Music Blogs

"Poor La Roux", friends of mine were commenting late on Thursday night.

After selling almost half a million copies of debut single 'In For The Kill' already in 2009, Elly and Ben storm straight to Number One with the follow-up 'Bulletproof'. Sounding for all the world like Erasure performing a Yazoo song with a chorus borrowed from Depeche Mode, more so than its predecessor the single is locked joyously in the 80s and was all but guaranteed to be a massive hit.

The sad fact of the matter is that almost nobody will notice. The death during the week of Michael Jackson has naturally prompted a surge in sales of his back catalogue. In a chart domination that is almost without precedent he has no less than five different singles on the Top 40, with 'Man In The Mirror' leading the way at Number 11. 16 of his solo hits are inside the Top 75 with 3 Jackson 5 tracks and one further Jacksons single, giving a grand total of 20 chart singles featuring him as either solo or lead singer.

The Jackson domination of the album chart is slightly less pronounced, although that is simply because he recorded comparatively few of them. Nonetheless hits compilation 'Number Ones' storms to the top for the first time since its original release in November 2003. It is joined on the chart by 'Thriller', 'King Of Pop', 'Off The Wall', 'The Essential', 'Thriller 25', and 'Bad' for a grand total of seven chart albums.

Full details of every benchmark set and every record shattered in this most extraordinary of chart weeks to follow in Chart Watch UK later this evening.