Happy Birthday to Mister Samuel Dylan Murray Preston, current inmate of the Celebrity Big Brother asylum and occasional Ordinary Boys frontman. Not only does the song title above sum up life inside the Big Brother house, it also happens to be the song that was number one when Preston was born, 24 years ago today. (Thank you to Dermot O’Leary for supplying that information, and Preston’s full name, as I prised my eyes open to watch his far-too-early BBLB show today.)

Preston seems to be enjoying his birthday party as I write this, but it’s a shame he is blissfully unaware of the birthday present which yesterday’s singles chart delivered to him, as The Ordinary Boys’ rather good single from last year, Boys Will Be Boys, made a tasty re-entry into the singles chart. It re-entered at number 33, seven months after it became the biggest of their four Top 40 hits so far, peaking at number 16 last June. It took me by surprise, as I was expecting a surge of downloads for their tracks – I’ve done it myself – but didn’t expect to see it in the ‘proper’ singles chart, as it isn’t officially on sale as a physical single. However, the presence of this in yesterday’s chart and the absence of a certain Dead Or Alive song, which I also sense is being downloaded quite a lot this week, shows the rather contrived rules under which our singles chart is now operating. Songs can’t appear in the main singles chart on the strength of download sales, unless a physical version is also on sale. That’s why loads of classic Christmas songs, by Wham!, Band Aid, Shakin’ Stevens, Slade, Wizzard and particularly Mariah Carey, were clogging up the download chart last month but didn’t appear in the main singles chart, because they weren’t on sale in any physical format. This rule was cleverly bent by Gorillaz last year with Feel Good Inc, when they released it first as a download, but also put a very limited edition vinyl version into some shops. This was enough to get the downloads included in the main chart and get the single into the Top 30, almost on download sales alone. When the CD version was released later, the single leapt up the chart in a way that singles are not supposed to do anymore.

If I’ve understood the rules correctly, download sales can count towards a single’s position in the combined chart for one year after the release of the physical single. So that’s why the Christmas singles mentioned above didn’t enter the main chart, but the Ordinary Boys have. In reality, there must have been very few copies of Boys Will Be Boys lurking in the alphabetical racks of HMVs across the country last week, and I’m sure they’ve all gone now, but the fact that the single is still within a year of its original release date means that all the download sales count. Hey presto – a re-entry!

‘Boys Will Be Boys’ has been hurriedly scheduled for a ‘proper’ re-release a week today (23rd January), so we’ll have one more week of it in the chart on mainly download sales and then, I suspect, a number one single on Sunday 29th January. This is two days after Celebrity Big Brother ends. Can you imagine little Preston’s face if he comes out of this as the winner and then Davina tells him he’s heading for a number one single? I can’t wait! Lounging around in the house sure beats the usual round of travelling and promotions that normally go with the release of a single.

‘You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)’ won’t make the main singles chart at all, no matter how many downloads it sells, unless Epic get the CD out again. They’ve only re-released the classic once before, in May 2003, when a remixed version made number 23. They need to re-release the original, in my humble opinion. It’s already had airplay this week on commercial radio – I’ve heard it!

PS. Check out the Lady Sovereign remix of ‘Boys Will Be Boys’. The Queen Of Chav puts a whole new spin on the original in what we used to call a ‘reply song’ in the olden days.


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