Weekender : don't take it literally

CHART OF DARKNESS: Right, chart. We've got our sketchpads out, we've got a scientific calculator ready, now explain why Shakira's Hips Don't Lie is not only maintaining a top three position in the face of media indifference but has actually climbed back to number one. Varying sales, yes, but what's keeping this going week after week? This time it bats out Christina Aguilera's challenge, which seems to have come at us too suddenly for anyone to get their head around where on earth she's going. McFly take a dive to 6, one ahead of Madonna - did you know about this? - and three ahead of the brave but ultimately futile - well, the first single from one of their albums should be top five, the amount they've been going on - attempt of Kasabian to get one over on everyone. Snow Patrol, entrants at 25 last week, only make it up to 15, possibly because the song's ended before you've registered its presence. The Pet Shop Boys head back to the old synths at 19, their lowest charting single since Was It Worth It? despite/because of the spelling the title gambit repeated from Shopping. Paris - ah, we see - only manages 35 on downloads with Shapeshifters and Chic, which seems to just be an officiously credited sample, at 40. Cascada, the sort of female singer who'd take off were there still analogue TV outlets for her sort of thing, is in on downloads at 41 with ¡Forward, Russia! at 44. Why are Captain in the 75 on downloads?
Razorlight are still atop the albums, where the big entry is Pharrell's solo effort that's been on the schedules about to be dropped roughly since the Cenozoic period. James Dean Bradfield is at 22, yet another Sam Cooke retrospective at 27, Bill Withers is compiled at 35 - go on, as it's summer, guess the title - Rogue Traders only manage 46 but that's still one ahead of the heavily promoted in their field Bullet For My Valentine, and apparently there are enough people still into Heather Small and Jurassic 5 to give them top 60 places.

FREE MUSIC: Nicked this one from Pitchfork, but that's fair enough as it was they who first alerted us to Philadelphia's Girl Talk, a sampledelic stew that reinvigorates the mash-up in a Frontier Psychiatrist style. Smash Your Head would seem to be a typical example.

HEY YOU GET OFFA MYSPACE: Having bigged him up yesterday we should give MJ Hibbett & The Validators proper props. Lamacq favourites, Leicestrian Hibbett has been at this wry observational lark for quite a few years now, most famously with b3ta-endorsed Hey Hey 16k, and his new album keeps the run going. Currently up, three tracks from the week before last's Lamacq Live live session.

VISUAL REPRESENTATION SPECIAL: So farewell, Top Of The Pops. True, you lost your way in about 1993, but for those years you were annoying the sensitive with balaclavas, accepting that sometimes international talent will wear dolphin suits, making playground heroes of moustachioed men at keyboards, getting Jim Thirlwell on sax, adding to fey Mancunian singers' iconography again and again, having songs named after you, exhibiting 3D space chess or just making Travis seem interesting, we salute you.

FALLING OFF A BLOG: Again, a blog does us a linkage courtesy, we pay it straight back. Hello, 17 Seconds, with your cheeriness and your recent mp3s of Low, the Concretes and Yo La Tengo continuing a very promising early run.

IN OTHER NEWS: There is no other news. Clear off.