Weekender

CHART OF DARKNESS: Shayne Ward makes it another week with the bare minimum of effort, from either the rest of the music industry or anyone surrounding him. Richard Ashcroft would have had his biggest solo hit otherwise, so be grateful for diminutive mercies. At 4 it's Waiting For A Star To Fall mania all over again as a second track using the same core sample, here the Baywatch theme, charts in successive weeks. It can't be true that Hasselhoff is making a musical comeback, can it? We seem to be alone in remaining impervious to this cult, but then we've always hated wanton irony. Texas can't manage better than 6 even with Peter Kay dusting off Marc Park from That Peter Kay Thing for the video, Jose Gonzalez pops by at 9, the Kooks manage 12, The Crimea are far too low at 31, while there's re-entries for the Ordinary Boys, understandably, and Kanye West, inexplicably. Big news in the album charts, in which James Blunt takes the top once more, is Editors' The Back Room up 15 to 3. Gonzalez rockets to 16, Notorious BIG's latest set of grave-digging - three dead people on duet duty with Biggie! - is a place below and we'd like full explanation of why Led Zeppelin IV has climbed for three consecutive weeks and is now at 28.

BARGAIN HUNT: Interpol's Turn On The Bright Lights seems to have become something of a US indie touchstone already, in airiness as much as the phalanx of black-clad Joy Division-listening gloom mongers following its lead. New York cares, and Virgin certainly do, selling it for £4.99.

FREE MUSIC: Television Personalities - May You Dream The Sweetest Dreams: Dan Treacy's back from some worrying personal depths with the TVPs first album in a few years, My Dark Places, out on Domino in February. Still sounds like it was recorded in a biscuit tin, still wilfully singular. From the same site, the classic Part Time Punks gets John Peel almost excited

HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Goodbooks: minor members of the NME's Hot List for 2006, yet more clever-clever post-post-punk, but with a wise head on young shoulders. They claim in that same piece that their name was suggested by Holly Willoughby, which is just pushing their luck publicity-wise.

SECRET LIVES: We've covered Zane Lowe's band Breaks Co-Op before, but on the back of The Other Side winning Best Single at the New Zealand Music Awards and being named the country's most played record on national radio of 2005, their website suggests they've signed to Parlophone worldwide and are about to launch in the UK. Wonder how that'll go down with the press. New Zealand Herald interview and moody photo here

IN OTHER NEWS: Eamon leaves British Sea Power. Remember him this way:



EVERYBODY GET RANDOM: 'Paul Morressey' and Johnny Marr appear on 1984 TV-AM kids pop show Datarun. The woman at the start is Lulu's sister, the kids are from Stephen's old school, the live footage was recorded at a soundcheck, the rest is inexplicable.