Good weather, desirable new releases, new sales initiatives from Virgin and MVC, a VAT-free weekend at Tesco and payday for monthly wage earners helped both singles and albums markets register double digit gains last week, writes Alan Jones.

Albums enjoyed a 17.7% sales hike to 2,568,998 - their highest level for three weeks and their 15th best tally in 34 trading weeks so far in 2005 - while overall singles sales jumped by 14% to 900,611, their highest figure for ...