I Eat Music

Oh look, The Black Eyed Peas are number one again. After eight weeks on the chart, ‘Meet Me Halfway’ has wormed its way to the top, denying Leona Lewis the chance to go straight in at number one with ‘Happy’. She’ll never get that opportunity again, Peas. Not with that song, anyway. Why do you have to ruin everything?

Urgh, let’s just look at the rest of the chart and try to forget what Will.i.am et al have done. If we can. Other new entries in the top ten come from N-Dubz at five, Britney Spears at seven, and Sugababes at eight.

Further down, Robbie has a new entry at seventeen, with album track, ‘You Know Me’ (possibly a hint at what’s coming up in the second half of this chart update), Pixie Lott is in at 25 with ‘Cry Me Out’, and Chartjackers fail to really live up to their name by stopping at 36 with ‘I’ve Got Nothing’.

Now, albums. We heard all last week that Robbie Williams was well on the way to going straight in at number one with his new album, ‘Reality Killed The Video Star’, so it will come as no surprise to you when I tell you that JLS are this week’s number one. That’s right, JLS. Come on, I know Robbie’s not actually very good at singing, but he doesn’t deserve that. He is at number two, though, beating Snow Patrol into third place. Both Robbie and JLS shifted over 200K units to secure their chart positions, making last week a rather big one in terms of album sales.

Also new amongst the top selling LPs are Biffy Clyro at eight and Rod Stewart at ten. Below them, Jamie Cullum is in at sixteen, Miley Cyrus just behind at seventeen, and Shirley Bassey at 20. Below that, everyone has fallen at least one place (except Lady Gaga, who’s sticking at 36), making them all failures in my eyes.

The charts are packed full of failure and disappointment by The Official Charts Company.

Hallelujah! There’s a new number one. Last year’s ‘X-Factor’ winner Alexandra Burke has gone straight to the top of the singles chart with her second single, ‘Bad Boys’, which feature bonus rap-style vocalisations by Flo Rida. Not only has it shot straight to number one, but the single has racked up the highest first week sales this year, selling 185,000 copies, more than double the amount shifted by the previous holder of that crown, Dizzee Rascal with ‘Bonkers’.

Alexandra is followed by another new entry at number two, Robbie Williams with ‘Bodies’. There have been some who’ve said that this (ie second place) means Robbie’s big comeback has been a flop. But in any other week, 90,000 sales would have comfortably put him at the top and everyone would have clapped and said how great it was that Robbie is back on top. So be quiet for the moment, will you?

Look, here’s what The Official Charts Company’s MD, Martin Talbot had to say: “To have two such strong singles in one week is phenomenal and demonstrates how many people are passionate about great records”. I’m not sure “great” is quite the right word, but you get the point.

Also new in the top ten is Michael Buble at nine with ‘Haven’t Met You Yet’, while in the rest of the top 40 other new entries come from (deep breath) Lostprophets with ‘It’s Not The End Of The World But I Can See It From Here’ at 16, Mr Hudson with ‘White Lies’ at 20, Editors with ‘Papillon’ at 23, Black Eyed Peas with ‘Meet Me Halfway’ at 26, The Big Pink with ‘Dominos’ at 29, Jennifer Hudson with ‘And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going’ at 32, and Medina with ‘You And I’ at 39.

It’s all change at the top of the album chart, too. Editors have kicked like a sleep twitch all the way to number one with their third album, ‘In This Light And On This Evening’, while Chipmunk steps up to number two with his debut, ‘I Am Chipmunk’. Shakira, meanwhile, is new at four with ‘She Wolf’ and The Saturdays complete the top ten’s new entries for this week with ‘Wordshaker’ at nine.

Moving on, Taio Cruz goes straight in at 14 with his debut, ‘Rokstarr’, crap-puntastic choir Only Men Aloud are at 21 with ‘Band Of Brothers’, Amy Winehouse’s god daughter Dionne Bromfield is in at 33 with ‘Introducing’, The Veronicas are in at 35 with ‘Hook Me Up”, Blake are at 38 with ‘Together’, and bringing up the rear is Bob Dylan with his dubious Christmas album, ‘Christmas In The Heart’. This is probably fitting, as all the Christmas decorations seem to have gone up in London this weekend. Apparently this isn’t painfully premature at all.

The charts are decked with boughs of holly by The Official Charts Company.

Spotify’s long-awaited iPhone app will appear on iTunes in the next few days after making it through Apple’s review process, seemingly without any significant changes from the original submission.

