Scouting for Girls lasted two weeks at the top, and looked to have a good chance of hanging on for a third.  But as it turns out, they couldn’t quite keep up the sales for the whole week, in the face of a challenger that was gaining momentum.  On the plus side, the new number one has been climbing over a few weeks, which is the sort of thing I like to see in the chart.  It entered at number 13 three weeks ago, and had climbed up to number 2 last week.

On the down side……well, it’s “OMG” by Usher featuring will.i.am, and yet another in the line of autotuned R&B tracks from the last few years.  The YouTube version isn’t embeddable, but I can’t say I’ll lose much sleep over that.

Usher Raymond has been around since the mid-90s, and first charted in Britain with “You Make Me Wanna” in 1998.  Like many R&B acts, his chart performance in the UK hasn’t been quite as consistent as in his native America.  He regularly makes the top ten, but he’s not consistently a number 1 act.  “OMG” is his fourth UK number one, the others being the aforementioned “You Make Me Wanna”, and “Yeah!” and “Burn” from 2004.  The first two are pretty good; “Burn”, on the other hand, is a dreary ballad which I’d completely forgotten about.

This is his fourteenth top 40 hit as a lead artist, and fifteenth if you count his guest appearance on “I Need A Girl (Part One)” by P Diddy in 2002.  It also features the seemingly ubiqiutous will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas, who notches up his first number 1 credit as a solo artist.  His previous solo peak was number 2 when he guested on “Beep” by the Pussycat Dolls in 2006.  By my count, he’s now standing at eleven solo top 40 hits (one as “Zuper Blahq”), and 14 as a member of his group.  And that’s before you get on to the records he produced for other artists.

Now, in fairness, “OMG” isn’t simply a generic autotune number; it’s got those crowd noise samples, so at least there’s something different about it.  Still, it’s not a blow-away single by any means, and I really don’t see the appeal of applying that much autotune to somebody like Usher who can actually sing.  But that’s 2010 for you.  If the iTunes chart is anything to go by – and it usually is – this will only be at the top for a week, but a long reign was never on the cards after a four-week climb.

So much for that.  What else do we have?  Well, after being more or less becalmed for a month, the rest of the top 40 has finally woken up again this week, with nine new entries.  Add that to the three from last week, and we have the following unlikely collection…

• “I Need You Tonight” by Professor Green featuring Ed Drewett, new at number 3.  The latest rapper from the mixtape scene to abandon all pretence of credibility in a shameless bid for a number one hit is a former protege of the Streets, who does at least get a high chart placing for his debut hit, but at the cost of making something that borders on a novelty record.  The sample, of course, is from the 1987 hit “Need You Tonight” by INXS.
• “Acapella” by Kelis, new at number 4.  Her 15th UK hit, and her first since 2007.  It’s a rather good minimal electro track.

• “Naturally” by Selena Gomez & The Scene, new at number 7.  Selena Gomez is a Disney act, this is her first UK single, and it sounds like it would come fifth in the Eurovision Song Contest.  I don’t know much about her, but it’s the sort of video you make when you’ve got a star who can’t dance and you’re trying to disguise it in the edit.  “Just shuffle a bit, love, it’ll be fine once we’ve added the graphics.”
• “I’d Rather Be With You” by Joshua Radin, which entered at 11 last week and is holding steady.  Something for the middle aged people to nod along to on the Radio 2 breakfast show.
• “Dirty Picture” by Taio Cruz featuring Ke$ha, currently at number 12 and climbing.  About as subtle as a brick through the window, of course, but it’s actually quite decent musically.  (This version of the video is NSFW.)
• “Do-Wah-Doo” by Kate Nash, new at number 15.  Nash had three hits in 2007 and was widely compared to Lily Allen, more because of the accent than any other similarity.  This is the lead single from her new album, it’s produced by Bernard Butler from Suede, and it’s a weird lo-fi retro song which is growing on me.  Lyrically clumsy, but hell, it’s a Kate Nash single, that comes with the territory.  If that opening guitar line seems strangely familiar, you’re probably thinking of “That Time” by Regina Spektor, but the rest of the song bears no resemblance to it.

• “Skinny Genes” by Eliza Doolittle, new at number 17.  Yes, she really does call herself “Eliza Doolittle.”  She’s the granddaughter of Sylvia Young, and you don’t get much more stage school than that.  The single is incredibly twee, but it’s also quite catchy.  The sugary video does it no favours.  The YouTube version of the video is not embeddable, but for those of you who can see it, here’s the (equally official) embeddable version from DailyMotion.

• “No Tears To Cry”/“Wake Up The Nation” by Paul Weller at number 26.  The lead single from his new album, and it’s selling mainly in physical form – unusual these days, but not unheard of for acts of Weller’s generation.  This is his 32nd top 40 hit, and that’s not counting his hits with the Jam in the 70s.
• “The Only Exception” by Paramore at number 31 and climbing.  Teen angst!  Teen angst!  Quite pretty, though, and I can see the appeal.  Ultimately it’s a song about breaking out of teen angst, after all.  It’s their fourth top 40 hit.
• “Heartbeat Song” by the Futureheads at number 34.  Their seventh hit since 2004, and despite the name, they’re more of a new wave indie guitar band.  Good single, but they’ve made more interesting videos than this, so here’s the video for their 2008 single “Beginning of the Twist” instead.

• “Set the Fire to the Third Bar” by Snow Patrol & Martha Wainwright at number 36.  This was a number 18 hit in 2006, but it’s in the soundtrack to Dear John, hence the re-entry.
• “On to the Next One” by Jay-Z featuring Swizz Beats at number 38.  His 31st top 40 appearance, and one of his less commercial singles.  It’s the second hit for Swizz Beatz (who made number 34 in 2004 guesting on DMX’s “Get It On The Floor”).