One Direction's Midnight Memories is set to become the first artist album this year to open with 200,000 sales having this week already shifted 187,660 copies.

The group's third Syco album accumulated that total up to the end of business on Thursday, according to Official Charts Company statistics, making it the fastest-selling artist title of 2013 with two days of trading still to go. The previous record holder, Columbia act Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, shifted 165,091 week one in ...