A spokesperson for Apple told paidContent yesterday afternoon: “The current status as of right now is it’s been approved and we hope to add the app to the more than 65,000 apps on the app store very soon. We’ve been in constant communication working with the developer and have already notified Spotify that the app will be in the app store very soon”.

Spotify chief Daniel Ek added via Twitter: “Yes, I can confirm that Apple has approved the app. We’re happy but have had a great dialogue with Apple all the way. They’ve been great!” And, although it’s not yet available to the public, he posted ‘I Gotta Feeling’ by Black Eyed Peas to Twitter using the app. It’s not clear if this is because he was hinting that there’s more news on the horizon, or if he just has terrible taste in music.

As previously reported, the app will allow Spotify premium subscribers (that’s the seven or so people who’ve opted to pay £10 a month to get the service ad-free) in the UK, Sweden, France, Spain, Norway and Finland to not only stream music, but also cache playlists for offline listening. This latter feature led some to call the app an “iTunes killer”. But as we all know, people who use that phrase are usually idiots who don’t know what they’re talking about.

While it’s unlikely that it will topple iTunes’ dominance in the music download field, it is likely to sell a lot of iPhones, which is good news for Apple. It’s even better news for Spotify, as this, and its other forthcoming mobile apps, are likely to be the key to convincing more people to sign up for their paid service.

Take a look at the app here:

The Black Eyed Peas have bounced back up to number one in the singles chart this week, after being knocked off by that pesky Tinchy Stryder last week. His single, ‘Never Leave You’ leaves the top spot and heads down to number two.

There are two new entries in the top ten, with Calvin Harris’ ‘Ready For The Weekend’ at three and Peter Andre with ‘Behind Closed Doors’ at four. Because you don’t necessarily need talent to sell records, you just need to break up with Jordan. Little Boots also slips in there at ten, up from last week’s 14.

New in the bits of the top 40 that aren’t the top ten are Jeremih with ‘Birthday Sex’ at 17, David Guetta and Akon with ‘Sexy Girl’ at 21, and, breaking from the sex theme, Ian Brown with ‘Stellify’ at 31. Lilly Allen also takes a sidestep up to 37 from 44 with ‘22′. So many numbers. If you’re still following this, give yourself a lollipop.

Michael Jackson remains at number one in the album chart, with ‘The Essential Michael Jackson’. The recently deceased singer still has two other albums in the top 20 and seven in the top 50.

The only new entry in the top ten this week is the 20th anniversary re-issue of The Stone Roses’ eponymous debut. Other than that, there’s only one more new entry on the album chart this week, with The Temper Trap hobbling in at 32 doing their best Maroon 5 impression on their debut album, ‘Conditions’.

The chart is, like, um, I guess you’d say put together, or something. Yeah, like, they put it together. You know, so it’s all in order and that. Yeah? Anyway, The Official Charts Company, they do that. Put it in order.

We’ve got a new number one again this week, those Black Eyed Peas only having managed one week at the top. And it’s that Tinchy Stryder fella who’s knocked them off their perch.

Now, we all know what happened last time Tinchy was at number one. He reached that position with a single called ‘Number One’. And by doing so he threatened the universe, and reality as a whole, when ‘Number One’ was knocked off number one. With metaphysical disaster averted at the last minute only a few months ago, Tinch isn’t risking getting himself into a situation like that again. His latest single is called ‘Never Leave You’.

Oh no, hang on. What happens when ‘Never Leave You’, leaves the number one position? Tinchy, you fool! You’re risking all our lives with your reckless naming of your songs. Sorry, I’m so furious I’m not sure I can continue with this week’s chart update. No, it’s okay, I will.

Also new in the top ten this week is the Ian Carey Project with ‘Get Shaky’ at number ten. Other than that there are no new entries in the top 40. None. Not even one. How very boring. Let’s just go and look at the album chart instead. Maybe that’s more exciting.

Okay, Michael Jackson is still at number one with ‘The Essential Michael Jackson’. Florence & The Machine are still at number two with ‘Lungs’. The first new entry this week is Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’, which arrives on the chart, dragging its heals, a full six week’s after Jacko’s death, when the likes of ‘Thriller’ and various best ofs have been living it up the whole time.

Next up is ‘The Best Of Chicane’, a collection of Chicane’s best tracks, apparently. Also new are Frankmusic at 13 with ‘ Complete Me’ and The Twang at 20 with ‘Jewellery Quarter’.

The charts, even the incredibly boring ones, are compiled by The Official Charts Company.