Boosted by the XL artist's Brits performance of Rolling In The Deep and her winning best album and best British female, 21's sales are 14.3% up on the week and by the end of business on Thursday the album was only about 600 sales short of leading this week's artist albums market, according to the Official Charts Company.
With its cumulative UK sales by midnight on Thursday just around 3,000 short of 4 million, the album was just behind Brits Critics' Choice winner Emeli Sande's Virgin's debut Our Version of Events. Sande's album debuted at number one last Sunday and has been the biggest seller all this week, but 21 is very likely to have overtaken it by the time the final chart is published this weekend.
Double Brit winner Ed Sheeran's Asylum/Atlantic album + moves 5-3 on the midweeks with a 52% sales rise, while Polydor act Lana Del Rey's Born To Die falls 2-4 with a 43% sales slide, despite her own Brits win for best international newcomer, and Island act Gotye drops 4-5 with Making Mirrors.
Among the Brits contingent, there are sales gains for Parlophone act Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto (up 2.8%), Island's Florence + The Machine with Ceremonials (up 36.8%) and Def Jam/Mercury's Rihanna album Talk That Talk (up 4.1%), but there are week-on-week sales slides so far this week for latest albums by performers Noel Gallagher, Bruno Mars and Olly Murs. This, however, could all change by the time the final chart is published as there are still two days of sales to factor in.
Island's Gotye looks like regaining the singles number one spot he lost last Sunday with Somebody That I Used To Know. The track that then replaced it at number one, the Ministry of Sound-issued Hot Right Now by DJ Fresh featuring Rita Ora, is down to three in the new chart week as Virgin act Emeli Sande holds at two with Next To Me.
The full midweek singles and albums charts are on musicweek.com.
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