Chart round-up: Merciless songstress conquers all; Nickelback remain a mystery to DiS

As Duffy continues her reign over the singles chart with ‘Mercy’ (there isn’t any forthcoming, it seems), there are few top ten movers and shakers on yesterday’s rundown. Highest new entry: X Factor winner past Leona Lewis with ‘Better In Time’/‘Footprints In The Sand’. A close call, apparently, but still the Welsh songstress conquers all.

H Two O featuring Platnum fall from two to three this week with ‘What’s It Gonna Be’, a song buoyed in the popularity stakes no doubt by its naughty ladies in school uniforms video. All elementary, this bassline t'ing, innit. Or something. One Republic stall at four for another week with ‘Stop And Stare’ and the top five is finished with Nickelback’s excruciatingly awful ‘Rockstar’. Can someone, please, explain to me what about this abomination of a single is keeping it on the radio? Is it to make everything else sound fucking amazing?

New entries, elsewhere: Panic At The Disco see their ‘Nine In The Afternoon’ land at 13 on downloads only (physical versions are released today; review here). Elbow’s first single from their new The Seldom Seen Kid LP (review), ‘Grounds For Divorce’, enters at 19, with Hard-Fi’s ‘I Shall Overcome’ limping into the top 40 at 35. Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong fail to convert column inches into single sales, with ‘Lonely Buoy’ debuting at 43.

Also bubbling below the top 40: MGMT’s ‘Time To Pretend’ (49), Gabriella Cilmi’s ‘Sweet About Me’ (50, with physical versions out this week; review), Hercules & Love Affair’s ‘Blind’ (59, down from last week’s 40), Jay-Z and Linkin Park’s ‘Numb/Encore’ (61, bumped by news of a gig together in London), and Snow Patrol’s ‘Chasing Cars’ (65, up from 71).

Albums… Duffy’s self-titled is at one, One Republic’s Dreaming Out Loud is at two, Nickelback’s All The Right Reasons is at three…

…Sorry, I dozed off there. MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular (review) is a spark of light at 12 (new entry), while elsewhere in the top 20… no, no… nothing of note. There really are a lot of shit albums in the chart right now. Who’s to blame? I know it’s not me – I don’t buy records, remember?

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds’ Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (review) falls a massive 20 places, from four last week to this week’s 24; Young Knives’ Superabundance (review) is new at 28; Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly’s Searching For The Hows & Whys debuts at 30 (review), a place above Hercules & Love Affair’s self-titled album (review); and The Kills’ Midnight Boom (review) misses the top 40 by some, landing at 47 on first week sales.

What’s out this week? Singles Round-up for March 17 HERE.

Image: TheScribeForce.com