Rita Ora gets a second week at number one in the singles and Keane still head the albums chart

Rita Ora stays at number one in the singles chart and Keane get a second week on top of the albums chart.

Rita Ora holds on for a second week at the top of the singles charts, beating off a strong challenge from fun. and Janelle Monae. fun, took the lead on iTunes late in the week. We Are Young then got a boost from a performance by Jessie J’s team on The Voice yesterday (Saturday) but it wasn’t enough to overhaul the lead Rita Ora had built up earlier in the week. By a slightly strange coincidence fun. performed Somebody That I Used To Know in the Radio 1 Live Lounge this week. That song was then performed by Danny O’Donoghue’s teams on The Voice yesterday which helped it to stay in the top ten. There should be an announcement early in the coming week that the song has now clocked up a million sales. It will be the first 2012 release to become a million seller and deservedly so.

Carly Rae Jepsen remains at number three. Alex Clare breaks the curse of the number fours which had seen the previous four occupants of that slot drop to number 12 the following week. Too Close remains in fourth place. Tulisa falls three places to number five and Rihanna’s Where Have You Been climbs to a new peak of number six.

The Saturdays enter at number seven with 30 Days, their latest piece of throwaway pop. The term is perhaps losing some of its meaning in the download age. After all, you can’t fling a download across the room in the same way as you can with a CD. Perhaps that is why The Saturdays continue to release their singles on CD. It is their 11th top ten hit in nearly four years but they have yet to have a number one. Unless they can appeal beyond their fan base or time a release for a quiet week it seems that a chart topper may elude them for ever. There have been a few previous songs whose title has been simply a number of days. 30 Days is now the longest beating 22 Days by 22-20s in 2004. The shortest is 7 Days - four different songs by Anne Shelton in 1956, Sting in 1993, Mary J Blige and George Benson in 1998 and Craig David in 2000. Other songs have included a number of days as part of the title but that would necessitate supplementing a mention of Elbow’s masterpiece One Day Like This with a reference to another song whose title begins with One Day, a song whose very existence is even more regrettable than that of John Terry.

Earlier this year there were a number of events to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of Britain’s most celebrated novelists, Charles Dickens. This week D’Banj enters the charts at number nine. with a song named after one of his most famous works, Oliver Twist. Dickens has made a number of previous contributions to music. Artful Dodger who gave Craig David (yes, him again, you wait ages for a mention of the Southampton singer then two come along at once) his first hit with Re-Rewind were named after a character in Oliver Twist. Stretching the point a little, Joe Fagin (who had hits with the theme tune from the first two series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet) shares his name with a character (memorably played by Alec Guinness in the David Lean film and Ron Moody in the film version of the musical Oliver! as well as by Phil Collins in an earlier stage version of the musical). Uriah Heep (who featured in the full length version of one of this week’s Top Of The Pops 1977 repeats) were named after a character in David Copperfield. D’Banl’s previous musical contributions have been more limited. This is the first hit for the 31-year-old Nigerian who, for most of his life, has been known as Dapo Oyebanjo.

For their latest single Only The Horses the Scissor Sisters have enlisted the services of producer Calvin Harris although he isn’t credited on the song. Whether the addition of his name would have seen it enter higher than number 12 will never be known. It comes from their new album Magic Hour which will be released on 28 May and is their tenth top 40 hit. They still haven’t had a top ten hit since their only number one, I Don’t Feel Like Dancing in 2006.

Skepta has his fifth top 40 hit at number 29 with Make Peace Not War, his longest title by some distance. His biggest hit to date remains Rescue Me, a plea which might not need to be made so frequently if more people obeyed the title of this new hit. The song features a sample of C & C Music Factory’s Gonna Make You Sweat and is every bit as dreadful as that rubbish.

Professor Green has his second hit of the year at number 27 with Remedy, not a cover of the Little Boots song from 2009. He is accompanied by a vocalist going by the name of Ruth Anne. Many people will be relieved to know that she is not the Ruth-Anne who was a contestant on The Voice. Other people may be disappointed while others simply won’t care.

The track Princess Of China which features guest vocals from Rihanna entered the singles chart at number 33 when Coldplay releases Mylo Xyloto last October. It is now due for an official release at the beginning of next month and it duly returns to the top 40 at number 30. It comes exactly five years after Umbrella went straight to number one kicking off months of rain as well as a long reign at the top of the chart.

Skrillex’s last top 40 hit Breakin’ A Sweat featured vocals from the surviving members of The Doors. His new single Bangarang, a new entry at number 32 features the rather less well known Sirah. She should not be confused with syrah which is a variety of grape also known as shiraz.

