ONE, 'Viva La Vida' skyrocketing to the top ahead of Bonnie Prince Hat, "The award for the Best Liar goes to YOU!", PLONK PLONK PLONK PLONK, Bonnie Prince Gawky, Little Miss Odourless, "Sitting on the fence-ah!", Theme From Small Child, Lady Came From Gwynedd, "But I don't even... CAY-AH-HAAAARE!!!". Reggie has decided that he now likes "No Air", you'll be delighted to find. Entirely coincidentally, "No Air" has just been added to the Radio 1 playlist.

Lots of new entries this week, and they're all shit. In full: Bussa Buss and Chessa Chess are at 14, It's Only The Bladdy Jonas Brothers Gor Blimey Guvverner at 16, Billiam (the new face of Boybanding) at 23, A Personal Journey Through Chad Kroeger's Memory With Chad Kroeger at 29, Cage The Elephant (imagine if The Script were from California - no, really!!!) at 32, and Weezer Know The Internet at 40.

You want albums? Coldplay do the one-two with the singles and albums, and come Thursday that'll be the case in the US too (unless it's already out and being outsold by My Morning Jacket). Darren Styles is the highest new entry at number four, to the complete and utter befuddlement of Fearne & Reggie ("Maybe people wanna have a dance to it?... Why?"). Feeder at 8, Sara "Double" Bareilles at 9. Things get odder past this point - Fleet Foxes at 11, Dennis Wilson at 16, Petula Clark at 17, The Music at 19, Weezer's Pinky-Reddy Album at 21, Judas Priest at 30, Th'Offspring at 39.

"Dennis Wilson at 16"

Woah!

Skydivin': this week's The BBC Man Is Not Giving The Actual IRL Public What They Want signifier. Happy Hardcore seven places above megahyped old people's music Fleet Foxes GRANDAD REITH WAKE UP!

"There's a new music that's taking over our country and it's called HAPPY HARDCORE!"

HAPPY HARDCORE >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Dad Rock any day

If only Breeze were here to share in the joy.

"Good music is supposed to be pretty and soothing."

I like to think there's room for both, really, but not in the sense of Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder living inside a piano.

NE-YO AT NUMBER ONE <3

Yup, holy crumbs and holy crikey, Ne-Yo's solved that whole "who would want to be king?" problem Coldplay were having and nabbed his second number one in the process. Back-to-back Broon, "No Air" at 3 and "Forever" at 4, with the not-exactly-explicable popularity of "Take A Bow" continuing an der funf. Then Bareilles, Cilmi, Tings, Duffy and - oh dear - that Linkin Park/Busta Rhymes monstrosity.

Highest new entry is, somehow, Ironik at 11, with Glasvegas another five places behind (the Jonases have advanced to 13, having sprayed the seed of Camp Rock all over the Billboard 100 this week). "Elevator" has climbed to 20, with "Shut Up and Let Me Go" rebounding to 24. Mariah's "Bye Bye" may be a new entry at 30, I cannot sa, but there's a shedload behind it: MGMT at 31, Freemasons at 34, Courteeners at 35 and Black Kids at 36.

This is not going to go down well around this parts, but Gabriella Cilmi's next single "Don't Wanna Go To Bed Now" is a #1 single about to happen and the best Xenomania song since Sophie Ellis-Bextor's "If You Go", i.e. better than everything off "Tangled Up" by a bloody mile.

Astonishingly (or not), Dizzee's number one in the midweeks...

2 Ne-Yo
3 Basshunter
4 Jordin & Chris THREE PLACES TOO LOW
5 Cold Plays
6 Ironik
7 Chris Brown sans Jordin
8 Rihanna
9 Sara B
10 Gabriela Clamup

New entries into the top ten album midweeks: Seth Lakeman (6), My Chemical Romance (9) and the Subways (10).

Astonishingly (or not), Dizzee's number one in the midweeks...

ugh with such a dreadful, piss-weak track as well. calvin harris needs to die

This is not going to go down well around this parts, but Gabriella Cilmi's next single "Don't Wanna Go To Bed Now" is a #1 single about to happen and the best Xenomania song since Sophie Ellis-Bextor's "If You Go", i.e. better than everything off "Tangled Up" by a bloody mile.

