For the sixth straight week, there’s a new entry at number 1.  (And according to the midweeks, there’ll be a seventh on Sunday.)  The main thing this tells us, to be honest, is that quite a few record labels have given up on the “On Air On Sale” thing and have gone back to promoting their singles in advance of release.  And frankly, they seem to be getting better results that way, at least in terms of getting a high chart placing in their first week.  And to be fair, nine out of the last ten number 1s are still on the chart, so it’s not like they’re all crashing straight out.

Oh, and if these things interest you, the last eight number one singles have all been by British acts.  Which is actually quite uncommon.

Olly Murs drops to 2 in his second week, and his replacement at number 1 is…

…“Stay Awake” by Example.  You know the idea by now: one part rapper, one part Calvin Harris.  There’s also a very slight hint of dubstep at a couple of points.  It’s not an obvious stand-out single, and it’s tempting to wonder whether he was the beneficiary of a quiet week.  In fact, he only made number 1 by a slender margin of 266 copies over Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger”, which is still gaining momentum.

This is Example’s second number one, following “Changed The Way You Kiss Me” from June, which is still on the chart at 33.  According to the midweeks, it’s dropping to 5 on Sunday – admittedly being shunted down by three major new entries, but still hardly a sign of staying power.  It’s an okay electropop single, but nothing really more than that.

Number 4 is “You Need Me (I Don’t Need You)” by Ed Sheeran, which initially looked like a contender for number 1, only to tail off as the week went on.  It’s certainly a bold follow-up to his debut single (well, debut full-scale release, anyway) “The A Team”, which made number 3 earlier in the year, and is still on the chart at number 13.  That song was a delicate acoustic ballad about prostitution.

But Ed Sheeran also has a sideline working with UK rappers. None of whom appear on the follow-up single, but the influence is pretty hard to miss.

I’ve never been a fan of Stock Rap Lyric 17B (The Awesomeness That Is Me And My Career), but the genre-mashing makes this fun.  It’s actually a remix of one of his indie releases with a heavier beat added – the original presumably sounds more like this live version – but on any view it’s a hell of a U turn from “The A Team”.  I’m actually struggling to think of the last time somebody released a follow-up single so unlike a successful debut.  Personally, I was rather hoping it would got to number 1, but so it goes.

Number 9 is “Lick Ya Down” by Cover Drive, the debut release from a Bajan group who Polydor will no doubt be positioning as some kind of crossover act, though the group themselves more realistically cite the likes of No Doubt as influences.  This looks to be flaring out pretty quickly – it’s at 21 on the midweeks – but it’s a decent pop song.

The only other new entry this week is “Turn Me On” by David Guetta featuring Nicki Minaj, which lands at number 20.  Although Guetta released a string of singles from his album “Nothing But The Beat” in advance of its release, this isn’t one of them – the album itself is now out, and “Turn Me On” is the track that people are cherrypicking, presumably because it’s got the high profile guest star (albeit drenched in the usual levels of vocal processing you’d expect from Guetta), though it’s got a good chorus too.  It’s actually hanging around in the midweeks, so it might yet turn into a full-blown hit even without full-scale promotion.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the singles and album charts really are diverging at the moment.  While Guetta’s album is at number 2, there are four other new entries in the albums top ten, none of which has produced a hit single.  That’s perhaps not surprising in the case of the number 10 album (Dolly Parton’s “Better Day”), but you might have expected some presence on the singles chart from the other three.  Number 9 is “Tha Carter IV” by Lil Wayne – two singles were released but both failed to make the top 40.  Number 6 is “A Different Kind of Fix” by indie group Bombay Bicycle Club; the lead single “Shuffle” peaked at 64.  And number 1 is “I’m With You” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers; the single “Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie” just missed the top 40.  All of them, it seems, with loyal audiences who buy the albums, but not so much interest from the more casual buyers on the singles chart.