So far this year, we haven’t had a chart that was dominated by records associated with the X Factor.  Not so coincidentally, ratings are down this year – albeit from stratospheric to merely very good indeed.  But if you’ve been waiting for a chart dominated by the Spawn of Cowell, this would be it.  Kind of.

First, however… Rihanna continues to defy gravity, as “We Found Love” remains at number 1, for a combined total of six weeks at number 1.  Last week I claimed that five weeks was the biggest total of the year.  That was wrong, because I forgot that “Someone Like You” by Adele also reached five weeks with an interruption.  Thoughtfully, by hanging on for another week, Rihanna has rendered me retroactively correct.  The last record to make seven weeks was “Bleeding Love” by Leona Lewis, at the tail end of 2007 – I don’t rate her chances of matching that, though, as her iTunes sales finally seem to be fading.

Two tracks from her new album also make the charts.  Number 25 is the title track “Talk That Talk”, which has also got Jay-Z on it.  No video, obviously, but her record company have put about half the album on YouTube as audio files.  And number 39 is “You Da One”, which is in the other half, so I’ll leave you to search it out yourselves.  Together with her guest appearance on “Take Care” by Drake (number 9), Rihanna once again accounts for 10% of the chart.

Once again, she has also clung on to thwart a record that was number 1 on the midweeks, only to wind up at number 2.  This time it’s “Dance With Me Tonight” by Olly Murs, the man who came second in the 2009 series.  Not that you’d know it by comparing his career with winner Joe McElderry, who was dropped a while back (though he’s since reinvented himself as a pop-opera act).  Murs also co-hosts the X Factor’s spin-off show on ITV2, for those who find two hours of it just isn’t quite enough.

This is his fifth hit in a little over a year, and follows two previous number 1s – “Please Don’t Let Me Go” and “Heart Skips A Beat”.  It’s basically the sort of happy retro thing that Bruno Mars sometimes does, and hey, there’s a market for that.  The video is fairly painful, mind you.  What could lovable Olly Murs have done to wind up in jail?  The answer will bore you!  (Thanks to the exposure, “Heart Skips A Beat” re-enters at 27 – having previously dropped to 53.)

As if to prove my point from last week that a lot of people would prefer Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling” with a bit less Flo Rida, the record it was based on – “Levels” by Avicii – enters at number 4.  It’s his third UK hit but the first to be in its original form; the other two were mash-ups.  It matches the peak of Leona Lewis’ “Collide” from September, which was based on his track “Penguin”.

And since the closest it has to an official video remains a cheerily mystifying compilation of fan-submitted cover versions, remixes and short films, I’ll take this as another opportunity to post the full version of the contribution from the two Swedish dancers, since (a) it’s got the original soundtrack on it, and more importantly (b) it’s actually pretty great.

Aside from Rihanna’s album tracks, “Levels” is the only new entry this week not connected in some way with X Factor.

Returning to our core theme, number 6 is X Factor judge Kelly Rowland, with “Down For Whatever”.  It’s another of her dance anthems.  Lyrical theme: range of options available to her beloved man.  You know the deal.  Though the title carries a presumably unintentional hint of weariness.  There’s a featured artist credit for production duo the WAVs – which is slightly odd, since there are also producer credits for RedOne and somebody else I’ve never heard of.  Perhaps the WAVs have a better agent.  It’s their first chart credit, at any rate.

Number 10 is “Nothing’s Real But Love” by Rebecca Ferguson, last year’s X Factor runner up.  It seems that Syco are taking the Coffee Table Authenticity route with this one – you know, “If you loved Adele, you’ll like this.”  So we’ve got a straight performance video, and a lead single co-written by her and Eg White.  I’m not wild about it as a song, but she does have a great voice, and at least they’re giving her the right sort of material.  I suspect she’ll be more of an albums artist in the long run.

Number 23 is a surprise re-entry for “Don’t Let Go (Love)” by En Vogue, originally a number 5 hit in 1997.  It was performed on X Factor by Little Mix – the last surviving band, who can’t entirely be blamed for their awful name, since they were going to be called Rhythmix until the charity of the same name threatened to sue.  Until now, girl bands have consistently been knocked out in the first couple of weeks, so you can understand Little Mix’s weekly display of incredulity that they’re still in the competition.

No, I didn’t recognise the movie clips in the video either.  They’re from the 1996 film Set it Off, which was a heist movie starring Jada Pinkett, Queen Latifah, Vivica Fox and Kimberly Elise, and has a rating of 66% on RottenTomatoes.com.

En Vogue were intermittently successful in the UK – they had ten hits between 1990 and 2000, with the biggest being “My Lovin'” (number 4).  Personally, I always preferred “Free Your Mind”, and am terribly disappointed to see that it only made number 16.  Coming from precisely the sort of period that teenagers are least likely to remember (before their time, but not yet caught by the tide of revival), they’re unusually well placed to re-enter the charts when their songs get exposure.