Chartramble - Sunday 9th May

This week's top ten:

1. (1) Roll Deep: 'Good Times'
2. (2) Usher ft. will.i.am: 'OMG'
3. (3) Plan B: 'She Said'
4. (-) Pendulum: 'Watercolour'
5. (-) Aggro Santos ft. Kimberly Wyatt: 'Candy'
6. (10) Taio Cruz ft. Ke$ha: 'Dirty Picture'
7. (5) Chipmunk ft. Esmée Denters: 'Until You Were Gone'
8. (4) Diana Vickers: 'Once'
9. (8) Timbaland ft. Justin Timberlake: 'Carry Out'
10. (9) Kelis: 'Acapella'

Reactions and this week's new releases are to be found, as ever, after the jump

Chartramble - Sunday 2nd May

Le top ten.

1. (-) Roll Deep: 'Good Times'
2. (2) Usher ft. will.i.am: 'OMG'
3. (4) Plan B: 'She Said'
4. (1) Diana Vickers: 'Once'
5. (3) Chipmunk ft. Esmée Denters: 'Until You Were Gone'
6. (6) Professor Green ft. Ed Drewett: 'I Need You Tonight'
7. (5) Scouting For Girls: 'This Ain't A Love Song'
8. (8) Timbaland ft. Justin Timberlake: 'Carry Out'
9. (7) Kelis: 'Acapella'
10. (12) Taio Cruz ft. Ke$ha: 'Dirty Picture'

"Jump" for reactions and this week's new releases

Chartramble - Sunday 18th April

So... hot off the "press" this is what the top ten looks like this week:


1. (2) Usher ft. will.i.am: 'OMG'
2. (1) Scouting For Girls: 'This Ain't A Love Song'
3. (-) Professor Green ft. Ed Drewett: 'I Need You Tonight'
4. (3) Plan B: 'She Said'
5. (-) Kelis: 'Acapella'
6. (4) Lady GaGa ft. Beyoncé: 'Telephone'
7. (-) Selena Gomez & The Scene: 'Naturally'
8. (6) Timbaland ft. Justin Timberlake: 'Carry Out'
9. (5) Tinie Tempah: 'Pass Out'
10. (7) INNA: 'Hot'

Some observations:

1) As if to prove that we clearly know nothing, Usher is at number 1. The earlier objections we raised still apply, however.

2) We're not saying that "I Need You Tonight" by Professor Green is a *bad* song, we're just saying that we'd quite like to hunt him down, slap him in the face with an INXS CD and ask him to go home, try again, and leave Michael Hutchence alone. We aren't claiming for a moment that there is no room for samples in pop music. All we ask is that if you do use them, at least DO SOMETHING INTERESTING WITH THEM. Rather than rap over the top. The whole thing wouldn't even be so bad, if he didn't look like a 16 year old and thus rob the song of *any* maturity whatsoever. Or perhaps we're just getting old. Either way, N-Dubz have a lot to answer for (i.e., they have this to answer for).

3) Homework for this week is to go away and make notes on "Acapella" by Kelis. THIS is how you do interesting pop music, ladies and gentlemen. Kelis' voice is, as ever, amazing and the whole thing is accompanied by a video which is ridiculously fantastic.

4) Selena Gomez has, in many ways, fulfilled the Justin Bieber role this week. But my God, what a cracker of a debut. Brilliant back-beat, and a US tween idol defies all the expectations and creates an interesting electropop number with a suitably catchy chorus. A B+, to borro some transatlantic parlance.

5) Tinie Tempah and INNA haven't buggered off yet :(

That's this week, what about next week? Well available for your perusal are the following:

Diana Vickers emerges from the X Factor wilderness with a song which is... not awful. You would not believe how difficult it is for us to say that, given we very firmly fell on the "hate" part of the love/hate divide during Vickers' X Factor tenure. However, "Once" (we couldn't find a video sadly, if someone could point us in the right direction we'd be much obliged) is a song which works with her very divisive voice and builds to a nice crescendo. Are we completely sold? No. Would we like to see this get a decent top-10 position next week? Probably. *goes for a lie down*

Chipmunk is back. Let joy be unconfined. Esmee Denters doesn't really add much to this and delivers a very anaemic vocal. "Until You Were Gone" is pleasant enough, we suppose, but it doesn't have star potential written all over it. So it'll probably reach number 2 next week on that basis alone.

