Wiley tops the singles chart for the first time and Conor Maynard has a number one album

Wiley gets his first number one single and Conor Maynard’s debut album goes straight to the top. The London 2012 opening ceremony has an impact on both charts.

There was a two-way race in the singles chart this week with Wiley leading from the front and crossing the line first to take the gold medal. Heatwave is Wiley’s second top ten single as the lead artist after the dreadful Wearing My Rolex in 2008 and his first number one. He also had a top ten hit alongside Naughty Boy and Emeli Sande (of whom more later) on Never Be Your Woman in 2010. The song features Ms D who should not be confused with Ms Dynamite(ee). Wiley becomes another British gold medallist to upset the Daily Mail. Maybe Heatwave can work the same magic on the weather as Umbrella did five years ago although it would be a relief if its run at the top fell nine weeks short of the Rihanna song.

The silver medal goes to Calvin Harris with his new song We’ll Be Coming Back. Assuming it goes no higher it will be Harris’s fourth successive single as lead artist to peak at number two following Bounce, Feel So Close (appropriately named) and Let’s Go. It is his tenth top ten hit since he arrived on the scene with Acceptable In The 80s in 2007.

After three weeks on the gold medal position Florence + The Machine’s Spectrum claims the bronze medal this week. Spectrum completes an all-British top three at the end of a highly successful week for British sport.

Ideally a duo would have fallen to number four so that I could say they have dived to fourth place. However, there were no duos in last week’s top three so that wasn’t going to happen. In the event Maroon 5 and Wiz Khalifa (almost a duo then) fall in synchronicity to number four. Stooshe slip two places to number five where they have now spent four of the last five weeks.

The opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games was always likely to be different from the moment Danny Boyle (certain to be Sir Daniel by the end of the year) was appointed as the director. The organisers should be commended for choosing the director of Trainspotting rather than someone like Andrew Lloyd Webber. To their immense credit the tens of thousands of people who saw the dress rehearsals and the thousands of performers did as they were asked and didn’t tell anyone what they were about to see. The appearances of Rowan Atkinson as Mr Bean playing Chariots Of Fire and HM the actual Q in the James Bond sketch therefore came as a total surprise to the overwhelming majority of the massive television audience. For several hours, viewers watched one of the most amazing spectacles they had ever seen. Anyone who thought it might be slightly bonkers will not have been disappointed.

Music played a big part in the ceremony and it comes as no surprise that three of songs performed on the night are in the top 40 singles chart this week with others just missing out. Danny Boyle has a decent track record when it comes to getting music from his films in the charts. Three years ago Jai Ho - from Slumdog Millionaire - was a top ten hit for AR Rahman and the Pussycat Dolls but the most famous example is probably Underworld’s Born Slippy from Trainspotting. The original version of the song had been a minor hit in 1995 before a new version featuring lines from Ewan McGregor peaked at number two the following year.

The relationship forged in the making of Trainspotting led to Underworld being asked to direct the music for the closing ceremony. That included two new compositions of their own. The first, the stunning And I Will Kiss featured the profoundly deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie and the Pandemonium Drummers. Listen carefully and there’s a hint of what is to come. And I Will Kiss was not made available for cherry picking from the album so is not able to make the singles chart. However, the second new Underworld song is available to download separately.

One of the big questions in any Olympic opening ceremony surrounds the lighting if the cauldron. First, who will do it and second, how would it be done. Will any opening ceremony be able to beat the moment in Barcelona in 1992 when an archer fired an arrow with the flame at the cauldron? It should be noted that some people suspect the arrow may not actually have lit the flame but it certainly looked good on the telly. Steve Redgrave was the clear favourite to light it and that appeared to be confirmed when David Beckham passed the flame on to him. Somehow it seemed to sum up the bonkers nature of the ceremony when a footballer rode a motor boat to pass the flame on to a man who made his name rowing boats who proceeded to run with it. However, there was a further twist to come. Redgrave passed the flame on to seven up and coming athletes (at least one of whom hadn’t even told his parents about it) who then lit seven of the copper pods that had been carried as part of the parade of athletes. The flame spread to the remainder of the 204 pods (one for each participating country) before they all rose to form the cauldron. Two mysteries were finally cleared up. What were those pods about and where was the cauldron? The breathtaking beauty of the moment was accompanied by a hauntingly beautiful piece of music, Caliban’s Dream performed by Underworld, the Dockhead Choir, Evelyn Glennie again, Only Men Aloud, Elizabeth Roberts (a soprano) and, another surprise, Alex Trimble from Two Door Cinema Club. The song is a new entry at number 12 putting it level with Push Upstairs (1999) and Two Months Off (2002) as Underworld’s second biggest hit. Caliban is one of the characters in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Immediately after the athletes’ parade. Arctic Monkeys performed two songs - their debut hit I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor and a cover of the Beatles’ Come Together. While they were playing the latter song cyclists with wings were riding round the stadium before on took off, ET style. The song joins a long list of Beatles cover versions to make the top 40, entering at number 21. It is Arctic Monkeys’ biggest hit since Crying Lightning reached number 12 in 2009.

