For the second week running, this was supposed to be a nice clear run at the top for the new single from a major pop group.  And once again, it hasn’t quite happened.

1.  fun featuring Janelle Monae – “We Are Young”

This has been out for weeks, originally entering at 7 and moving 3-3-3-5-2-1 to get to the top.  It’s an unexpected result because it was 10,000 copies behind in the midweeks, but boy bands do have a tendency to flare out after their initial sales surge.

Fun probably won’t have a second week at the top – they’re already down to 3 on iTunes – but a single week is still fine as the climax of seven weeks’ climbing.  The question is now is whether they go down as one-hit wonders – though the follow-up single “Some Nights” has already charted in a couple of territories, so their chances are reasonable.

Notable climbers this week: “Remedy” by Professor Green from 27 to 18, “Princess of China” by Coldplay & Rihanna from 30 to 20, and “Bangarang” by Skrillex from 32 to 24.

2.  The Wanted – “Chasing The Sun”

Number one in the midweeks, but it really tailed off.  iTunes already has it down at 7.  To be fair, the Wanted have a reasonable track record for releasing singles that gain a second wind later on, when a broader audience hear them on the radio.  It’s always possible the same could happen here, though I wouldn’t rate this as one of their better singles.

The Wanted have two previous number ones – “All Time Low” in 2010 and “Glad You Came” in 2011.  This song is co-written by Example, which you might well have guessed just by listening to it.  Rather bizarrely, it is also from the soundtrack of Ice Age: Continental Drift.  American audiences will know the Wanted from their single “Glad You Came”, which reached number 3 on the Billboard chart last year – though they’ve yet to land any follow-up.

7.  Paloma Faith – “Picking Up The Pieces”

Paloma Faith Blomfield is an English singer-songwriter who had a couple of middling hits back in 2009 from her first album, “Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful”.  The bigger one was “New York”, which only reached 15, but did spend 7 weeks on the chart, and got a fair amount of radio play.  The remaining singles from that album didn’t chart, and she hasn’t had anything out since.  But the album did make number 9, and eventually went platinum.  Hence increased interest in the lead single from her second album.  Fortunately, it’s also probably the strongest single she’s released to date.  It’s holding up alright on the iTunes chart, so this might yet stick around for a while.  I see her as mainly an albums act anyway, so a top 10 single is probably just a welcome bonus for her.

11.  Jennifer Lopez ft Pitbull – “Dance Again”

Believe it or not, the record industry has decided that this week, the world needs two new Pitbull singles.  This is one of them.  Obviously, it’s terrible.  It’s not from any of Lopez’s existing albums; there’s supposedly still some doubt as to whether it’s going on a greatest hits album or on an upcoming studio album.

Lopez and Pitbull previously appeared together on the 2011 number one “On The Floor”, which was similarly dreadful.

23.  Pitbull – “Back In Time”

Yeah, because when they decided to commission a throwaway pop-rap single to promote Men In Black 3, I’m sure the first person they asked was Pitbull…  Mind you, it’s better than the Jennifer Lopez single.  Just about.  The dubstep break at 2:55 is pretty unforgivable, even so.

The sample is from “Love Is Strange” by Mickey & Sylvia; in Britain, the Everly Brothers’ version of the song is better known, and reached number 11 in 1965.  “Love is Strange” was itself a case of proto-sampling, since the guitar riff was recycled from “Billy’s Blues” by Billy Stewart (though he didn’t write it; that was Jody Williams).

27.  Gavin DeGraw – “I Don’t Want To Be”

Um, yes.  Gavin DeGraw has had a few hits in America, but in Britain, he’s pretty much unknown.  This is the theme to One Tree Hill, and has been since 2003.  It spent a single week at number 38 in 2005, and until now, that was the whole of DeGraw’s chart record in this country.  This seems to be back in the chart because E4 finally got around to airing the last episode of One Tree Hill in the previous week.

31.  Kylie Minogue – “Timebomb”

This was released on Friday, so the number 31 placing is not bad.  It’s promoting a bunch of things that Minogue is doing to commemorate 25 years in the music industry, including such oddities as a tour where she’ll be playing exclusively B-sides.  And it’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from a Kylie Minogue lead single, though that’s no bad thing.  Kind of surprised they’ve just thrown it out there like this, but it’s going to climb big next week.

36.  Martin Solveig – “The Night Out” 

This is Solveig’s fifth hit (the first two coming way back in 2004, but the best known is last year’s “Hello”).  Although the chart lumps all versions of the track together, most of the UK airplay has actually been for the remix by Madeon, the French production wunderkind who charted in his own right with “Icarus” in March.  It’s very shimmery and 80s.