The phone-voting juggernaut that is X Factor is upon us once again.  Of course, we’ll be in the audition shows for a while yet (and so far, they haven’t generated any surprise hits from the back catalogue).  But this is always a good time of year to have an album out, if you’re connected with the show.

Last year’s winner, Matt Cardle, will presumably have his first “proper” single out in time for the first live show, that being the way these things usually work.  So it falls to 2009 runner-up Olly Murs to land this week’s number 1, with the unexpectedly acceptable “Heart Skips A Beat”.

That’s Simon Cowell’s view of credibility, right there – a man in a slightly quirky hat, standing in front of a tower block, an underage skateboarder and some graffiti.  But it’s a good little pop song, for all that.

Olly Murs is an interesting example of why X Factor doesn’t really work as a vehicle for discovering pop stars.  The fundamental problem is that the voting public don’t match the record-buying public.  When the voting was released for his season, it became clear that Murs never had a hope in hell of winning; the eventual winner, Joe McElderry, had a commanding lead for almost the whole series.  (Which is why they don’t release voting numbers until the contest is over.)  But McElderry was dropped like a stone after his barely-promoted third single missed the top 40.  Why?  Because fundamentally, he’s not a pop star; he’s somebody who ought to be performing in the west end.  And because everyone knew that, so they didn’t put too much effort into promoting his first album anyway.

Don’t feel too bad for McElderry, by the way.  Once free of his contract with Simon Cowell, he turned up in ITV’s unusual talent contest Popstar to Opera Star (no, seriously, that’s a real show), won it comprehensively, and has just released a pop classical album which enters the album chart this week at number 2.  He’ll be fine, now that he’s doing something more suited to him.

But there is certainly a case to be made that winning X Factor is not necessarily the best thing for your career.  Of the seven winners to date, only three – Shayne Ward, Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke – have had any sort of lasting success.  It’s too early to tell how Matt Cardle does, and the other three – McElderry, Leon Jackson and Steve Brookstein – crashed and burned spectacularly.

Olly Murs, on the other hand, is still making records.  JLS, the 2008 runners-up, have actually had the most consistent chart performance of anyone who started out on the show – which is a bit embarrassing, considering that Cowell declined his option on them, and they were picked up by a rival label.  Stacey Solomon, who came third behind Murs, has managed to launch some sort of half-baked TV presenting career.  Even Cher Lloyd and Diana Vickers have launched careers on the back of their fourth-placed eliminations.  Last year’s runner-up Rebecca Ferguson was also picked up, and she has an album due in November (i.e., so they can promote it on the live shows).  So were last year’s third-placed group, One Direction, whose debut single will be out shortly.  (In a display of utter chutzpah, Cowell has already released two authorised biographies of One Direction, despite the fact that they’re a teenage boy band who were manufactured from random X Factor entrants, and have done literally nothing of note outside the show.)

The point being: if you seem to have some marketability in the real world and you can make it to the final five, you’ll probably be alright.  If you don’t seem to have any marketability in the real world then winning the show won’t change that.  Hopefully, whoever wins this year’s show is smart enough to understand that reality.

“Heart Skips a Beat” is Olly Murs’ fourth hit and his second number one (following “Please Don’t Let Me Go” a year back).  It also has a featured artist credit for Rizzle Kicks, who are still in the top 10 with their debut “Down With The Trumpets”, so everything’s looking really quite healthy for them right now.

Number 2 is “Feel So Close” by Calvin Harris, which is a slight change of pace from his usual retro-80s electro.  Well, for the first minute or so, at any rate.  One of his more wistful numbers, half dancefloor track, half song fragment.  It’s got one of those smalltown America videos that British artists keep commissioning for some strange reason.  Oddly enough, there’s two of them on this week’s chart.

“Feel So Close” is his ninth UK hit, and it matches the peak of previous single “Bounce”, which is still on the chart at number 32.

Returning to the TV talent contests, number 5 is “Jealousy” by Will Young, the winner of the very first Pop Idol, way back in 2002.  This is the lead track from his new album “Echoes”, which enters the album chart at number 1 this week.

Young was something of a surprise winner at the time, since loveable Gareth Gates was generally assumed to be a surefire winner.  But Gates is long gone, and Young is still here after nine years, so the voting public must have had their heads screwed on that year.  After doing his contractual-obligation cash-in album, Will Young has settled into an entirely respectable career as a purveyor of above-average MOR music, with a sideline in commissioning some of the strangest videos his genre has ever produced.  I still think the video for “Friday’s Child” is a magnificent piece of work, just because it’s so odd in such a politely understated way, and has such a great ending.  (There’s also a version where instead of giving the interview at the end, everyone just walks off, and he turns around and walks back to the sea.)

But I think I’ve embedded that one before, so instead let’s have “Who Am I”, which, in magnificently stubborn defiance of its complete disconnection from the music, inserts him into old episodes of Blue Peter.

Further down the chart, number 15 is the other smalltown America video I mentioned – “The Death of You & Me” by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, the lead single from what’s essentially a Noel Gallagher solo album.  He’s had 26 previous hits with Oasis, and while there’s a definite change of tone here, it’s fair to say his Beatles influences haven’t deserted him yet.  Curiously, though he’s appeared as a heavily promoted guest star on several other singles, most notably “Setting Sun” by the Chemical Brothers, he wasn’t officially credited as a featured artist on any of them.  (He was credited as a guest star on “Is” by Smaller in 1997, but that didn’t make the top 40.)

Number 18 is “Party All Night (Sleep All Day)” by Sean Kingston, which came out last December and bombed.  It’s belatedly charting because it’s in the Inbetweeners movie.

At number 24, “What The Water Gave Me” by Florence & Machine, the lead single from their second album.  This was nowhere to be seen on the midweeks, so it’s obviously been gaining sales.  The iTunes chart suggests it’s going to go further.

Finally, number 35 is “Night of Your Life” by David Guetta featuring Jennifer Hudson, which is the final promo track from Guetta’s upcoming album.  (Lady Gaga’s strategy of dumping a slew of singles onto the market before officially releasing the album seems to be catching on.)  It’s the fourth UK hit for Jennifer Hudson, though only 2008’s “Spotlight” did more than graze the chart.  Some people are saying it’s suspiciously similar to “Only Girl In The World”, which is a bit harsh, but it has to be said that they do mix together very, very easily.

No significant climbers this week, though a number of singles are still crawling up the charts – the closest any of them come to being notable is “Marry You” by Bruno Mars, now at 11 – quite impressive considering it isn’t officially a single at all, just an unusually popular album track.