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No doubt some will see it as evidence that good always triumphs over evil, but personally I’d go for the less ambitious ‘average will always triumph over shit’ – liberal poster boy of rap Kanye West has trounced 50 Cent into the dust in the biggest chart stand-off since Blur and Oasis last tussled in the dirt over rights to the Britpop crown. His Graduation (review) goes in at number one ahead of Fiddy’s second-placed Curtis, echoing the US chart verdict which could put the bullet-riddled meathead’s lobotomised flow on hold indefinitely – ‘Cent’ had previously claimed he would quit rap if he lost out in the beef, and has allegedly just cancelled all his forthcoming European promotional commitments in a dummy-spitting gesture of proportions. Fiddy is pictured right, if you ask him nicely he might rap for you, but no, you've built it up too much now, and anyway you'd only laugh.
Feeling all faint at the testosterone in the air are those doyennes of vaguely credible coffee-table pop, K T Tunstall and Natalie Imbruglia, at numbers 3 and 5 respectively with their Drastic Fantastic and Glorious – The Singles 97-07. Kano’s London Town hits number 14 in spite of some patchy reviews, while The Go! Team look to be in fairly rude health at 21 with Proof Of Youth, reviewed here. After their night spent ‘chewing their faces off’ at the Mercuries the other week, Klaxons crack the top 40 once more with their album of the year Myths Of The Near Future, and old goth tits Siouxsie indulges in a spot of frottage with the lower end of the charts, her Mantaray going in at number 39.
Compared with the album chart, which is like Optimus Prime and Megatron slugging it out in a fist fight to the death with their hands wrapped in resin and dipped in broken glass shards, the singles chart is like Ultra Magnus sat at home with an instruction manual, trying to figure out how to work the Matrix. That is to say, it’s dull. And definitely futile. Sean Kingston clings determinedly to the top spot, Elvis rolls back the years with the week’s highest new entry, 'Party' going off at number 14, and White Stripes sneak into the top 20 at 18 with their country-rocking second proper single off Icky Thump, 'You Don’t Know What Love Is'. Last week Phil Collins put in a ‘hilarious’ appearance at number 42 with 'In The Air Tonight' thanks to the popularity of the Cadbury’s drumming gorilla ad. This week said ditty rises to number 23, and said hilarity becomes less hilarious. Languishing at 62 is 'End Of The World' by Ash, whose recent decision to become a singles-only band at the precise moment in their careers they seem to have lost the knack for writing a decent tune is starting to look questionable. Ach well.
