This chart ends up rather quieter than the midweeks seemed to promise.  Outside the top 40, it’s worth noting “Home” by Leah McFall featuring will.i.am, in which the overpunctuated producer nobly attempts to help launch the career of one of the acts he mentored during the last season of The Voice (and who he plainly thought should have won).  Remarkably, Radio 1 hasn’t supported the record even though the BBC1 show could use all the help it can get.  But to be fair, whatever airplay it got on independent radio hasn’t done it much good either.  Result: number 56.  That’s astonishing for a record which really isn’t bad, which was on a major label, and which was promoted by will.i.am.  It tends to suggest that The Voice UK is now an outright toxic brand in terms of mainstream pop music.

37.  Vic Mensa – “Down on my Luck”

The first proper single release by a guy  from Chicago who used to be in a group called Kids These Days, and who Wikipedia lists as being principally a rapper.  This is closer to the sort of house track that’s been doing well in the charts this year.  He’s had mix tapes out before, and he’s also taken the route of releasing a bunch of videos to YouTube before going for the broader market – here he is with Eliza Doolittle, of all people, from last year.  It was at 22 in the midweeks, so we can be pretty confident it won’t be back.

15.  Bakermat – “One Day (Vandaag)”

Obviously, when Martin Luther King made his “I Have a Dream” speech, his major oversight was the omission of a Eurodance backing track and a saxophone solo.  Dutch producer Bakermat has now rectified this injustice.  It got to number 1 in France, and made the top five in Holland, Austria, Belgium and Germany… but still.  Leave aside the sample, and it’s along similar lines to Klingande’s “Jubel”, which did it better and had the advantage of coming first.

The original Dutch title “Vandaag” means “Today”, not “One Day” – you have to wonder whether somebody at the UK label just took a guess.

10.  Melissa Steel featuring Popcaan – “Kisses for Breakfast”

Melissa Steel charted a couple of weeks back as the guest singer on Kove’s “Way We Are”, which got to number 30.  Her own first single is completely unlike that, being a serviceable pop-reggae track.  It was number 5 in the midweek so it hasn’t exactly sustained its sales.  That’s Jamaica in the video; Steel herself, however, is from Bradford.

Popcaan is a dancehall artist who’s been recording in Jamaica since 2007.  In 2010, he appears on “Clarks” by Vybz Kartel, which Wikipedia boldly credits with “caus[ing] a worldwide spike in sales of the British shoe”.

5.  Bars & Melody – “Hopeful”

A pair of teenagers who came third in Britain’s Got Talent this year.  This was their audition piece; it’s a cover of “Hope” by Twista featuring Faith Evans, re-written as an anti-bullying crusade.  “Hope” was originally a number 25 hit in 2005, though it resurfaced at number 39 in the week of the kids’  TV appearance.  Bars and Melody are from Bristol and Port Talbot and the official story has them meeting online, though their rather odd decision to audition in Manchester and Simon Cowell’s instant glowing endorsement do rather suggest that they might have been headhunted somewhere along the line.

Regardless, they’re actually perfectly competent, but in an adorably “they’re imitating this very well” sort of way.  It’s not a subtle record, obviously, and the obligatory Cowell Key-Change does little to mitigate that.  It was 2 in the midweeks, winds up at 5 on the Sunday, and looks set to make a swift exit from the chart; so if Simon really wants to get a decent career out of these guys, he may need to look carefully at the second single.  Of course, this being Simon Cowell, it’s entirely possible that their record contract has already served its purpose.

3.  Zhu – “Faded”

Number 3 is really not bad at all for a record you can hear for free on Soundcloud.  Zhu is officially an anonymous deep house producer, though the conventional wisdom is that he’s hitherto obscure remixer Stephen Zhu – Do Androids Dance gives some pretty compelling reasons why.  Obviously, anyone really concerned about anonymity would be unlikely to choose their own surname; this looks to be more a case of creating an air of mystery to get attention, and a very successful one.  It’s anti-promotion, a risky strategy but a great one when it pays off.  As for the record, it’s good – the schtick wouldn’t have worked otherwise.

1.  Magic! – “Rude”

Yes, a climber to number 1 – the first time we’ve had that in quite a while.

Oh, alright – let’s go back and work it out.  Well, it’s the first record to climb to number 1 since “Waves” by Mr Probz returned to the top in May, but that record entered at number 1 to start with.  For a record that actually climbed to number 1 in the full sense, you’re going back to “Happy” at the start of the year.

It won’t manage a second week, judging from iTunes.

On the album chart:

• “X” by Ed Sheeran is number 1 for a sixth week.
• “The Breeze (An Appreciation of JJ Cale)” by Eric Clapton & Friends at 3.  The subtitle pretty much explains it.  The “friends” are the likes of Tom Petty, Mark Knopfler and Willie Nelson.  Video: “Call Me The Breeze” (a cover of Cale’s 1972 song, unusual at the time for being a blues track using a drum machine).
• “Hypnotic Eye”by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers at 7.  That’s unusually high – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers haven’t made the top 10 since 1991, and their last album got to 38.  But, as I’ve said many times before, the slow death of the albums market has less effect on bands with this audience demographic.  There are no official videos for this, so here’s a performance of “U Got Me High” on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
• “Welcome to the Jungle” by Neon Jungle at 8.  Given that they’re plainly not primarily an albums act, that’s not bad.
• “Sorry I’m Late” by Cher Lloyd at 21.  With the single “Sirens” having missed the top 40, this is looking like a bit of a disaster.