-- edwardo, Monday, 30 June 2008 01:03 (4 days ago) Bookmark Link

Gabriella Climi is getting a big push off a mobile phone ad as wel

brain hears 'Dance With Me' but then it switches into Jolly Music's 'Radio Jolly' or (if this is the one that samples Mohawks 'The Champ') Clockwork Voodoo Freaks 'Deaf Mick's Throwdown' from this

Clockwork Voodoo Freaks 'Deaf Mick's Throwdown' <<< love this track. I've got it on the unmixed vinyl of The Document.

were they Hardfloor in disguise? Discogs doesn't know

Dunno.

it was either that or Hardfloor ended up making a carbon copy of it as Dadamnphreaknoizephunk.

But back to the present, only 6 weeks to go until Snore Patrol's 'Chasing Cars' clocks up 100 consecutive weeks in the top 100. WHO'S PSYCHED?

Still got another 23 weeks to go if it wants to get past Big Frank.

Also, 17 of those weeks have been spent in the 76-100 section and Guinness only recognises the Top 75 so there's a reprieve of sorts.

Dizz hangs on to become the second UK rapper to have a number one single this year. Mark B & Blade for Christmas number one, YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST. The interview on the top 40 show was basically Dizzee and Chrome yelling. It were great. Ne-Yo moves aside but heads Basshunter at 3. No Air and Forever's double act continues at 4 and 5, with the mind-boggling mess of Stay With Me climbing to 6, then ClodRiGabCobblers.

Beyond thaaat... Shut Up And Let Me Go and Give It To Me make their first impressions on the top 20 at 15 and 18 respectively, Ummgummt and Freemasons climb to 22 and 23, No Substitute Love debuts at 30, and Nine'y Nine Problems re-enters at 35.

Coldplay still rule the albums. Seth Lakeman is highest new entry at 8, MCR LIVE LIVE LIVE at 12, An Eddy Grant Best Of at 14, Subways at 17, Dirty Pretty Things at 35 (yowch), G-Unit 39. Multiple albums have big rebounds, so I'm guessing there's a sale on somewhere.

More likely it's Glastonbury.

Or that, yes.

Hova not achieving Oasis-style lower half of singles chart domination shocker

neither did Oasis, by the looks of things.

Since we've reached the stage where massive drops after the first week are once again the exception rather than the norm, it's worth pointing out that The Most Important Rock Band Of The Twenty-First Century (If You're Alan McGee)'s "Geraldine" has plummeted from 16 to 42. How very 2002!

yeah, I noticed that.

I stared in total bafflement for fully five minutes at HMV's "chart" on Saturday working out how the hell "Geraldine" could be at number two.

Hova not achieving Oasis-style lower half of singles chart domination shocker.

Let's hear it for plucky little "Hard Knock Life", which creeps in at #99. "Numb/Encore" is 45 up from 64, and there's a mini-bounce for "Umbrella".

Other Glastonbury beneficiaries, and it has to be said that none of them are spectacular:

22(31) MGMT "Electric Feel", 60(100) "Time To Pretend". Not spectacular, but neither are MGMT on stage.

50(81) Elbow "One Day Like This", benefitting from the Sunset Slot and a sort of X-Factor-winner-style transient lyrical appropriateness. (Do tents come with curtains these days?)

54(-) Goldfrapp "Caravan Girl"

95(169) Vampire Weekend "A-Punk", although "Oxford Comma" only bumps up one place at 55.

58(119) The Verve "Bittersweet Symphony". Having witnessed them murder it at Nottingham Arena last year, I can no longer derive a single scrap of enjoyment from this.

63(91) Neil Diamond "Sweet Caroline". Did Glastonbury do the whole "WOH WOH WOH" / "SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!" / "WHO THE F**K IS CAROLINE?" call and response thing, as has become customary with ND's regular crowd?

64(143) Kings Of Leon "Fans".

No Glasto fairy dust for Black Kids, as the admittedly shoddy "Hurricane Jane" drops 7 (WHY do people still think that hiring Bernard Butler is in any way a good idea?) and "INGTYBHTDWY" jumps a mere 12. Having seen a bit of them looking all out of their depth on the telly, I can see why this would be so.

89(178) Hot Chip "Ready For The Floor". FWIW, friends of mine who went said that Hot Chip and Jay-Z were the best acts of the weekend.

