I Eat Music

So, I thought Jay-Z might be able to hold on to the number one slot for more than one week. But no, that position does seem to be very slippery of late and he’s dropped down to number three, making way for Pixie Lott to have a crack at grasping on to the top. There are a couple of new entries vying for position, too. Mika is at four with ‘We Are Golden’, Mini Viva are at seven with ‘Left My Heart In Tokyo’ and Muse are at eight with ‘Uprising’.

Outside the top ten there’s less going on. Shakira is the next new entry at 25, with ‘She Wolf’, while U2 are at 32 with ‘I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy’, and Livvi Franc closes proceedings, coming in at 40 with ‘Now I’m That Chick (feat. Pitbull)’.

The album chart is just weird this week. Vera Lynn has done what she failed to do last week and knocked Arctic Monkeys of the number one spot. Just in case you didn’t get that: Vera Lynn is at number one. Vera Lyn. Vera. Lynn. At number one. At 92 years old, she is the oldest person to ever hold the position – a full 25 years older than the previous holder, Bob Dylan, who went to the top of the chart at the sprightly age of 67 in May this year.

And if that wasn’t weird enough, The Beatles have four albums in the top ten. Not to allow Vera Lynn to take all the glory, they’ve broken two records, racking up the most number of albums by a group simultaneously in the top ten, which has been held by The Monkees since 1967 (when they had three), and also the most number of albums by an act in the top 60, with sixteen. The previous holder of that record was Elvis, who had 14 albums in the top 60 in 1977, thanks to a Michael Jackson-style mass purchase of his back catalogue following his death.

It’s not all old stuff in the album chart, though. Jamie T’s second album, ‘Kings & Queens’, goes straight in at number two, and The Cribs’ latest offering, ‘Ignore The Ignorant’, their first with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, is also new at eight.

Further down the chart, there are a few non-Beatles new entries in the top 40 (though they do have a further six in addition to the four in the top ten). Beverley Knight is in at 17 with ‘100%’, Frank Turner is at 36 with ‘Poetry Of The Deed’, and Prefab Sprout (still relative newbies compared to The Beatles and Vera Lynn) are in at 39 with ‘Let’s Change The World With Music’.

And I wouldn’t be doing this properly is I didn’t keep you up to date with Mercury nominees’ chart movements. There’s little activity on that front yet, though it’s still less than a week since the award winner was announced. In reverse order, La Roux is at 34, Friendly Fires are at 32, Kasabian are at 16, are Florence And The Machine are at 12, all of which are drops from their positions last week.

The charts are compiled by the understandably quite excited Official Charts Company.

Now, obviously I’ve seen all those stories in the tabloids about JLS getting mobbed by fans, but I assumed they were some sort of joke. Or just lazy gossip columnists reprinting whatever the PR folk were telling them. But, no, it seems that JLS actually do have a lot of fans. Enough fans to not only put them at number one in the singles chart this week, but to give them the highest first week sales for a debut single this year. In fact, with 100,000 units sold, only Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Bonkers’ has sold more copies in a week than ‘Beat Again’. Who’d have thought? It also means that ‘X Factor’ has now spawned ten number one singles.

Also new in the top ten is Chicane with ‘Poppiholla’, which goes straight in at number seven, and Pitbull with ‘I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)’, which moves up from 13. New in the top 40 are Beyonce with ‘Sweet Dreams’, which is up from 52 last week, 3OH!3 with ‘Don’t Trust Me’, which is a new entry at 21, ‘Never Forget You’ by Noisettes, which moves from 41 to 30, and ‘21 Guns’ by Green Day, which moves from 60 to 40.

In the album chart, ‘The Essential Michael Jackson’ is still at number one, and the recently departed singer also holds the third and forth slots, as well, with Florence & The Machine at two and Lady GaGa at five. Although Jacko sales have tailed off a little this week, dropping to a still impressive 300,000 records, he still has five albums in the top ten, and while ‘Man In The Mirror’ has slipped to number eight in the singles chart, he still has 37 of the top 200 singles.

New entries on the album chart are Jack White’s new band Dead Weather at 14, the New Seekers’ greatest hits package at 17, Leonard Cohen’s greatest hits at 29, followed by VV Brown’s debut album ‘Travelling Like A Light’ at 30, and Billy Talent with ‘3′ at 35. It’s also worth noting that two Killers albums have re-entered the chart this week, with ‘Day & Age’ at 23 and ‘Hot Fuss’ at 39.

The charts are stuck on the fridge by the mum of The Official Charts Company and then thrown away when she thinks they’ve forgotten about them.

If this keeps up, they’re going to have to rename the charts the Michael Jackson Memorial List because, following the first full week after his death, the singer’s music has yet again made up a significant amount of record sales.

With ‘Man In The Mirror’ rising to number two in the singles chart, Jackson also managed to get five singles in the top 20, 13 in the top 40, 27 in the top 75 and a staggering 49 in the top 200. Albums-wise, he still holds the number one spot, although this week it’s with ‘The Essential Michael Jackson’, rather than ‘Number Ones’, which this week is at number three. In total, there are five Jackson albums in the top ten, eight in the top 40, and twelve in the top 200. Collectively, Jackson accounts for 600,000 record sales last week.

Of course, this means that the album which had been set for the number one spot in the midweeks, La Roux’s eponymous debut, is at number two. However, despite the number of people rushing out to spend their money on Michael Jackson, the duo still managed to gain the highest number of first week sales for a debut album this year. La Roux’s latest single, ‘Bulletproof’, drops from number one to number three this week, replaced at the top by Cascada with ‘Evacuate The Dancefloor’.

New entries in the top 40 singles chart this week come from Cascade, Jamie T with ‘Sticks N Stones’, Pitbull with ‘I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)’, Black Eyed Peas with ‘I Gotta Feeling’, and Michael Jackson with ‘Black Or White’, ‘Dirty Diana’, ‘They Don’t Care About Us’, ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’, ‘You Are Not Alone’, ‘Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough’, and ‘Bad’.

New entries in the albums top 40 are La Roux, Ali Campbell with ‘Flying High’, The Kenyan Boys Choir with ‘Spirit Of Africa’, Killswitch Engage with ‘Killswitch Engage’, and Michael Jackson with ‘The Very Best of Michael Jackson & The Jackson Five’ and ‘HIStory: Past, Present & Future Book 1′.

With the continued focus on Michael Jackson this week, particularly around his memorial service at the Staples Centre on Tuesday, the surge in sales of his music looks like it may increase again this week. It’s entirely possible that there will be even more Jacko records in the charts this Sunday.

The charts are compilated by The Official Charts Company.