Chart Review 13th June 2005 with DJ Chris Plant (1/3)	(1/3), (2/3), (3/3).
www.djchrisplant.co.uk

I had an unfortunate experience on Sunday evening. A long car journey meant that just for a change I was in a position to listen to the chart show on a certain national radio station. You'll know the one I mean, the one that used to have a host that actually cared about what he was playing and what it meant for each artist to have each chart position. In his place now of course are two giggling imbeciles who use the show as much as a vehicle for themselves as it is for the music, spend half the show not actually doing the chart in the first place and then when they get round to it editorialising in the worst possible manner.

Trust me, if there is one cardinal rule of doing a chart show it is respect the tastes of your audience - especially when it comes to the Number One single. Said single is still Axel F, the official Crazy Frog record clocking up a third week at the top.

I'm no big fan of it personally, I can't see a reason for its existence at all, but the computer printout I'm looking at (at the moment) tells me I'm in the minority. In fact so many people like it and find it appealing that it has outsold everything else on the market for the last few weeks, selling so many copies in the process that in that short time it has outsold virtually everything else this year to wind up as the second biggest seller of 2005.

OK, onto brighter things and some real music in the shape of U2, who this week were in the unusual position of gunning for a third successive Number One single after both Vertigo and Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own stormed to the top of the charts upon release. The third single from How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb was briefly a contender but in the end has to settle for the runners up slot. Although they have had three consecutive Top 3 hits on two other occasions in their illustrious career, the performance of City Of Blinding Lights marks the first time they have managed the feat with three singles from the same album.

I suspect this is something that even Coldplay won't be able to manage with future singles from X and Y, that album having flown off the shelves in enough quantities to wind up as the second fastest seller ever, anticipation for its release having grown to almost the levels that U2 experienced a decade and a half ago.

A fairly quiet week for new releases leaves the door open for a rather pleasant surprise. Just for a change, one of the most talked about singles of the week was one of the also-rans from the chart - James Blunt's You're Beautiful. Enough people heard the talk of how it was such an incredible single and how the singer was clearly the find of the year that the track put on a spurt of sales and this week advances 12-6.

The success of the single is all the more pleasing when you consider that Blunt's album has been in the shops for a number of weeks with most of his promotion until now focussing on the long player, a fixture in the Top 10 for well over a month now. With the success of the single the album is enjoying its own spurt of sales. Write off the concept of singles if you dare, their use as a promotional tool in this case is self-evident.

Continued ... next page

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