Album beneficiaries: Ting Tings up 5, Winehouse up 6, Neil Diamond "Best Of" up 6, Eddy Grant "best of" straight in at 14 (RESULT!), Vampire Weekend up 12, The Subways straight in at 17, MGMT up 13, Elbow up 37!!!, Kings Of Leon up 41, Wombats up 28, Last Shadow Puppets up a massive 65.... but nothing from Jay-Z anywhere in the Top 100.

so the british public are rewarding three of jay-z's worst singles? and only getting dizz to no 1 with the first dreadful single of his career? even when they come round to great artists they still get an EPIC FAIL.

'spect when they get round to 'issuing' his version of the Ting's "name" you will be soo happy, right?

Eddy Grant > any other fucking bullshit in the charts

Jay-Z needs to turn his most political song into a jingle for a drinkable yoghurt range, then maybe I'll give a shit

"I got 99 problems but a britvic aint one (hit me..)"

(I know, I know)

Midweeks:

1. Dizzee Sellout
2. Basshunter
3. Ne-Yo
4. Disappointly, "No Air" despite actually having come out as a terrestrial CD single this week; I thought it might have done an about turn so this'll be another "Hey Ya!"/"Un-Break My Heart"/"1 Thing" situation.
5. Elton John and LeAnn Rimes DJ Ironik
6. Kid Rock BE VERY AFRAID (what, with all those promo copies I saw in abundance on the charity shop circuit last weekend?)
7. Chris Brown
8. Gabriela Climbevrimountain
9. Rihanna in a "Hips Don't Lie"-type situation
10. Cold and his Plays

Meanwhile, in the albums, the underwhelming Black Kids album shoots in at number four (I listened to the playback on XFM the other night and their pick of Orange Juice's "Rip It Up" kind of put the entire album to shame) and inexplicably the supradreary new Beck album Scientology Don't Don't Do It is at number five.

Hmm, I was struggling to enjoy that new Beck album only yesterday. Didn't make it beyond about 2/3rds of the way in.

Staggered by the #4 placing for the Black Kids. I'm awfully fond of them (you couldn't see them live and not be), but still subscribe to the "too much too soon" verdict.

Still not feeling "No Air".

As with White Denim I suspect Black Kids will be approx 10000000000 times better live than on record.

They've been fucking useless on all their their UK TV appearances.

Also, Bernard Butler can't produce at all.

Oh, the best Libertines tracks were the ones he produced.

Unless that just means Mick Jones was/is worse.

xpost: It was kind of agonising, watching all the dazed, shining-eyed punters queueing up after the White Denim show to buy a copy of the wholly unrepresentative album from the bass player. I had to restrain myself from issuing an Awful Warning.

ha, I know it doesn't belong here.

Actually, no I'll put this tale on the JPeel thread...

A Star Is (still) Diz (and Calv and Chro), with Basshunter and "I walked, I ran, I jumped, I flew" climbing over Ne-Yo to get to numbers two and three respectively. Angels continue to wait for a moment at number five, with Kid Rock - KID ROCK, FOR FUCK'S SAKES - getting his first ever UK top ten at 6. FYI, "Sweet Home Alabama" itself peaked at 31, but has been knocking about the top 100 on downloads for a fair amount of this year... Then it's Chris and Gabz and Ri and, unaccountably, Busta & Linkin Park, somehow taking the concept of "Give It To Me" and making it even worse.

Madonna's "Give It 2 Me" (completely different thing, of course) is at 17, one ahead of Nickelback's second top 20 hit of 2008. No, really. Better still, "Low" climbs back up 6 to 22. A thin week for newies - Kooks at 25 (ooh, it's dreadful), Sharleen Spiteri at 26 (ooh, it's reasonable) and The Last Shadow Puppets at 30 (ooh, I bought this album and have no idea why).

Clodagh Playas still atop the albums. Black Kids go in at 5, one ahead of the remarkably durable Darren Styles. Beck enters at 9, one behind the depressingly durable Nickelback. At 11, Neil Diamond's Home Before Dark departs the top ten for the first time since its release, if I'm not mistaken. Mamma Mia! prompts a sudden resurgence for ABBA Gold at 12, one ahead of Scooter, and the actual OST of Mamma Mia! is new at 35. Something must have happened last week for The Last Shadow Puppets to have climbed from 40 to 15 (not to mention Cilmi going from 34 to 20), but I genuinely can't think what.

