Chart Review 7th March 2005 with DJ Chris Plant (1/3)	(1/3), (2/3). (3/3).
www.djchrisplant.co.uk

What a week. Three bits of chart-related news come to mind before we start this week. First, we have to wait a bit longer for the arrival of downloaded sales into the main chart, the independent labels finally managing to make enough noise about the fact that they find it hard to get onto the likes of Napster: and iTunes: and persuading the OCC to put integration day back a month for the issue to be resolved. Javine: is going to Eurovision - not necessarily a bad thing. Jordan: would have been a disaster given that the contest is about who can sing the best song and not who has the largest breasts so we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

Not that Javine: is necessarily going to win of course - Arabian sounding pop is so 2003 as far as Eurovision is concerned.

Oh yes, and finally RIP Tommy Vance who, despite his rock credentials, was also one of the most memorable hosts of the Radio One Top 40 show back in the early 80s. Going from his intense, gravely tones to the two local radio clowns that populate the show now is a measure of how far that slot has fallen in the past 25 years. Our weekly brand new Number One is something of a pleasant surprise. As with Dakota, the Stereophonics finally and deservedly add themselves to the list of chart-topping hit makers. They arrive at the top of the charts after a wait of nearly four years, More Life In A Tramp's Vest marking their Top 40 debut back in May 1997.

Prior to today they have had nine Top 10 hits but none have advanced past Number 3 (The Bartender And The Thief in November 1998 and Maybe Tomorrow in August 2003). Their most famous hit is possibly their 2001 cover of Chris Farlowe's Handbags And Gladrags which made Number 4, their version often being mistaken for the one used a few months later as the theme to TV comedy The Office. Finally, given that this week saw the celebration of St David's day it seems only appropriate to acknowledge that the Stereophonics are the first all-Welsh group to top the charts since the Manic Street Preachers hit the top in the first few weeks of 2000.

Odds on any further Elvis re-releases making the top must surely have lengthened as Rock A Hula Baby/Can't Help Falling In Love becomes the second release in a row to chart at Number 3.

In a way this is a shame as the single is easily one of his most famous. Can't Help Falling In Love was originally just the b-side of the single but after a month on the chart the single was listed as a double a-side and before long the credits were reversed. The single shot to Number One in February 1962 and swiftly became an Elvis standard, for years being the song with which he closed concert performances (prior to the famous Elvis has left the building announcements).

Sadly the single also marked the start of Elvis' crap period when almost every one of his singles came from the soundtrack of the series of increasingly feeble movies that he made throughout the mid 1960s. Both Rock-A-Hula Baby and Can't Help Falling In Love were taken from Blue Hawaii, a film which actually makes later offerings look like masterpieces. Can't Help Falling In Love is one of Elvis' most covered songs, most recently by UB40 who took the track back to Number One in 1993.

Continued ...next page

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