It’s a podcast weekend, so check that out in the post below.  Nearly two hours long, this one.

So then.  We skipped last week’s chart, which was the last one to be announced on a Sunday, before the music industry’s “Global Release Date” scheme harmonised all new releases on a Friday around the world.  So from here on, the chart will be announced on a Friday afternoon.  It gets a shorter slot on Radio 1 – cut from three hours to 1h45 – but it’s actually a significant trade up.  Listening figures are much higher on a Friday afternoon, and besides, playing the entire chart is just not a sensible format in these days of streaming media, and in an era when the chart itself is relatively slow.

The Sunday night slot is a British tradition – Radio 1 has been playing the entire chart in that slot since 1962 – but like Top of the Pops, it’s long outstayed its usefulness.  And the significance of that Sunday slot is easy to overstate, because although the chart was calculated on the basis of a Sunday-to-Saturday week, it wasn’t actually possible to turn around the calculations in 24 hours until 1987.  Before then, the chart was actually announced on Tuesday, so the Sunday night show was playing the chart from the previous week.  Things moved more slowly in the analogue age.

Given the above, this week’s chart is an oddity – a five day chart week running from Sunday to Thursday.  One side effect is that singles whose sales were front-loaded at the start of the week have less time to be affected by things tailing off – which might explain why we have an uncharacteristic cluster of new entries at the top.

36.  Pharrell Williams – “Freedom” 

This is a launch-week exclusive for Apple Music, charting entirely on streams.  The actual video is also exclusive to Apple Music.  The weighting of streams to sales means that it’s pretty difficult to make significant headway on streams alone, but I assume it’ll climb after getting a full release.

30.  Petite Meller – “Baby Love”

The charts have been noticeably short of anything even mildly eccentric of late.  Musically, this is a pretty mainstream piece of dance-pop (and a good one at that), but Meller is at least interested in doing something a bit odd with her persona.  She’s apparently from London originally, but is currently studying philosophy at the Sorbonne, if you believe the interviews.

14.  Nathan Sykes – “Kiss Me Quick”

A member of The Wanted releases a solo single.  It’s a Radio 2 record trying to sound like it belongs on Radio 1.  A number 14 debut suggests that a thriving solo career does not await, and it’s already on its way out of the iTunes top 40.

9.  Krept & Konan featuring Jeremih – “Freak of the Week”

Entered last week and holds steady.  Rather surprisingly, this gives Jeremih two simultaneous hits, since he’s also on Natalie La Rose’s “Somebody”.  Krept & Konan, making their chart debut, are UK rappers, who won Best Newcomer at the Mobos two years ago.  Presumably that was on the strength of less forgettable material than this.  The album enters at 2 this week, mind you, so there’s clearly some steam behind them.

8.  Birdy – “Wings”

Climbing from 31 last week.  Technically it’s a re-entry, because the chart doesn’t distinguish between difference versions of the same song by the same artist, and Birdy’s original version – which basically sounds like Coldplay – got to number 16 in 2013.  This acoustic version is being used in an ostensibly inspirational advert for Lloyds Bank.

At least Lloyds is only commemorating 250 years of its own existence.  For a really extraordinary disconnect between the sentiment and the actual product being advertised, the effort below is tough to beat.

7.  Rita Ora – “Poison”

I really don’t think those lyrics stand up to being portentously recited while the video direct product-places headphones.  (The song starts about 50 seconds in.)

It’s been over a year since Rita Ora last released a single in her own right, following the setbacks in the production of her second album.  She’s kept up her profile with guest appearances and a role as a judge on The Voice; she’s jumping to X Factor (in decline but still a big ratings draw) next season.  So in a dead week for new releases, I’m suspecting she was hoping for a number 1.  She didn’t get it, landing instead at 3 before dropping this time round.

This is co-written by Kate Nash, best known for the 2007 hit “Foundations”; she’s still releasing her own records, but hasn’t made the album or singles top 75 since 2010.

4.  Lost Frequencies – “Are You With Me”

This was number 1 last week, as the turnover at the top seems set to pick up again.  Incidentally, I was apparently wrong when I said a couple of weeks ago that this was sampled from Easton Corbin’s original; apparently the commercial release, at least, features a soundalike cover standing in for the sample.

If you do a lot of pub quizzes, you might want to make a mental note of this one, because it now holds an unlikely record for the shortest ever run at number 1 – less than a week.

3.  Fifth Harmony featuring Kid Ink – “Worth It”

Well, that’s a big improvement on their first UK hit “Boss”, which only got to number 21.  But then name checking Michelle Obama was probably never going to travel abroad.  No such problem with this one, which is straight out of Brett Domino’s “How To Make A Hit Pop Song, Part 1” playbook.

Kid Ink (he’s big on tattoos) also gets his second UK hit, after “Show Me” got to 23 in 2013.  That had Chris Brown on it, which probably explains its anomalous top 40 appearance in a career that has otherwise failed to trouble the British singles chart.

2.  Years & Years – “Shine”

The follow-up to “King”, which was a number 1 earlier in the year.  Given a couple more days, you never know, they might have made it to the top.  At any rate, the people who put them on the 2015 ones-to-watch lists will be pleased that they seem to have backed at least one winner.  Perhaps they’ve found a gap in the market for something a shade more song-oriented than the typical EDM dance-pop that’s been the dominant mode for the last couple of years.

1.  David Zowie – “House Every Weekend”

Bloke from Kent who’s made a house record.  “David Zowie” is apparently not a pseudonym, but his real first and middle names; his dad was just a huge David Bowie fan.  I assume everyone knows this, but Zowie was the name of David Bowie’s son – well, his middle name, but apparently he did use it until he was an adult, when he understandably decided to go with “Duncan Jones”.  The vocal is a sample, obviously, but it’s surprisingly hard to pin down precisely where it came from.  Beyond that, it’s an odd little footnote in chart history which would have been unlikely to make number 1 but for the unlikely circumstances of a five-day week.  The midweeks (which now come out on Monday) show it dropping straight out of the top five – not something we regularly see for number 1 hits these days – and I’m pretty sceptical that it would have hung on at the top if there had been another two days’ sales counted.

On the album chart:

• “X” by Ed Sheeran is number 1 again.
• “The Long Way Home” by Krept & Konan at 2.
• “Young Blood” by Saint Raymond at 8.  Debut album by a singer-songwriter who’s been around for a few years, supporting the likes of Sheeran.  Single: “Come Back to You”.
• “Work it Out” by Lucy Rose at 9.  Another singer-songwriter, this one loosely associated with the better-known Bombay Bicycle Club.  This is her second album; “Like I Used To” got to 13 back in 2012.  Single: “Our Eyes”.
• “Perpetual Motion People” by Ezra Furman at 23.  Chart debut, but it’s his sixth album (if you count three as “Ezra Furman & The Harpoons”).  Single: “Restless Year”.