Last Shadow Puppets were on Jonathan Ross last week, I think. Is that enough for a 25 place bump?

I've only heard two of the songs in that chart rundown, I must be skimping on the music TV channel hopping. Although I have somehow heard Scouting for Girls about twenty times this weekend, and still can't tell their songs apart.

Does anyone know why "About You Now" has suddenly roared back in at #47?

At the lower end of the album chart I note the appearance of nineties nostalgia acts Tricky at 63 and UNKLE at 70.

I was earworming "About You Now" quite a lot last week, but haven't a clue as to why. Has it been on a telly advert?

It was tearily sung at Max's funeral on Hollyoaks last week. Dunno if that would account for the boost.

Midweeks:

1 Mail on Sunday-promoting McFly straight in. For the radio, you understand.
2 Dizzee In A Cage
3 Kid Rock SOMEBODY STOP THIS NOW
4 Basshunter
5 Jordan n' Chris
6 Madonna I AM NOT CONVINCED
7 Ne-Yo
8 DJ Westlife In By The Back Door How Ironik
9 Chris Brown
10 Busta n' Linkin

Meanwhile, in the albums, three albums have SENSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATIONALLY SLAM DUNKED THEIR WAY INTO THE TOP THREE WITHIN THE LAST 72 HOURS
(a reminder of when Mark Radcliffe was still moderately funny)

At number three, hold steady, 50 Quid Man, it's the 1974-style pub rock of the Hold Steady!

At number two it's the first solo outing by sultry ex-Texas vamp Senga McGillicuddy, whoops Sharleen Spiteri, which currently is only 26 COPIES BEHIND the number one, which is:

BASSHUNTER!
(Note: not all "Happy Hardcore" is good)

Dizzee hangs on! McFly can only make runner-up spot, giving "Dance Wiv Me" three weeks atop the charts. Kid Rock climbs to three, ahead of Emo Swede House, Jord'n'Chris, Ne-Yo, World's Groin-Thrustingest 50-Year-Old, "Real lyrics!", "You're not adorable" and "Isslike Iuhuhuh!"

Only noteworthy happening in the 11-20s is "Low" somehow continuing to rebound (it's at 19 now). The Cockamamie Gobshite Brothers are at 24, Usher's Second Single Off This Album is at 35. Aside from that, it's a remarkably static, backlogged landscape, i.e. Annie never really stood a chance. I unfortunately ran out of patience trying to compare how many actual top 40 singles there have been this year compared to this point last year, but I'd bet it's a fairly big decrease.

In the albums, Basshunter deposes Coldplay, with Sharleen coming in third. ABBA Gold continues to climb - now up to 5 - and Some Billy Joel Compilation Or Other re-enters at 9. The Hold Steady's surprise appearance on Sky News is enough to get them to 15, the Mamma Mia! OST climbs to 19. Nas is new at 23, with re-entries for Adele at 32, Weezy at 35 and Pendulum at 38.

Only noteworthy happening in the 11-20s is "Low" somehow continuing to rebound (it's at 19 now)

i am ~almost~ sick of this now, my hip-hop dance tutor has played it at every class for months now, but it came on my ipod today and i was all APPLE BOTTOM JEANS, BOOTS WITH THE FURRRR and it was all ok again. she better play the new ciara single at the next class though

Midweeks - can you tell who's missing?

1 Dizzee
2 Kid Rock NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST IN ONE WEEK
3 Jordin/Chris
4 Basshunter
5 Ne-Yo
6 Ting Tings
7 DJ Ironik
8 Gabriela Climbingupagain
9 Madonna
10 Rihanna

The answer is McFly, who have plummeted from 2 to 17 and that I think will have firmly taught them not to try it.

Meanwhile, in the album chart, the exciting new album by Scots country dance band Primal Scream enters at number seven, and at number nine...

THE BEST OF THE FRIGGING BACHELORS?????!!!!!!!???????!!!!!!!!

The plummet presumably because of the free Daily Mail CD.

Still, as far as history goes, it got to number one.

.. and seeing as how the album is being released 'properly' in September, with bonus DVD and packaging, we shall see what kind of market model they are attempting and how successful it is.

Except it didn't get to number one. That was the whole point.

oh yeah.

I guess there was so much "Number one hit" hype about it, I'd defaulted to thinking it was.