Were you back at work this week? The British music industry not so much, preferring instead to wait for January to start for real before getting on with the messy business of releasing new music. The result is a continual shuffling of the pack as existing product continues to mop up whatever potential purchasers are around.
It means another change at the top of the singles chart as Coldplay dip down to be replaced by a single which has already been on release for two months. Good Feeling by Flo Rida originally "peaked" at Number 2 at the end of November and had dipped as low as Number 7 in Christmas week only to rebound at the end of the holiday. Jumping two places to the top, it gives the American rapper his third Number One single as a performer although his fourth overall. As well as 2009 hit Right Round and 2010 release Club Can't Handle Me he also made a cameo appearance on Alexandra Burke's Bad Boys which topped the charts in 2009. The annoyance must therefore be that Good Feeling's failure to top the charts until now has prevented him maintaining a four year streak of Number One hits.
.be">
As has been well documented Good Feeling is heavily based on the Aviici track Levels and with the two singles having charted almost in tandem for the past two months it is inevitable that the renewed success of one has dragged the other up in its wake. Levels thus shoots 12-4 on the chart this week to equal the peak it first scaled on December 3rd.
Fortune always favours the brave they say, so the one man bold enough to release new product this week is Taio Cruz and so is rewarded for his troubles with a new entry at Number 3. Troublemaker is the first chart single for the singer and producer since Higher peaked at Number 8 in January last year. A brand new track from his forthcoming third album TYO, it is technically the second single to be made available although the first Hangover (by a strange coincidence featuring Flo Rida on guest vocals) was only made available as an international single and for the moment remains unreleased in his home country.
Also making a bold charge into the Top 10 is Jessie J who thus lands herself a fifth Top 10 hit single from her debut album Who You Are as Domino jumps 26 places to Number 8. One of three new tracks to be added to the special edition of the album, the track first appeared on the chart in Christmas week but now seems poised to take perfect advantage of the new year lull. Domino is also making steady progress up the US Hot 100 as well, suggesting that in 2012 it is America's turn to learn just what has made her such a huge star in Europe.
Other chart moves of note include the 46-16 jump made by Do You Feel What I Feel by JLS which may well be a new year hit but which is actually based on a festive classic, borrowing the melody from Bing Crosby's famous track Do You Hear What I Hear. The third single to be lifted from their current album Jukebox, it remains for the moment their only hit so far to fall short of the Top 10, a situation which you suspect will be rectified in the not too distant future.
Also on the charge is Higher Love by James Vincent McMorrow. A cover version of the track originally recorded by Steve Winwood back in 1986, this version has featured heavily in TV commercials for the Lovefilm DVD rental service of late and now is making chart waves after strong public demand for its release. The track is currently at Number 21, eight places below the peak of Winwood's original.
Watch out next week for a huge surge in sales for Home Again by Michael Kiwanuka. The upcoming soul star was this week named the winner of the BBCs annual "Sound of 2012" poll (past winners of which have included the likes of Adele and Jessie J). Top 20 next week for the laidback acoustic track seems almost a given.
Speaking of Adele, a timely broadcast on television over the new year of her celebrated Royal Albert Hall concert from earlier in the summer has led to a renewed surge of interest in her work. The few remaining sentient beings in the UK to not own a copy of 21 already have rushed to do so in its aftermath which inevitably means the already record-breaking album is back at Number One on the album chart for the first time since July 30th. Now 50 weeks old and an ever-present in the Top 10 since release, the album now sets yet another benchmark with its 19th week in total at Number One - one more now than the continuous run of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack from 1978 which it equalled back in the summer. It now means 21 has spent longer at Number One than any album since Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel clocked up 33 weeks in 1970 and 1971.
