Vampires top - but Boyle is waiting

10:40 | Friday January 22, 2010

The album sold 124,000 copies on its first week in the shops, more than four times the 28,000 sales that earned the band’s eponymous debut album a number 17 debut in 2008. As reported elsewhere on musicweek.com - http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=1039711&c=1 – the group is signed to UK indie label XL Recordings, part of The Beggars Group.

While it’s a UK label that rules the roost this week, it seems likely that next week will see the return of Susan Boyle to the summit.

The 48 year old Scot’s debut album I Dreamed A Dream holds at number two this week, on sales of 77,000 copies – but Boyle was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show on Tuesday (19th), singing and chatting to the host. Early reports suggest that the resultant uplift in sales should be enough for Boyle to see off the challenge of Lady GaGa, whose The Fame album looks like being its only serious opponent, with sales of Vampire Weekend’s set falling precipitously.

Boyle remains the only UK act in the Top 50 of the chart, our next best placing coming from Sade, whose 1994 compilation, The Best Of Sade, leaps back onto the list at number 56, helped enormously by the TV and radio coverage exposure of her new album Soldier Of Love, which is issued stateside on February 9. The title track debuts on the Hot 100 at number 56 this week, thanks to a combination of airplay and sales of 25,000 downloads. The track also moves 15-6 on the Hot R&B/Rap chart and holds at number three on the Jazz Songs chart.

Meanwhile Ringo Starr, now 69, scores his 14th US album chart entry outside of The Beatles, with new album Y Not debuting at number 58. Featuring a duet with surviving former fab colleague Paul McCartney and songs Starr wrote with Dave Stewart, Richard Marx, Gary Wright, Joe Walsh and Joss Stone, it is his highest charting studio set in America since Ringo’s Rotogravure in 1976.

On the Hot 100 singles chart, Ke$ha is number one for the fifth straight week with Tik Tok. Among UK acts, Jay Sean continues to lead the way, with second single Do You Remember (feat. Sean Paul & Lil Jon) holding at number 13 with a bullet on its 11th week in the chart, while his former number one Down eases 10-16 on its 29th week. Do You Remember climbs 20-16 on the downloads chart, with 75,000 sales last week lifting its career tally to 903,000, while Down’s 12-23 tumble on the same list is attended by sales of 62,000, lifting its overall sales to a mighty 3,220,000.

Finally, Snow Patrol’s 2006 collaboration with Canadian singer/songwriter Martha Wainwright belatedly enters the Hot 100, debuting at number 86. The Eyes Open track was roundly ignored in America first time around, and its sudden arrival in the Hot 100 is due to its use in the trailer for upcoming Channing Tatum/Amanda Seyfried movie Dear John. The track had previously sold only 59,000 copies digitally but sold 37,000 copies last week alone to debut at number 48 on the download chart.