Singles
After two weeks at number two, Olly Murs' latest single, Dance With Me Tonight takes advantage of a very soft market to climb to number one. How soft? Well, the track sold just 46,584 copies last week, the lowest tally for a number one single since Taio Cruz's Break Your Heart topped the list for the third and last time 114 weeks ago, in October 2009, on sales of 42,746. Dance With Me Tonight's 1.52% share of the singles market is the lowest ever for a number one (Cruz's single, for the record, took 1.85% of the market in the week in question) .
The second single from Murs' second album, In Case You Didn't Know, which was number one last week, Dance With Me Tonight's move to the summit comes three months the first, Heart Skips A Beat (feat. Rizzle Kicks), and 15 months after his introductory single Please Don't Let Me Go topped the list.
In an unusually closely-packed chart, The X Factor Finalists' Wishing On A Star dips 1-2 (40,069 sales); Dedication To My Ex (Miss That) debuts at number three for Lloyd feat. Andre 3000/Lil Wayne (39,657 sales); We Found Love dips 3-4 for Rihanna feat. Calvin Haris (38,665 sales); and Good Feeling falls 4-5 for Flo Rida (37,722 sales). The bottom half of the Top 10 is even tighter: 5 O'Clock debuts at number six for T-Pain feat. Wiz Khalifa/Lily Allen (35,476 sales); Coldplay's Paradise improves 12-7 (32,955 sales) to breach the Top 10 for the first time on its seventh week on the chart; Avicii's Levels descends 5-8 (30,970 sales); Jessie J's Who You Are sells 6.3% more week-on-week but falls 8-9 (30,925 sales); and Ed Sheeran's Lego House falls 7-10 (29,826). Unlike the rest, Sheeran had breathing space, as the number 11 song, Earthquake by Labrinth feat. Tinie Tempah is more than 5,000 sales adrift at 24,668.
Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You leapfrogs over The Pogues feat. Kristy MacColl's Fairtytale Of New York to become the top seasonal song in a Top 75 in which 14 of them feature. Leaping 27-12, Carey's classic, originally a number two hit in 1994, tops its 2010 peak (number 22) and its 2009 peak (number 18), while equaling its 2008 peak, and recording its best digital sales ever - 24,620 - a figure that beats the 21,447 copies it sold at number four in December 2007. Fairytale Of New York jumps 23-15, with sales of 20,230. The reason both tracks and several others jumped could be iTunes pricing, though not all punters benefitted. Carey's song is 99p if plucked from her own Merry Christmas album but only 59p if selected from the multi-artist digital album Merry Xmas! - 80 Christmas Classics. Although OCC data doesn't show which of the two punters bought, iTunes' own chart on Sunday suggests that 90%, or thereabouts, paid 59p. The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl's Fairtytale Of New York is NOT on Merry Xmas! (there's a version by Ronan Keating and Maire Brennan instead), and it would appear than 88% of buyers are paying 99p for that track by selecting it from The Very Best Of The Pogues or Now That's What I Call Xmas, although the very same version is 20p less if downloaded from The Pogues' Ultimate Collection. Of the other Christmas songs, the prime mover is Justin Bieber's Mistletoe, which reached number 21 when first released in October, and now rebounds 122-23 (13,256 sales).
Sway scores his first Top 20 hit with Still Speedin' debuting at number 19 (16,823 sales), while Amy Winehouse's posthumous number one album, Lioness: Hidden Treasures spawns its second hit with a cover of Ruby & The Romantics' 1963 number 38 hit Our Day Will Come debuting at number 29 (11,964 sales), three months after Tony Bennett duet Body And Soul got to number 40.
Despite the terrible number one sales, overall singles hold up well, dipping just 0.76% week-on-week to 3,067,096 - 9.82% above same week 2010 sales of 2,792,867.
1 Olly Murs 46584
2 X Factor Finalists 40069
3 Lloyd/Andre 3000/Lil' Wayne 39657
4 Rihanna/Calvin Harris 38665
5 Flo Rida 37722
6 T-Pain/Wiz Khalifa/Lily Allen 35,476
7 Coldplay 32955
8 Avicii 30970
9 Jessie J 30925
10 Ed Sheeran 29826
12 Mariah Carey 24620
15 The Pogues/Kirsty MacColl 20230
19 Sway 16823
23 Justin Bieber 13256
29 Amy Winehouse 11964
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Albums
Christmas is less than two weeks away, and to prove it sales of albums reached a new 2011 high last week at 4,841,461 - a 19.04% increase week-on-week - with five albums selling more than 100,000 copies for the first time this year. The bad news, however, is that it is the 25th week in a row that sales have been below same week 2010 levels. The shortfall last week was 6.50%, compared to the 5,178,059 sales in the comparable 2010 week, while year-to-date album sales are off 5.21%.
On a more positive but poignant note, last week's top seller was Lioness: Hidden Treasures, the posthumous third album by Amy Winehouse. Debuting atop the chart on sales of 194,966, it makes the fourth biggest debut of the year, and is the second number one album for Winehouse, who spent three weeks at number one with her second album, Back To Black in 2007, a further week at number one in 2008 with the deluxe edition of that album, and three weeks at number one earlier this year when, following her death, sales of the two editions were combined for chart purposes.
