What's Happening In Romania?

Well quite a bit, since you're asking.

But that's not really very important. Certainly not in comparison to what's going on in the potentially made up Charly 1300 Romanian Airplay Charts. Accordingly, it's about time to have a look at how they've changed since they were last covered on this so-called 'music' so-called 'blog' (last Friday).

In at Number 40 we have Adele, with 'Someone Like You'. She's also at Numbers 43 and 68 with 'Set Fire To The Rain' and 'Rolling In The Deep' respectively - minor successes, but welcome ones nonetheless for a somewhat overlooked talent.

Further up the chart there's a (vaguely) notable entry from Mory Kanté - he of 'Yé ké yé ké' 'fame'. 23 years on and he's quite figuratively had a fight with rent-a-remixers Loverush UK!. The result of that gargantuan tussle is 'Yé ké yé ké 2011', credited to (bear with the analogy here) 'Mory Kanté versus Loverush UK!', which slides 4 places to 21 this week. It's basically the original reswizzled in a 2011 fashion, and while it isn't brilliant, it still counts as another important addition to the tightly woven tapestry of popular song. Music, if only metaphorically, is the winner.

Elsewhere there are significant climbs for David Deejay, whose P Jolie and Nonis-featuring 'Perfect 2' is up 11 to 22 (it's not very good, so don't bother), and Andra's 'Telephone', which takes the Inna formula and adds skittery sax and guitar samples AND a sort of marching band bit - amazing - which jumps eight places from 18 to 10. Disappointingly, however, there's also good news for the utterly deplorable Smiley, the man who puts the 'bad' into 'troubadour'. 

Yes, 'Dream Girl' has risen from 13 to 7, and while that troubadour joke was more than a little ropey it's certainly no worse than any of Smiley's own musings. Take, for example, the opening verse: "I'm sitting alone, drinking alcohol; writing a song about you; I know it's so sad, maybe even mad; but I know what you do behind my back". That right there is an almost cataclysmically terrible collection of lyrics, and one that even David 'two coffees' Sneddon would sneer at. Worst of all is its misogynistic tone, something that would be overt, if only it wasn't so appallingly written ('You're one to talk' - The World).

Anyway, here's the big bit: affixed below is your handy cut-out and keep guide to this week's Top 10, along with the definitive judgements on how good they are.

10 (18) Andra - 'Telephone' VERY GOOD INDEED
9 (14) Jennifer Lopez - 'I'm Into You' feat Lil Wayne PASSABLE
8 (9) Rihanna - 'Man Down' GOOD
7 (13) 'Smiley' - 'Dream Girl' UNBELIEVABLY AWFUL
6 (6) DJ Antoine - 'Welcome To St. Tropez' feat Kalenna THE END OF POP
5 (5) Guess Who - 'Tot Mai Sus' feat Marius Moga BRILLIANT
4 (3) Deepside Deejays - 'Never Be Alone' PARTICULARLY LOVELY
3 (4) Alexinno - 'Senorita' feat Starchild NOTHING SPECIAL
2 (2) Pitbull - 'Give Me Everything' feat Ne-Yo etc FEATURES PITBULL 
1 (1) Don Omar - 'Danza Kuduro' feat Lucenzo AMAZING

'And there,' as they say, 'we have it'. Except...

• Akcent are getting a UK 'push' of sorts, courtesy of the often fantastic and only occasionally abysmal All Around The World label, who have had big hits in recent years with Inna, Alexandra Stan and Edward Maya. It's yet to be seen whether this will be a full-blooded thrust or just a gentle shove, but it's definitely good that there's at least one relatively large record company in the UK willing to take a chance on foreign acts. Right? Right.

• 'Danza Kuduro' is also about to hit the UK, but only with the accompaniment of Pitbull on a new edit for the nation's simpletons.

• And YouTube commenter templar990 has taken to Andra's 'Telephone' video to inform the world that they "love romania video, most of them made me erect :]". At the time of going to press that breezy bon mot had accumulated 25 likes.