Music Week Report:
The top end of the UK artist albums chart will have a Seventies feel to it this weekend, as The Eagles take on Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant for the number one spot.
The American band’s first studio album since 1979’s The Long Run is currently outselling Plant’s Rounder-issued Alison Krauss collaboration Raising Sand by more than two copies to one.
If the Eagles album Long Road Out Of Eden, which is released by Polydor, does make it to number one by the end of the chart week, it will be their first-ever UK chart-topper, beating the number two peaks of the albums Hotel California and Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975.
In what could be a top three exclusively made up of new entries, the RCA Label Group’s new Britney Spears album Blackout is also set for a high new entry this Sunday as is the same company’s new Whitney Houston retrospective The Ultimate Collection.
A fifth album is also poised to debut in the Top 10 with Rosette’s Daniel O’Donnell adding to his tally of hit albums, this time in collaboration with Mary Duff on Together Again.
The high tally of big new albums also includes new sets from RCA Label Group’s Backstreet Boys, Warner Bros’s Avenged Sevenfold and a new Parlophone live Queen album. A first Libertines retrospective, Time For Heroes: The Best Of, will deliver Rough Trade a Top 40 entry.
On the singles chart, Syco/RCA Label Group’s Leona Lewis is predictably unable to match last week’s 66,000 opening day of her single Bleeding Love, but it still produces a very solid tally of nearly 47,000 units to set up a commanding lead over nearest challenger Rule The World by Polydor’s Take That.
The chart’s pop flavour continues with S/RCA Label Group’s Westlife. However, they will have to settle for a top-three debut with new single Home rather than it giving the seasoned boy band a 15th number one.
This week’s Sony BMG Elvis Presley re-issue Viva Las Vegas will be among the chart’s other new entries this Sunday when Koopa are likely to score their highest-charting hit to date with third single Crash. Released on their own Juxtaposition label, it is currently at 12 in the midweeks.