Ben Howard’s acclaimed album Every Kingdom has recently been enjoying a resurgence and climbs back up to number six this week, one place ahead of its original peak. However, his singles have not fared so well The Wolves reached number 70 in March last year but that remained his peak until this week. He now finally makes it into the top 40 for the first time - with a little help from an appearance on Jools Holland - as Only Love enters at number 39.

Since the inclusion of downloads in the chart without the necessity of a physical release, there have been many songs returning to the chart after being preformed on a talent show. They have included recent hits such as Sweet Disposition (reinforcing the view that thes programmes are watched by a lot of people who don’t listen to much current music) as welll as some forgotten classics such as Fast Car and Ordinary People. Songs in the latter category have sometimes hung around in the chart for a few weeks as they reach a new audience. Other contestants choose a song that is less well known. Last weekend Sam Kelly performed a version of Bless The Broken Road. The song has been recorded by a number of acts with American band Rascal Flatts winning a Grsmmy for best country song for their version. That version should have sneaked into the top 75 last week on the strength of just a few hours’ sales. However, due to a blunder, most of the sales were attributed to a phantom song called Bless The Broken Radio so it fell just short. This comes only a few weeks after sales of Together In Electric Dreams were split between the correct credit of Giorgio Moroder and Phil Oakey and a mystery version by Human League. The Rascal Flatts song looked set to enter the top 40 today but has missed out. Nevertheless Rascal Flatts and writers Marcus Hummon, Bobby Boyd and Jeff Hanna will be due an unexpected boost to their income.courtesy of Sam Kelly. Perhaps he should ask for a cut.

Three long running singles drop out this week but LMFAO refuse to go away and Sexy And I Know It has now been assaulting our ears for 34 weeks. Take Care moves on to 24 weeks with Titanium and the returned Hey, Soul Sister both on 21.

Keane hold on for a second week at the top of the albums chart with Strangeland although sales figures are bund to be depressingly low for a chart-topper. American rock band Tenacious D have the highest new entry at number two with the appallingly spelled Rize Of The Fenix. It is their third studio album and their highest ever chart position beating the number ten peak of last album The Pick Of Destiny. The Phoenix And Firkin was one of a string of pubs which used to brew beer on the premises. They were all known as the Something and Firkin and all used dreadful puns as part of their marketing. The Phoenix (built as part of the renovation of Denmark Hill station after a fire, hence the name) included “Phoenix my pint I’ll Firkin’ thump him”.

Emeli Sande remanins at number three and Adele at four. This week it was announced that 21 was the biggest selling album in the world’s largest markets last year which didn’t exactly come as a surprise. It sold 18 million copies, 1.6% of all albums sold. In other words, one in 60 albums sold in those markets last year was a copy of 21. Adele’s debut, 19, was the sixth biggest seller. She became the fourth UK artist in five years to have they biggest selling album globally following Amy Winehouse, Coldplay and, erm, Susan Boyle. In other albums sales news, with one week to go until the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, the Official Charts Company announced this week that Abba Gold has become only the third album (following Queen’s Greatest Hits and Sgt Pepper) to sell five million copies in the UK.

Benefitting in part from a stunning performance on Jools Holland’s programme Ren Harvieu enters at number five with her debut album Through The Night. A year ago Harvieu suffered a broken back when a neighbour jumped over the fence and landed on her. Thankfully she staged a full recovery.

The most successful indie bands of the 1990s where dominated by male vocalists. Among the exceptions was Garbage, an American based band but with a Scottish singer, Shirley Manson. Their debut album took a while to take off, finally reaching the top ten in March 1996, five months after its release but staying for seven weeks once it got there. The next three albums all had a more immediate impact and went straight into the top ten with second album Garbage 2.0 topping the chart. A Greatest Hits set (entitled Absolute) followed after the band had announced an indefinite hiatus, i.e. “we haven’t yet decided whether we’re going to split up but we’re going our separate ways for the moment”. Now they have returned with their fifth studio album Not Your Kind Of People and they enter at number ten, thus just about maintaining their top ten record. The album cover design is very simple. It is just a letter g resembling that on the Guardian masthead.

This week Beach House join the list of bands who have had to wait a while for their first hit. Bloom is the Baltimore band’s fourth studio album but the first to achieve significant chart success as a new entry at number 15. A recent car advertisement uses a song said to be very similar to Take Care, a song which appeared on their 2010 album Teen Dream (which just missed a top 75 place) and nothing to do with the current Drake and Rihanna hit or, for that matter, Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream. The band say that they were approached by the advertising agency for permission to use the song but they declined.