Oh and here's N-Dubz. And the first problem with "Say It's Over" is the reference to a "pager". Tulisa has a cracking voice. Its just a shame that the other two-thirds are about as entertaining as a Jacob's cracker. After it's been in the cupboard. For a year.

Thankfully Shakira's about to salvage this week's releases. We particularly recommend this T4 performance a showcase of what's going on. Shakira is far better known for her higher-tempo tracks, but for our money, her ballads and love songs tend to be far stronger, and this is no exception to that rule. The chorus particularly is fairly brilliant.

Thank God for that: we were seriously worried that we were going to endorse Diana Vickers as having the best single released this week...

Chartramble - Monday 12th April

This is what this week's top ten looks like:

1. (1) Scouting For Girls: 'This Ain't A Love Song'
2. (8) Usher ft. will.i.am: 'OMG'
3. (3) Plan B: 'She Said'
4. (2) Lady GaGa ft. Beyoncé: 'Telephone'
5. (5) Tinie Tempah: 'Pass Out'
6. (16) Timbaland ft. Justin Timberlake: 'Carry Out'
7. (9) INNA: 'Hot'
8. (6) Rihanna: 'Rude Boy'
9. (7) Justin Bieber ft. Ludacris: 'Baby'
10. (10) Cheryl Cole: 'Parachute'

Some observations:

1) It's kind of Tinie Tempah and Timbaland to band together to produce a step by step guide on how to cope if, when out "in the club" one of your party members faints. I.E. If they "Pass Out" it's up to you to "Carry Out" or at least fetch the nearest first-aid trained bouncer. If Tinie Tempah MUST clutter up the top 10, we're glad he's performing some kind of public service.

2) Scouting for Girls are still clinging on to the number 1 spot. We've never been part of the "hate" that S4G seem to attract (indeed, two years ago at the V Festival they were bloody brilliant and really helped liven up a drizzly spell). However, it seems a shame that this is the song that's propelled them to the top spot, given that one of the key elements of their appeal is their playful sense of humour. Add a couple of guitars and Gerard Way wailing over the top, and, lyrically, this one isn't too far away from a lead single on My Chemical Romance's next album campaign (actually, now we come to think of it, Jo Whiley Fearne *shudders* Cotton might want to consider this for the "Live Lounge").

3) Perhaps it'll be a "grower" but Usher and will.i.am's tie-up really has a sense that something more could have been done. We appreciate the word "Gosh" being used instead of "God" as it makes it the kind of thing that our Granny would be quite happy to sing along to without fear of a blasphemy charge. We don't appreciate the utter lack of interesting vocals from Usher. That's not to say we're demanding he hits every note in his range every time he's within 10ft of a microphone, just that it would be nice to variate from the one or two he chucks out on this song.

4) Numbers 3, 5, and 7 are almost unlistenable. Plan B, for our money, just doesn't have "it" and following a sound which only occasionally works for Amy Winehouse isn't going to cut it. On the plus side, the bit in the video where the jury starts clicking is definitely a highlight. INNA's Hot is just bloody awful.

5) We really want not to like Justin Bieber but sadly we have failed :( - Again, to look at the positives, it's unlikely that we have the next Hanson on our hands which can only be good news, as the first Hanson (or Hanson 1.0, if you will) was fairly bloody perfect and frankly there have been very few songs released in history that have been as good as MmBop.

So that's that. Looking at the week ahead these are some of the highlights of this week's new releases:

Banana-f'in-rama!!! are releasing an absolute stomper which should have Little Boots et al listening attentively and taking notes. "Love Don't Live Here" is a brilliantly constructed, thoroughly modern pop song. We expect it to get to about number 45 :-(

Jay-Z and Swiss Beatz are bringing out "On To The Next One" which is similarly brilliant. What Jay Z can't do with a backing beat isn't worth doing, frankly. This one is innovative and engaging. Tinie Tempah, take note.

But the big news is that Kate Nash is releasing something which isn't fifteen shades of awful. So that's a plus. You know, in private circles (dinner parties and the like) we haven't been very fair to Kate Nash. She's actually got a really nice voice and we just wish that she'd let that shine through rather than putting all the emphasis on some fairly ropey lyrics. Thankfully, this single seems to have learned that lesson. Well done, Nash.

So, there you have it, three great singles being released next week. Perhaps this means we'll have 100% less Scouting For Girls bringing their B game at number 1 next week.

Oh, and just in case we failed to emphasise it enough, stop what you're doing and give yourselves a lesson in how to do great pop music, courtesy of Banarama: