This week's Official UK Singles Chart
This week's Official UK Albums Chart
If it is indeed the ambition of the X Factor producers to have the winner of their competition replace themselves at Number One, it will have to wait another year. The inevitably short-term appeal of the X Factor charity single simply wasn't enough to sustain it for a second week of chart-topping sales and as their early week lead turned into a narrow deficit by Friday it was clear that its status as the biggest selling single of the week was by no means assured.
So it proves, as after two weeks locked in the runners-up position, Olly Murs (himself a former X Factor runner up) finds his patience rewarded and ascends to Number One with Dance With Me Tonight. It is his second Number One hit of the year (following Heart Skips A Beat back in September) and the third of his career - enough to draw him level with both Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke but still behind the five (plus technically this year's charity single) which JLS have to their name as the most successful product of the TV series so far.
Two brand new singles arrive lower down the UK Top 10 this week, the way lead by Dedication To My Ex (Miss That) by Lloyd featuring Andre 3000 and Lil Wayne. Despite being on his fourth album since he left R&B group N-Toon in 2004, this is his first ever British hit single as a lead artist. His one and only Top 40 appearance prior to this was as co-singer on Ja Rule's 2005 hit Caught Up which peaked at Number 20. Prior to today his highest placing as a lead or solo act was the Number 45 peak of You in June 2007.
Our other new Top 10 entry of the week is a similarly delayed arrival as T-Pain's much anticipated single 5 O'Clock arrives at Number 6. Although American readers will be more than familiar with many of the tracks from his album RevolveR thanks to a blizzard of promo releases as far back as 2010, in Britain his label have elected to be a little more patient, prompted I suspect in part by the failure of lead single Best Love Song to progress any further than Number 40 when first released back in April. Now with the release of the album imminent it has been deemed the moment to try with the song that was always set to be the biggest hit. 5 O'Clocks big selling point is its interpolation of lines from the Lily Allen track Who'd Have Known with the added gimmick that T-Pain at one point sings along to the sample in a kind of ersatz duet.
Who'd Have Known was Lily Allen's final single release to date in this country and limped to a mere Number 39 in November 2009. In a fun twist, she herself based the track on an interpolation of the Take That hit Shine, which means that as a direct descendant of the track, the T-Pain single features writers credits for Barlow, Orange, Donald and Owen. Heck, that's lawyers for you. 5 O'Clock is far and away T-Pain's biggest hit single ever, beating the Number 30 peak of I'm Sprung from May 2006.
Fears that Amy Winehouse's label would try to commemorate her sad death last summer with a cobbled together release of whatever recordings were available from her aborted third album have happily been proved unfounded. What they were able to offer though is Lioness - Hidden Treasures, an assortment of previously unreleased recordings covering the whole of her sadly short career. Inevitably it was the biggest new release of the week and debuts at the top of the album chart with consummate ease. It's promoted single - a cover version of the Ruby & The Romantics classic Our Day Will Come which was part of the sessions from her debut album Frank back in 2003 - fares rather less well, charting at Number 29 but at the very least becoming her first new Top 40 hit since Tears Dry On Their Own back in 2007.
Michael Buble remains locked firm at Number 2 with Christmas, leaving the Number 3 slot clear for last year's X Factor runner up Rebecca Ferguson to chart with her debut album Heaven. The collection is home to her debut single Nothing's Real But Love which took a 10-30 dive last week but which now rallies to Number 24.
With girl group Little Mix having been crowned X Factor winners this (Sunday) evening, the identity of next week's Number One act have thus been revealed. Less certain is the identity of the 2011 Christmas Number One, which will head up the chart revealed on Christmas Day itself. For the first time ever the X Factor winners single will be in its second week of sales, meaning that although its dominance is still very probable it is by no means the nailed on certainty it has always been in the past. This next fortnight should be very interesting indeed.
