British male quartet Take That have seen their new single Greatest Day go straight in at the top of the UK charts this week. Beyoncé’s If I Were A Boy slides a spot to No.2, T.I. and Rihanna’s Live Your Life is back up a spot at No.3 and The Killers’ Human falls back a place to No.4, although their new album Day & Age is the new album chart topper.

By far the most successful boyband of the 1990s, Take That’s four members as they parted in 1996, Mark Owen, Gary Barlow, Jason Orange and Howard Donald, reformed after ten years and saw their 2006 comeback single Patience go to No.1 in the UK. Last year’s Shine was a tenth UK No.1 for the boys and despite not getting to No.1, Rule The World, released just over a year ago, has become a modern day classic, selling well over half a million copies so far in the UK. Greatest Day is their fourth huge UK hit in two years and the band’s eleventh UK No.1 single to date. The first eight came of course in the mid 1990s and included classic singles such as Pray, Relight My Fire, Never Forget and Back For Good. New studio album, The Circus, is due out on Monday and is expected to follow its predecessor, Beautiful World to the top of the UK charts. Beautiful World has sold well over two million copies in the UK to date and is one of the decade’s biggest selling albums, making this comeback one of the most memorable and successful in history.

Beyoncé climbed to the top last week with If I Were A Boy but slips back a place to No.2 this week, the single now spending its fourth week inside the UK top three. T.I. and Rihanna’s Live Your Life was released physically this week and duly climbs back up a spot to No.3 having peaked two weeks ago at No.2. Human by American rock act The Killers slides a spot to No.4 after three weeks inside the top five and the now physically released Hot ‘N’ Cold by Katy Perry rounds off the top five, a non-mover in fifth place this week. The single has been inside the UK top ten for six weeks now and is well on its way to silver sales status. Alesha Dixon’s Xenomania penned hit single The Boy Does Nothing is another non-mover, staying at No.6 on its fourth week inside the top ten, whilst Britney Spears’ Womanizer, the first single from her new album Circus which is due out on Monday, is back up two places to No.7 after its physical release this week. Britney’s much hyped X Factor appearance this weekend should ensure that Womanizer returns to the top five in seven days time.

Hero, the former No.1 single from the X Factor Finalists, drops six places to No.8 this week. Akon scores another top ten hit single as the now physically released Right Now (Na Na Na) climbs five places to No.9 having had slow but steady chart run of 44-43-23-19-20-14-9. It is the eighth UK top ten single that Akon has appeared on since 2005, the biggest being the 2005 No.1 single Lonely and the 2006 No.1 hit Smack That. Girls Aloud round off the top ten with their former No.1 single, The Promise. By far their most successful release since their 2002 debut hit, Sound Of The Underground, the song has been inside the UK top ten for six weeks now. This week’s top ten therefore features four American acts, four British acts, one Senegalese artist and an American/Barbadian duet.

There are a few shockers outside the top ten this week. I Hate This Part by Pussycat Dolls looks poised to ruin their continuous streak of UK top ten singles since their 2005 debut No.1 hit, Don’t Cha. The second single from new album Doll Domination, it follows six straight top ten hits but only climbs four places to No.12 after a physical release this week. The second highest new entry goes in at No.13. Same Difference are a brother/sister pop duo, Sarah and Sean, from Portsmouth. They rose to fame last year after finishing third in X Factor 2007 despite being ridiculed on a weekly basis by judge Louis Walsh. Appealing to the same kid/teen-pop niche as High School Musical, Camp Rock, Miley Cyrus and Jonas Brothers that was one of the most prevalent genres the start of the decade, Same Difference find themselves with a hit single this week as debut hit We R One goes in at No.13 ahead of the release of their debut album Pop, which is due for release on Monday featuring contributions from many of the songwriters and producers behind Steps and early Britney Spears material. Kings Of Leon look poised for a second successive top ten single from new album Only By The Night as Use Somebody, the follow up to the former No.1 single Sex On Fire (down four to No.17 this week), climbs two places to No.15.

McFly’s new double a-side single Do Ya/Stay With Me follows in the tainted path of last year’s Children In Need single, Headlines (Friendship Never Ends) by Spice Girls. That single was the first single by the girls not to make the UK top ten and now this is McFly’s first single not to make the top ten. Their popularity has been slowly dwindling this year as their other two singles, One For The Radio and Lies reached No.2 and No.4 respectively as opposed to the No.1 singles they are used to. This is because of the steady increase in singles sales this year. Whereas McFly may only have needed to sell 30,000 singles to get to No.1 before, they now need to sell at least 50,000 copies, especially at this time of year when sales are so high. It is the British quartet’s sixteenth UK single, seven of those got to No.1 and only 2005’s double a-side, Ultraviolet/The Ballad Of Paul K, missed the top five before now. Despite so many high peaking hit singles, the group have only spent a total of forty seven weeks inside the top twenty, meaning that on average, each single of theirs has only spent three weeks inside the top twenty, a shocking statistic when taking into account all of their No.1 hits. With the fans of their niche pop/rock sound either growing into harder rock bands or moving over to Disney stars such as Miley Cyrus and Jonas Brothers, it is hard to imagine how McFly can ever have any more huge hit singles.

