The rumours have now been confirmed - there was a problem with Apple's iTune store on Monday that led to Sheffield superstars, Arctic Monkeys, effectively blitzing the charts with a surge of 17 singles entering the Official Top 200 last weekend. A technical failure meant that fans were unable to buy the complete album for a period - leading fans en masse into buying each track separately.

Of course, the huge sales the Arctics got in the first week are nothing to be sneered at. While people are rattling off meaningless statistics along the lines of "Most hits in the charts since The bloody Beatles..." or hoofing back that The Jam had loads of singles in the chart following an anniversary re-release, the fact remains that trensds were bucked, shedloads of records were sold, and 4 lads proved that in an age of leaks, file-sharing and overall falling salesm, it's still more than possible to have a big hit record.