This week's Official UK Singles Chart

This week's Official UK Albums Chart

It only takes one event to shake your faith in something. For all the thrill of watching some of the most exciting and creative club tracks of the moment soar to the top of the sales countdown each week, there is always the nagging doubt that the appeal is still rather artificial, and that club singles are by no means immune to the phenomenon that befalls so many teen acts - the lack of sales in Week 2.

So if I sound a note of caution about any of this week's big new singles on the Official UK Singles chart this week, it is solely due to the rather disastrous performance of the Number 2 single from seven days ago, Won't Look Back by Duke Dumont whose sales and streams have collapsed to such an extent that the track now sits at Number 13. A one week wonder in the true sense of the word. Not that any of the new arrivals that replace him aren't of some significance because trust me these are singles which were always guaranteed to be huge.

Leading the charge and giving us a brand new Number One single this week is the all-conquering Calvin Harris. His previous single Summer was an easy chart-topping single five months ago and indeed has only exited the Top 40 in the last few weeks despite spending just a week at the top. He follows it up with his second Number One of the year as Blame storms to the very top of the charts, blasting away the still resilient popularity of Lilly Wood's Prayer In C. The single is Harris' seventh Number One hit single in all forms - five as lead artist and two more with a secondary credit on other people's hits. The guest singer this time around is John Newman, a man no stranger to the top of the charts and indeed who now reaches the top for the third calendar year in a row, following his performance on Rudimental's Feel The Love in 2012 and his own hit Love Me Again in 2013.

Sam Smith's I'm Not The Only One reaches a new peak of Number 3 this week whilst Taylor Swift's Shake It Off rebounds 6-4 to return to the chart peak it has already occupied for a fortnight during its four-week chart career to date. Amusingly Sam Smith's single is not his most listened to track this week, his previous hit Stay With Me holding at Number 15 on the singles chart but rising to Number 3 on the streaming chart, topping a million plays in a week for the first time since its release. [The streaming market here already showing signs of following its own path and conforming to its own rules of engagement. Just that it had not reached the point where it had tipped the singles chart to dance to its tune. The paid for sale was still King at this point].

Clubland produces the second biggest new hit of the week as the intriguing Walking With Elephants steams to Number 6 for Ten Walls. The track is a haunting electronic instrumental, a subtle and understated hit single as you are likely to see this year but one which has captivated just about everyone who has heard it since it began circulating online at the start of the year. Although the PR for the track has attempted to paint the artist as a mysterious enigma it is fairly common knowledge that Ten Walls is an alias for Lithuanian producer and DJ Mario Basanov who has been active under his own name since winning awards for his work in his home country back in 2011.

Speaking of singles likely to be one week wonders (sorry, but the truth hurts), 5 Seconds Of Summer land their third Top 10 hit single of the year as new track Amnesia soars 38-7 this week. The closing track from their self-titled debut album, Amnesia has been on and off the charts ever since the album debuted earlier in the summer, its sudden propulsion to proper hit status coming after it was released as a "single" with a collection of collectable physical formats made available. Also helping no end was a timely appearance by the group on the launch show of the 2014 series of Strictly Come Dancing and thus the track explodes into chart contention although you should not expect it to be anywhere near this position in seven days time.

Rounding off a quartet of new Top 10 arrivals is Chris Brown who charts at Number 10 with New Flame, a single which features both Usher and rapper Rick Ross in tow. Assuming it fails to progress further the track is oddly enough his second straight Number 10 hit single of the year, the same peak having been scaled by his last single Loyal which embarked on an extended mid-table chart run back in April and had its one week of Top 10 glory on its sixth week on the chart, one of nine it spent pinballing between positions 10 and 19. Like its three immediate predecessors, the track is taken from Brown's album X which finally hits the stores this week after an extended delay and almost 18 months after its first single Fine China was released.

Also new this week, Fall Out Boy who land at Number 22 with Centuries, a single which began strongly following its Tuesday release but which faded rapidly once the effect of its fanbase purchases had died off. A brand new single, it is set to appear on the group's forthcoming sixth album

I mentioned last week that the X Factor effect hadn't quite managed to propel A Great Big World's Say Something back into the Top 40 - but that was then and this is now. Reawakened thanks to its use by auditionees as a performance track, the single now climbs to Number 26, its highest placing since the seventh week of its initial chart run which saw the song peak at Number 4 back in March.

One week after speculating out loud about the total sales to date for Happy (which slides just a place to Number 33 this week), the Official Charts Company confirmed them with a list of the most downloaded singles since the inception of the digital market, a table which the Pharrell Williams track naturally tops with some ease. The song has sold 1.62 million copies to date, slightly less than earlier guesses but still enough to mean it is knocking on the door of the Top 20 biggest selling singles of all time, a table which has remained unchanged since 2002.

It has been a busy week for album releases but Sam Smith holds firm with In The Lonely Hour at the top of the Official UK Albums chart, holding off the challenge of no less a rock legend than Robert Plant whose latest work Lullaby And The Ceaseless Roar charges in at Number 2. Other Top 10 new arrivals include Ryan Adams' self-titled new album at Number 6, El Pintor by Interpol at Number 9 and a surprise appearance at Number 7 for the Bob Marley compilation Legend which was one of a number of veteran greatest hits collections given enormous discounts as part of an online sale last week.

Speaking of veteran acts, just missing out on the Top 10 are Queen who instead appear at Number 11 with Live At The Rainbow '74, a lavish collection which in its deluxe edition features newly remastered live recordings of two different concerts given by Freddie Mercury et al 40 years ago this year at the famous North London venue. The concerts have never been made available for audio purchase before, although footage from the second gig was compiled into a video cassette released in 1992.

More from me next week, but please do check out www.masterton.co.uk/books for details of the release of my latest book, the Top 40 Annual of 2013 which details ever hit single of the year. The 2012 volume is still available too!