The third song from the night to make the chart was not part of the official ceremony but was performed in the gap between the Red Arrows flying over the stadium at 20:12 and the start of the ceremony at 21:00. Frank Turner (no relation to Arctic Monkey Alex) played I Still Believe from his 2010 Rock & Roll EP. The song just sneaked into the top 100 last week and this week just about makes it to the top 40 at number 40 to give him a well-deserved first hit single. It was good to see Boyle giving a platform for lesser known performers such as Frank Turner and Alex Trimble as well as the better known combination of the two, Alex Turner. Self indulgent maybe but so what?

The Pandemonium Drummers may have been denied their chance to reach the singles chart but Drumsound and Bassline Smith (with added Tom Cane, whoever he is) have made it with Through The Night at number 34. Drumsound is the collective name of Andrew Wright and Benjamin Wiggett while Bassline Smith is also known as Simon Smith who once had an amazing dancing bear. Bassline joins other sporting terms in the charts to add to Cover Drive and Home Run and provides the ideal opportunity to congratulate Andy Murray on winning an Olympic gold medal in the mens’ singles tennis tournament with a convincing win over Roger Federer and silver in the mixed doubles with Laura Robson.

The final new entry, at number 38, is Crew Love (nothing to do with Olympic sailors) from Drake featuring The Weeknd (sic). It is Drake’s sixth top 40 hit. He has two top ten hits to his name although both owed more than a little bit to the presence of Rihanna. It marks the top 40 debut for Canadian producer The Weeknd who, in the first years of his life, was known as Abel Tesfaye.

In the midweek updates it looked like Emeli Sande would enter the top 40 with her version of the hymn Abide With Me. She sang it at the Olympic opening ceremony in a section dedicated to relatives of people involved in the seven years of planning and construction (including the fathers of both Danny Boyle and Seb Coe) as well as the victims of the London terrorist attacks on 7 July 2007, the day after the city on the bid to host the Games. Abide With Me finished the week just outside the top 40 but Next To Me re-enters at number 39. Therefore, it fails to join the list of hymns to have reached the top 40, a list which includes Morning Has Broken (Cat Stevens) and the Lord’s Prayer (Cliff Richard’s Millennium Prayer). However, Next To Me does return to the top 40 at number 39 after a ten week absence (all of which was spent in the top 60).

Somebody That I Used To Know clocks up a 30th week on the chart for Gotye and Kimbra and Nicki Minaj’s Starships has now been around for 25 weeks.

There are just four new entries this week and they are all in the top ten. Conor Maynard’s debut album Contrast goes straight to the top of the chart. The album is co-written by writers such as Ne-Yo and Frank Ocean and some tracks are produced by The Invisible Men who worked with Jessie J on Laserlight and Do I t Like A Dude.

Plan B’s iLL Manors drops to number two, becoming the sixth successive album to spend just seven days at the top. Emeli Sande benefits from her Olympic Stadium performance and climbs five places to number three and Maroon 5 fall one place to number four.

After two top 40 hits with a total of just six letters in their titles (Time - with Chase & Status - and Go) Delilah’s debut album has a much longer title although it is still entirely made up of monosyllables. From The Roots Up is a new entry at number five.

Mike Oldfield first reached the UK charts in 1973 with his Tubular Bells album, the first release on the Virgin records label thus setting both Oldfield (then just 20 years old) and Richard Branson on their way to becoming very wealthy in their own right. The album was something of a slow burner. It first reached the top ten nearly two months after release but didn’t take a firm hold on a top ten place for a further five months. It eventually reached number one until September 1974, 14 months after release. It had spent the previous ten weeks at number two, the last three of them behind the follow-up Hergest Ridge.and that was to be its only week on top. However, it has clocked up over 250 weeks in the albums chart. There has also been an orchestral version as well as Tubular Bells II and III. It also reappeared in the chart as part of Boxed, a boxed set of his first three albums with a fourth album of shorter tracks, Collaborations. He has released a number of Best Of sets over the years and this week sees yet another one, perfectly timed to follow his appearance at that ceremony I may have mentioned already where he played part of, you’ve guessed it, Tubular Bells. It is a new entry at number six making it the second Oldfield compilation to reach the top ten. It naturally includes part of Tubular Bells as well as a selection of his other work including the hit single Moonlight Shadow and also The Tempest, the second mention of that title this week.

Older readers seeing the name Rick Ross in the albums chart might have thought that the singer from Deacon Blue was staging a comeback. However, this is a different Rick Ross. This one is an American rapper. God Forgives, I Don’t is his fifth album. The previous four all reached the top two in the US chart but got nowhere at all this side of the Atlantic. That changes this week as he has a new entry at number eight.

There are re-entries for three former top two albums. Justin Bieber’s Believe is backat number 24, Cheryl’s A Million Lights at 38 and Bruno Mars’ Doo Wops And Hooligans at number 40. Every album in the top 40 has spent at least a week in the top ten (the top nine if you want to be really picky).