Robbie inches away from JLS in albums chart battle

10:30 | Tuesday November 10, 2009

Midweek charts initially showed the Epic boy band’s self-titled debut album taking the lead over Williams’ Reality Killed The Radio Star (Virgin).

However, it is understood that this is due to registration issues at the Official Charts Company, which led to some sales of Williams’ album not being counted. With these sales added, Williams has a slender lead over JLS.

The two acts leads a top four at this stage of the week made up exclusively of new releases, with the Fiction/Polydor Snow Patrol retrospective Up To Now in third place and 14th Floor/Warner Bros act Biffy Clyro’s Only Revolutions ranked fourth.

The huge influx of new entries means Cheryl Cole’s Fascination/Polydor album 3 Words, which secured a second week at number one last Sunday, will make a sharp dive down the chart and could end up dropping out of the top five. Mercury act Bon Jovi, whose album The Circle debuted at two last Sunday, will suffer a similar decline.

Although no other new albums are presently among the week’s 10 biggest sellers, another four newly-issued albums are looking likely to crack the Top 20. They are led by Decca’s Jamie Cullum with The Pursuit and also take in J/RCA’s Rod Stewart with Soulbook, Shirley Bassey’s Geffen/Polydor album The Performance and the Hollywood/Polydor-issued The Time Of Our Lives by Miley Cyrus.

With last season’s X Factor runners-up JLS leading the albums market at this stage, the ITV programme is also continuing to exert its influence on the singles market where former winner Leona Lewis has the week’s top seller so far. Her newly-issued Syco single Happy has opened up a lead of around 6,000 sales with Interscope/Polydor’s Black Eyed Peas with Meet Me Halfway the closest challenger. JLS’s Everybody In Love, which debuted at one last Sunday, is at this time the new week’s third biggest seller.

Three other new singles are among the top 10 sellers, led by AATW/UMTV’s N-Dubz with I Need You and followed by the Island-issued About A Girl by Sugababes and Jive/RCA’s Britney Spears with 3.

The full singles and albums midweeks are on Musicweek.com.