This week's Official UK Singles Chart

1 LONELINESS (Tomcraft)

Bank Holiday week is upon us so hope you are having a good four day week. This week the singles chart presents us not only with a brand new chart-topper but two singles that are using some strangely familiar ideas. One such record is Tomcraft which this week claims the summit and denies Busted a second week at the summit. The idea it recycles is the one used by Room 5 - taking the vocals from a famous but perhaps little known club hit and turning it into a storming dancefloor classic for a new generation. Tomcraft is the alter-ego of German producer Thomas Bruckner who has based Loneliness on an old track called Share The Love, originally sung by Andrea Martin. Word has it that he picked the single up in a Munich charity shop and was inspired to create his own track from the vocals. The result is another quite spectacularly good club track that has had reviewers scurrying for a new genre ("punk-trance") to describe it. The battle for the Number One position this week was especially fierce with less than 100 copies separating this from the Craig David single at one stage. In the end it is the German star who emerges victorious.

2 RISE & FALL (Craig David featuring Sting)

So what are the odds of this? Two pop singles released within weeks of each other but both based on samples, both musically and lyrically, from the self-same track. Said track is Sting's Shape Of My Heart which was used as the base for the Sugababes' last single, the Number 11 hit Shape. Both the guitar melody and Sting's own vocal line were borrowed for that single although the former Police star was not given a chart credit, despite the fact that he effectively sang the chorus with the girls providing backing vocals. Now along comes Craig David whose single takes its title from a line in one of the verses of the original song but which uses the same guitar melody around which he weaves his own song, the Sting vocal sample again forming the duetted chorus. This time around he does get equal billing, making this effectively his biggest hit single since his duet with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart on All For Love back in 1994 which also made Number 2. Craig David is also clearly reaping the benefits of this collaboration, Rise & Fall representing a dramatic improvement in his chart fortunes after his last two singles What's Your Flava and Hidden Agenda made Nos. 8 and 10 respectively. This is now his biggest hit since Seven Days gave him a second chart-topper back in August 2000 and as we have seen he can consider himself unlucky not to be celebrating a third Number One hit single this weekend.

3 THE LONG GOODBYE (Ronan Keating)

This is Ronan's first chart hit of the year and his follow-up to his Christmas 2002 project We've Got Tonight which saw him release a cover version of the old Bob Seger song all over Europe, duetting with a different singer in each country. For the UK he picked Lulu (entertainingly old enough to be his mother) and reached Number 4. The Long Goodbye improves on that chart performance and gives him his first Top 3 hit since If Tomorrow Never Comes topped the charts in May last year. This single is co-written by Irish folk legend Paul Brady and is apparently set to be the final single from the Destination album before he moves on to new material. Those wishing to have a rather disturbing online experience are encouraged to check out his official website and in particular the message board which appears to be populated by some worryingly intense fans who spend their days posting what is best described as Ronan Erotica for the critical evaluation of their fellow devotees. [Oh my God the Ronan fanfic we stumbled across in the Hit 40 UK office one lunchtime. The mental scars still run deep].
------------------------------------------------------------------------

5 CAN'T NOBODY (Kelly Rowland)

Well it hasn't been a bad year for Kelly Rowland so far has it? She began it with the chart-topping duet with Nelly on Dilemma still hanging around the charts and continued shortly afterwards with the release of Stole. Despite spending no less than 5 weeks in the lower reaches of the chart on import before its official release, the single still managed a five-week run inside the Top 10 and is still inside the Top 75 at the moment, climbing this week to Number 55. To follow it up is another single from the chart-topping album Simply Deep, this time a spiky R&B track which proudly wears its 80s influences on its sleeve. The single doesn't quite match the Number 2 peak of Stole but given the competition at the top end of the chart this week this is hardly a poor reflection on its appeal. In the battle of the Destiny's Child stars, Beyonce has some catching up to do.

13 DAMAGED (Plummet)

A run of new entries inside the Top 5 and then nothing else for 10 positions has left the door open for an upwards move by one or two older singles. The only one to take advantage is Plummet's three week old single which after having fallen to Number 19 last week now makes a six place climb to almost match the Number 12 that it scaled when first released.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

16 THE JUMP OFF (Lil' Kim featuring Mr Cheeks)

The most underdressed rapper on the scene returns to the chart this week with the first single from a brand new album. This is her first chart hit since her cover version of Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight hit Number 26 back in 2001 and, her appearance on the Moulin Rouge version of Lady Marmalade notwithstanding is actually her first Top 20 single since Not Tonight from the Nothing To Lose soundtrack hit Number 11 in August 1997. Sad to say that The Jump Off is nothing really to write home about and stands little chance of becoming a mainstream smash single, no matter how many new and interesting ways she finds to expose her breasts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

22 A.D.I.D.A.S. (Killer Mike featuring Big Boi)

Killer Mike is a brand new hip-hop star, a protege of Outkast and the first signing to their own label Auqemini Records. The title apparently stands for All Day I Dream About Sex (well who doesn't) and is actually quite refreshingly old skool in a rugged sort of way. Outkast's Big Boi makes a guest appearance on the track just to give him a commercial leg-up but in truth he probably didn't need the help.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

26 STUCK IN A GROOVE (Puretone)

What is it with these club acts who make great (nay, damn wonderful) debut singles and then take forever to follow them up. Puretone were of course the guys and girls behind Addicted To Bass which was one of the highlights of the first few months of 2002, hitting Number 2 in early January that year. Now 17 months later they finally follow it up with yet another infectious breakbeat track. For whatever reason this one has failed to capture the imagination of singles buyers and it debuts at a rather disappointing Number 26. Maybe if it had come out in May 2002 things would have been different.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

31 HYPNOTISING (Kid Creme featuring Charlise)

A second attempt at a hit single this year for Belgian producer Kid Creme, his first single Down And Under having bombed out at Number 55 back in March. Just to prove that the North Europe coast is not all about trance and techno, this track is house and a storming vocal from Charlise Rookwood makes this an entertaining experience. Damn this sunshine, it is making me soft. I'm a reviewer, I need something to hate.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

36 JUST BE DUB TO ME (Revelation)

Ah, that is better. The song Just Be Good To Me has a distinguished chart history. One of the very earliest Jam and Lewis smash hits, it was a Number 13 hit for the SOS Band back in 1984. Six years later the song was topping the charts in a dub-reggae version by Norman 'Fatboy Slim' Cook's group Beats International, Lindy Layton supplying the vocals over a haunting stripped to the bone production. Dub Be Good To Be stands as a shining example of a cover version of a classic that became a classic in its own right. Sooner or later I suppose there had to be a naff trance version and this I'm afraid to say is it, British singer Clare Pearce supplies the vocals although Revelation themselves aren't named in the notes I have here. Presumably for fear of assassination. [Funny, one of them was no less a figure than Jamie White, he of Tzant and Hot and Wet and who used to tap me up for a good review for all of his 1990s works].
------------------------------------------------------------------------

38 THINKING OVER (Dana Glover)

Bringing up the rear this week is the debut Top 40 single for Dana Glover, yet another US female singer-songwriter with a nice line in piano-based ballads. For some reason this single doesn't quite have the same magic as your average Vanessa Carlton single and can do little more than creep almost unseen into the bottom end of the Top 40.