As was to be expected the move to Sky has reduced the impact of Glee on the charts, demonstrating that even the Murdochs occasionally do us a favour. Their last two albums didn’t make the top 40 and they haven’t had a top 40 single since last November. However they have continued to make the lower reaches of the singles chart and have now had 99 top 75 hits, not including any that might have made it today (thanks to fchd at Buzzjack for alerting me to that fact). This week they return to the albums chart with their 12 top 40 hit in less than 2 1/2 years, The Graduation Album at number 17. We can only hope that the title means an end to the programme rather than a Skins-style re-casting.

It is fair to say that the announcement that Englebert Humperdinck who turned 76 last month had been chosen to sing this year’s UK Eurovision entry was met with more than a few raised eyebrows. When he performs in Azerbaijan next weekend in front of a large television audience and however many ticket holders avoid being arrested by the repressive regime’s thugs, he will become the oldest male artist to sing at Eurovision. He made his name (which had previously been Arnold Dorsey until he changed it to that of a German opera composer) in the 1960s and had two huge number one hits in 1967 with Release Me and The Last Waltz. There have been a number of Greatest Hits type albums over the years and now there’s another one cunningly timed to coincide with his return to the public eye. Release Me contains all the big hits as well as Eurovision entry Love Will Set You Free - which hasn’t been a hit so far - and is a new entry at number 21.

In other Eurovision news, Hurts singer Theo Hutchcraft confirmed this week that the band had been invited to apply to represent the UK. It remains unclear whether they entered but were unsuccessful or chose not to apply. They have achieved rather more success in other European countries , most notably in Germany, so would surely have had a good chance of success.

After disbanding A-Ha last year former lead singer Morten Harket’s new solo album Out Of My Hands enters at number 37. His biggest problem is that he is unlikely to record songs as good as Take On Me and The Sun Always Shines On TV. The tiny town Horten Market will not be seeing the Olympic torch in the next couple months, largely because it doesn’t exist.

Just a few weeks after launching the Record Store albums chart the Official Charts Company launched another new chart this week. The Official Streaming Chart uses data from all the major streaming sites (such as Spotify, We7) to determine the most popular tracks of the week. While the period covered matches the sales period of the Official Chart (Sunday to Saturday) the chart is not being published until Monday lunchtime. The inaugural chart was topped by Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe which was toppled from the top of the main singles chart at the beginning of the month. The top 40 was dominated by songs still in the “real” chart with notable exceptions including two from Ed Sheeran (The A Team and Lego House) and two from Lana Del Rey (Born To Die and Blue Jeans). Sheeran (the most streamed artist of 2011) had several other entries, including tracks not released as singles, lower down the chart. Also notable was the presence of four tracks in the top 75 by Ben Howard who hadn’t had a top 40 hit until this week.

There are two re-entries this week. Jay Z and Kanye West’s Watch The Throne is back at number 38 and Michael Kiwanuka’s Home Again returns at number 40.

Two albums crash out of the top ten. Richard Hawley’s Standing At The Sky’s edge has fallen off the ledge and tumbles from number three to number 29. The Cribs have fallen even further. In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull was a new entry at number nine last week but is out of the top 40 this week.

The music world lost two people this week with links to recent commentaries. On Thursday (17 May) it was announced that the Queen Of Disco Donna Summer had died at the age of 63. Her first hit Love To Love You Baby was banned by the BBC. As Nicky Campbell tweeted - the BBC don’t ban records like that any more. After a couple minor hits she then spent four weeks at number one in the summer of 1977 with the classic I Feel Love produced by Giorgio Moroder (mentioned a few weeks ago - and above - for Together In Electric Dreams). The year is often remembered for a song that didn’t get to number one (God Save The Queen) but I Feel Love was just as influential sounding unlike anything else around at the time. Much of that was down to Moroder’s production (today it would surely be credited to Giorgio Moroder feat Donna Summer) but Summer’s extraordinary vocals also helped to make the song so memorable. Not surprisingly it was her most downloaded song in the days following her death but it did not sell enough to reach the top 40. Among her other hits was a cover of McArthur Park, a song which has some of the most bonkers lyrics you will hear.

Only weeks after the death of the totally imaginary session musician Chris Flack, the very real Donald Dunn, inevitably nicknamed Duck, died last weekend (13 May). He was initially a member of Booker T & The MGs whose Soul Limbo was the theme music for the BBC’s Test Match cricket coverage for many years. As a session musician he worked with many big names including Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty and Levon Helm who died last month.