Brit Sweep: September 9, 2012...

Well, the weekend's coming to a close, so it's time to take a look at the new music selling over in the United Kingdom right now.

The biggest seller on the official singles music chart this week is a new entry by American R&B singer/songwriter Ne-Yo, who has had four previous hits at #1, from 2006's "So Sick" to last year's featured credit on Pitbull's "Give Me Everything". His latest is "Let Me Love You (Until You Learn To Love Yourself)"...

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Coming in under Ne-Yo is the pairing of Irish rock group The Script and American rapper/singer/producer will.i.am on "Hall Of Fame". The band's lead singer Danny O'Donoghue and will both spent the last season appearing on the British version of The Voice as judges/mentors. This single already ties their chart peak - 2008's "The Man Who Can't Be Moved", while will.i.am has topped the UK chart three times apart from the Black Eyed Peas, one (his latest, "This Is Love") as a lead artist...

In the place position this week is another American, singer/songwriter Pink, with "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)", which had already reached the US top-10. She already has three number-one UK singles to her name, "Just Like A Pill", "So What", and her collaborative effort on "Lady Marmalade"...

Entering just under the top-10 at #11 is American rapper Flo Rida, who has scored four #1 singles in the UK, from "Right Round" in 2009 to this year's "Good Feeling". His fourth single from his Wild Ones album is "I Cry", and you may recognize the sample. It's the recent European dance track "Cry (Just A Little)", which itself cribs from the Brenda Russell classic "Piano In The Dark"...

British rapper Plan B's previous album, The Defamation of Strickland Banks, was one of my top-5 favorite albums of 2010, and sadly was overlooked by American audiences, even though he opened for Bruno Mars on his tour. I still feel that work would make at awesome West End/Broadway production, and Mr. Ben Drew got two top-ten hits from the album, including the classic #3 single "She Said". His followup track is also based on a cinematic storyline, though the music is much harder and confrontational that the last Motown-adoring set. The second single from it, "Deepest Shame", is by far the epic highlight of the album, and it comes in at #27...

Another British rap artist, Professor Green, topped the UK chart last year with the original version of the song reprised by Emeli Sande at the Olympic closing ceremony, "Read All About It". It's from his excellent sophomore record At Your Inconvenience, and the fourth charting single from it, "Avalon", arrives at #36. It features American alt-rock singer Sierra Kusterbeck of the band VersaEmerge...

The biggest-selling album in the UK this week is Come Of Age by the London alt-rock group The Vaccines, and the second top-40 hit from the set (after "No Hope") is "Teenage Icon" at #39...

At #49 is Swedish DJ/producer Avicii (a.k.a. Tim Berg), scored two #4 singles last year: first supporting Leona Lewis on "Collide", then on his own sampling the late Etta James on the worldwide hit "Levels". This time out he remixes a track off of American retro-rocker Lenny Kravitz's latest album Black & White In America called "Superlove", and gets equal billing credit. Kravitz himself topped the chart here in 1999 with "Fly Away"...

Well, coming in at #61 is a viral video track that I think everyone between the ages of 15 and 25 knows already. It's South Korean rapper Psy (real name Park Jae-Sang), whose "Gangnam Style" clip has gotten over 100 million views on YouTube, and the single is just being released around the world. It is a crazy riot. By the way "Gangham" refers to a particularly swanky section of the city of Seoul, and naturally it's topped the charts in his homeland...I think this may have potential to be this year's "Party Rock Anthem" if we all knew wtf he was talking about...

British rapper Smiler enters at #63 with "Top of the World" featuring Professor Green (who you saw earlier) and singer Taiwah...

Irish singer Ronan Keating is the lead singer of the boy-band Boyzone who were humungous in Britain during the 90s, and on his own he led the singles chart three times, two times with remakes of American country hits, "When You Say Nothing At All" and "If Tomorrow Never Comes", and once with a song by Gregg Alexander of New Radicals, "Life Is A Rollercoaster". His latest album, Fires, debuts at #5 in the UK this week, and the title track (which Alexander produced) comes in at #76 on the singles chart...

The record that the Vaccines beat out this week for #1 is Northern Irish electropop group Two Door Cinema Club, whose highest-ranked single so far was their first, 2009's "Something Good Can Work" at #56. Their newest, "Sleep Alone", comes in at #79...

Pendulum side-project Knife Party got into the British top-5 earlier this year with the Swedish House Mafia on "Antidote". They're back at #86 with "Centipede"..

Well that does it for this week's Brit Sweep....thanks for comin', and check back tomorrow for another Song of the Day, candletime, part two of this week's "Album Sweep", and the "Robbed Hit" of the week. Cheers!