This week's Official UK Singles Chart

This week's Official UK Albums Chart

A combination of some big mid-summer new releases and the inevitable impact of the music-heavy closing ceremony of the Olympic games has made for one of the busiest, and in many ways most barking mad, UK singles charts in many a long month. Brand new tracks mingle with some classic and often underrated golden oldies in a chart rundown which for a fan of music is nothing less than a joy to behold, with six new entries in the Top 10 alone.

First, the Number One single, which actually rises above the chaos beneath and is a track which was clearly destined for the top regardless of circumstances. Cementing her claim as one of the biggest acts of the year, How We Do (Party) storms to Number One to give Rita Ora her third chart-topping single of the year, hard on the heels of her own RIP and the DJ Fresh track Hot Right Now to which she credited vocals. She is the first act since the Black Eyed Peas in 2009 to not only land three Number One hits in a row but to have them all in the same calendar year.

I'd add more but there is just too much to get through this week. The next three new songs on the chart owe their presence to performances at the Olympics closing ceremony last weekend. Front and centre it seemed, as she was at the start, was Emeli Sande and she is rewarded with an unexpected Number 3 hit for her own take on the track which has previously given her her only Number One single to date. The original version of Read All About It topped the charts in November last year for Sande in collaboration with Professor Green. In true Empire State Of Mind style, her own mellow rendition of the track appeared on her Our Version Of Events album - titled 'Part 3' due to a procedural quirk which saw the 'Part 2' moniker grabbed for a version Green contributed to a magazine covermount. After featuring at the core of Sande's set in the Olympic stadium last weekend Read All About It Part 3" storms to Number 3, six months after it first made a brief chart appearance when the album was first released. Speaking of the album, Our Version Of Events also benefits tremendously from her worldwide TV exposure, topping the album chart for the fourth time in total and its first since the start of June.

Ask anyone with an opinion and they will argue that Elbow are one of the great British bands, with a decade-long catalogue of quality music which has won them widespread acclaim and a great many fans. What they have always lacked until now, however, is a proper mainstream hit single, having never once climbed any higher than Number 19. Until today. Invited to play the soundtrack to the athletes parade last weekend, Elbow inevitably performed what has become their signature song, One Day Like This taken from their award-winning 2008 album The Seldom Seen Kid. Despite its deserved status as a modern day classic, and a hardy chart perennial, the single never once made the Top 30, instead peaking twice at Number 35 in late 2008 and early 2009. Its only other claim to fame was featuring as one of the tracks in the Official BBC Children In Need Medley which topped the charts in late 2009. In what is nothing short of a joy, One Day Like This this week wins a whole new set of fans and charges to Number 4 to finally and deservedly give Elbow the massive smash hit you always felt they deserved.

Once again, I'd say more but there is still more to tell. Despite rumours to the contrary the famously stage shy Kate Bush didn't appear in person at the closing ceremony, but her 1985 hit single Running Up That Hill featured heavily as part of the event soundtrack. 27 years after it was first a hit it is back in the charts, landing neatly at Number 6, three places behind its original Number 3 peak. It is Kate Bush's first UK Top 10 hit since King Of The Mountain made Number 4 in late 2005.

We're back to slightly more contemporary sounds for the next two entries on the chart. After belatedly making the UK Top 40 for the first time ever earlier this year with Heart Attack, multi-talented American star Trey Songz has a proper mainstream hit single with Simply Amazing which lands this week at Number 8. Both songs are taken from his upcoming fifth album Chapter V which may well become his first to chart here as well. One place behind at Number 9 is Porter Robinson with Language, the debut chart single for the American DJ and producer whose mixes of other people's work have made him a name to watch over the last two years.

Inside the Top 20 there are two more closing ceremony-linked tracks. George Michael marked his comeback from serious illness by performing new single White Light which possibly hasn't quite had the impact he had hoped for, crawling in at Number 15 - admittedly still a better performance than his 2011 cover of True Faith which only reached Number 27. Meanwhile at Number 18 - Imagine by John Lennon which proves that no matter how famous the track there are always people who don't yet own a copy. The classic single was last on the Top 40 over Christmas 1999 when a turn of the millennium themed re-issue saw it soar to Number 3.

I could write more - the lower end of the chart is literally strewn with chart quirks that the television broadcast of the closing ceremony has thrown up. Buried in my profile here on about.com is a link to the (near)-weekly podcast, and we'll go into much more detail on that later in the week. In the meantime enjoy, chart weeks like this don't come around all that often and it is nothing less than a joy when they do.