Ellie’s fourth studio album is the biggest album of the week so far after the weekend’s sales and streams, ahead in the race for Number 1 by just shy of 3,000 chart sales. Brightest Blue has scored the most CD and download sales of the past three days since its release last Friday.
Should Ellie hold onto her lead, it will mark her third UK Number 1 album, following 2010’s Lights and 2012’s Halcyon. 2015 album Delirium also made the Top 3, peaking at Number 3. See all of Ellie Goulding’s charting singles and albums.
Currently in the runner-up slot is Bob Dylan, whose 39th studio album Rough and Rowdy Ways rebounds 24 places to 2 following its vinyl release. The 79-year-old became the oldest male to claim a UK chart topper following the album’s release on CD and digital formats last month.
Joy Division’s final album Closer, reissued for its 40th anniversary, is at Number 3 midweek, ahead of country legends The Chicks – their first album in 14 years Gaslighter is at Number 4 currently and is on track to be their highest-charting ever. Rounding out the Top 5 this week is neo soul singer Lianne La Havas with her self-titled third album at Number 5.
Lancaster rock band Massive Wagons are driving towards their first Top 10 with fifth album House of Noise at 7, the first album from Jarvis Cocker’s new project JARV IS titled Beyond the Pale is at 8, and former Westlife and Boyzone members Brian McFadden & Keith Duffy are at 9 with Strings Attached, their first album as duo Boyzlife.
Newly available on vinyl for the first time since its 1991 release, David Bowie supergroup Tin Machine’s second album Tin Machine II could reach a new peak this week (11), The Pretenders are on course for their first Top 20 album since 1994 with Hate For Sale (13), plus drill rapper Unknown T and Doncaster alt-rock band The Blinders could score their first Top 40 albums with Rise Above Hate (14), and Fantasies Of A Stay At Home Psychopath (16) respectively.
Level 42’s The Essential could see the jazz-funk group scoop for their first Top 40 album in 14 years at Number 31, and finally, US rapper and comedian Oliver Tree is at Number 33 with Ugly Is Beautiful.