Although it wasn't logged as such at the time, Back To Black had an even bigger sales week than Lioness, in Christmas week 2009, when the Deluxe Edition of the album was number nine on sales of 106,212, while the original was number 10 with sales of 103,587, making a total of 209,799. Back To Black was the UK's biggest selling album of the 21st century until it lost that title to Adele's 21 less than a fortnight ago. It jumps 79-70 on the current chart, with sales of 7,383, lifting its career tally to 3,395,312, but with 21 selling 83,847 copies as it falls 5-6, it increases its lead, with a 46 week score of 3,501,638 sales - this also including a half share of the Frank/Back To Black doublepack that sold 44 copies last week and more than 21,000 in total. Winehouse's 2003 debut album, Frank, which reached a new chart peak (number three) following her death, climbs 163-153 this week, with the 2,194 copies it sold taking it closer to the million mark, at 981,147.
Lioness' roaring success denied Michael Buble's Christmas album a return to pole position, despite its sales increasing by 31.78% week-on-week to 189,659. That's the highest weekly tally yet for the album, which has spent seven straight weeks in the top five, while racking up sales of 685,964 copies. It will be the album to beat next week.
Although introductory single Nothing's Real But Love peaked at number 10, 2010 X Factor runner-up Rebecca Ferguson's first album Heaven fared much better last week, Debuting at number three on sales of 128,458, it is the 26th Top 10 album by an X Factor act. 2009 runner-up Olly Murs isn't faring too badly either, with his second album, In Case You Didn't Know dipping 1-4, with sales of 113,394 copies, as its second single, Dance With Me Tonight, climbs to number one. 2008 runners-up JLS are also doing fine, with their third album, Jukebox, falling 11-12, while increasing sales to 46,638. With all these runners-up doing so well, the new 2011 runner-up Marcus Collins, can look to the future with confidence.
The rest of this week's Top 10: Rihanna's Talk That Talk dips 3-5 (96,270 sales); Ed Sheeran's + holds at number seven (75,406 sales); Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto holds at number eight (75,261 sales); One Direction's Up All Night falls 4-9 (72,320 sales); and Bruno Mars' Doo-Wops & Hooligans holds at number 10, with sales of 60,740. Doo-Wops & Hooligans thus becomes only the second 2011 artist album to sell a million copies, following Adele's 21. Doo-Wops & Hooligans sold 6,775 copies in 2010 as an import, and has sold 1,037,039 copies this year. Adele's 2008 debut, 19, has also sold more than a million copies this year: to be precise 1,160,228 of its overall tally of 1,890,498.
While Amy Winehouse and Rebecca Ferguson's new albums made high debuts, the week's third and last Top 40 entry, El Camino debuts at number 29 for Black Keys. The fourth chart album by the duo, from Akron, Ohio, is thus matches the debut position of their last, Brothers - but there's a huge difference in sales. Brothers was a May 2010 release and had to sell only 6,798 copies to get there but El Camino sold 21,891 copies last week - 222.02% more - to achieve a statistically identical result.
The screening of The Nation's Favourite Bee Gees Song on ITV brought a re-entry to the chart for their 2004 compilation Number Ones at number 40 (16,004 sales). Technically, it's a debuting reissue rather than a straight re-entry, as the original album, on Polydor, reached number seven in 2004 on its way to sales of 389,557, while the currently charted album was released on Reprise in 2008, although it had sold only 8,152 copies before last week.
Another ITV programme, A Week With Beyonce, provided a much-needed boost for the Destiny's Child star's latest album 4, which jumps 49-26, with sales up 146.60% week-on-week at 24,115. Meanwhile, Justin Bieber's Christmas album, Under The Mistletoe, is up 54-28, with sales leaping 165.90% week-on-week to 23,990, helped partly by his ITV special This Is Justin Bieber, though the programme was screened only five hours before the end of the trading week and will likely pay bigger dividends a week hence.
We've named four of the five albums to sell more than 100,000 copies last week above. The fifth, of course, is Now That's What I Call Music! 80, which recorded sales of 185,863 - down 11.80% week-on-week - to secure an easy third week atop the compilation chart. With 692,420 sales in 20 days, the album is lagging 9.62% behind same stage sales of 2010 equivalent Now! 77. Now! 80's runner-up for the second straight week is Now That's What I Call Xmas. The album - a descendant of the massively successful Now The Christmas Album - reached number five in the year it was released (2006), number seven in 2007, number 10 in 2008, number four in 2009 and number three in 2010. It sold 49,560 copies last week and, with sales to date of 982,991, will pass the million mark this week.
1 Amy Winehouse 194966
2 Michael Buble 189659 (688,300)
3 Rebecca Ferguson 128458
4 Olly Murs 113,394 (261,500)
5 Rihanna 96270
7 Ed Sheeran 75406
8 Coldplay 75261
9 One Direction 72320
10 Bruno Mars 60740 (1037,039)
26 Beyonce 24115
28 Justin Bieber 23990
29 Black Keys 21891
40 Bee Gees [#1s] 16004 (389,557)
70 Amy Winehouse 7383 (3,501,638)
153 Amy Winehouse [Frank] 2194 (981,147)
Albums To Date
Adele [19] 1,160,228 (2011) (Total 1,890,498)
Can't believe Amy almost lost it though! 
& for WFL spending a 10th week in top 5.
Top 50 Radio Airplay Chart