British hip hop trio N-Dubz jump eleven places to No.19 following the physical release of new single Papa Can You Hear Me. It is now their highest peaking UK single to date and their first top twenty single. Barbadian singer Rihanna refuses to give up on her million selling Good Girl Gone Bad album, new single Rehab, co-written by Justin Timberlake, becoming the eighth UK top forty hit from the album after Umbrella (#1), Shut Up & Drive (#5), Hate That I Love You (#15), Don’t Stop The Music (#4), Take A Bow (#1), Disturbia (#3) and If I Never See Your Face Again (#28). Rehab joins the list, entering the top forty at No.24 this week on download sales. Disturbia is still in the chart now (down a place at No.28) and her T.I. duet is at No.3, giving the singer an unprecedented three simultaneous top thirty singles. Take That’s aforementioned former UK No.2 single Rule The World refuses to stay away from the chart. Having been performed by X Factor contestant Rachel Hylton last weekend on their ‘Take That week’, the song re-enters at No.27 this week. In total, this is the twenty fifth appearance in the UK top forty for the track since its release last year when it missed out on No.1 having been released on the same week as Leona Lewis’ Bleeding Love.

Another money making exercise from Simon Cowell, although this one has probably not worked out as well as expected, Britain’s Got Talent winner, break-dancer George Sampson has released a single this week, the double a-side Get Up On The Dancefloor/Headz Up. The lead side being a mash up of a number of samples from different records with George ‘rapping’ over the top, it would seem that people prefer his break-dancing to his singing as the single enters at No.30 this week. Chris Brown and Keri Hilson’s Superhuman gets a tiny boost from the physical release of the single, as it goes back up two places to No.33 this week. The single has had an interesting chart run at the bottom of the top forty having moved 40-38-32-35-35-33 on its first six weeks inside the chart, never looking in any danger of being a major hit single.

All I Want For Christmas Is You, Mariah Carey’s Christmas hit, originally a No.2 hit in 1994 returns for another year at No.37 this week. It returned to the top five for the first time in thirteen years last year, going back up as high as No.4, and looks almost certain to return to the top ten in the next few weeks. Before the inclusion of downloads in the UK chart, the only Christmas songs eligible to return were either new ones or those with re-issued physical singles. However, any Christmas songs downloaded enough can return to the chart now, which led to the returns last year of classics from The Pogues (#4), Mariah Carey (#4), Wham (#14), Wizzard (#16), Slade (#20), Andy Williams (#21), Shakin’ Stevens (#22), Band Aid (#24), Chris Rea (#33) and John & Yoko (#40). Whether these or other Christmas songs can have the same sort of impact this year remains to be seen although there are new festive offerings this year from Gabriella Cilmi, Status Quo, The Wombats, Geraldine, The Killers and Terry Wogan/Aled Jones amongst others.

Madonna’s Miles Away, the third single to be taken from Hard Candy and the follow up to 4 Minutes and Give It 2 Me, limps into the top forty at No.39 this week following no promotion, no video and minimal airplay. No official Madonna single has ever missed the top twenty before, although the first release of 1984’s Borderline went to No.56 before later becoming a No.2 hit after a 1986 re-release when she had become a much bigger star. This is a very low position for what is more than likely to be the final single from Hard Candy, seen by fans and critics alike as a hugely disappointing era.

In a packed album chart, Day & Age, the long anticipated third album from The Killers, goes in at No.1 giving the American rock act their third consecutive UK chart topper. Chinese Democracy is probably a lot more long anticipated though, the new Guns N’ Roses album, which enters at No.2 this week, having been in production since the early 1990s, many fans of the legendary rock act expecting the album never to surface at all. 2007 X Factor runner up Rhydian Roberts, who many felt should have won hands down, goes in at No.3 with his debut album, Rhydian, instantly outperforming his conqueror Leon Jackson, whose debut album Right Now reached No.4 a few weeks ago. Leona Lewis’ deluxe version of Spirit returned the million selling album to the top of the UK charts last week and this week the album slides three places to No.4, looking highly unlikely to top the Christmas charts, as she did last year with Spirit.

A trio of priests from Northern Ireland known as The Priests go straight in at No.5 this week with their eponymous debut album. The SonyBMG signed trio look set to have worldwide success with their takes on famous classical and religious songs. Stereophonics’ A Decade In The Sun – The Best Of is proving to be the most successful hits collection of the Christmas period, although it drops three places to No.6 this week. Kings Of Leon’s former chart topper Only By The Night is back up a spot to No.7 ahead of Pink’s former No.1 album Funhouse which stays put at No.8. Out Of Control by Girls Aloud slides four spots to No.9 this week whilst operatic act Il Divo make it four former chart toppers in a row as they move down three places to No.10 with The Promise, sparking the odd occurrence of the No.10 single and album both being called The Promise, yet by very different acts.

Next week’s singles chart should finally see chart topping success for Run by Leona Lewis, now digitally released having been delayed for two weeks to ensure maximum initial album sales for the deluxe edition of Spirit, which includes the Snow Patrol cover. Take That might have to settle for a week at No.1 whilst Beyoncé, The Killers, Katy Perry, T.I. feat Rihanna and Britney Spears should stay high, the latter benefitting from her performance on this weekend’s X Factor. Notable physical releases are due from Enrique Iglesias, Estelle, Jonas Brothers, Oasis, Wiley and Will Young, some of which should make at least a small impact next week, Oasis looking to extend their run of consecutive top ten hits rather than ending it in the abrupt fashion that McFly and Pussycat Dolls have this week. Take That and Britney Spears do battle as they release albums with very similar names, the former releasing The Circus whilst the latter releases Circus on Monday. Both are expected to reach the top five although Take That’s will undoubtedly be the bigger of the two, potentially topping the charts from next week up until Christmas and certain to knock The Killers from No.1 in seven days time. Other big albums due out next week are due from Same Difference, Akon, Josh Groban, Glasvegas, Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, Miley Cyrus, Barry Manilow, Rolf Harris and Sarah Brightman.

Thanks to Polyhex, EveryHit, ManicKangaroo and Play.com for various information and resources