Charts Analysis: Sam Smith surges to albums summit
by Alan Jones
Leadership of the album chart changes hands for the 15th week in a row – but instead of heralding U2's 11th No.1 album with Songs Of Experience, as most would have expected, we are instead welcoming back Sam Smith's The Thrill Of It All, which debuted in pole position four weeks ago, and returns to the summit with sales up 35.00% week-on-week at 58,299 (including 4,974 from sales-equivalent streams).
Five weeks into its chart career, The Thrill Of It All has never been out of the top two, and has sold 290,292 copies – enough for it to already rank as the year's sixth biggest-selling artist album. Smith's 2014 debut, In The Lonely Hour – which opened its account with 69 straight weeks in the Top 10 – bounces 44-37 this week, with sales of 5,748 copies raising its cumulative tally to 2,381,034, eclipsing Take That's Progress to become the fifth biggest-selling album of the 2010s.
U2's 14th studio album, Songs Of Experience posted a lead of 14,000 sales on the first of the week's sales flashes but that advantage was quickly eroded, and with many of its rivals apparently boosted by Christmas gift-buying, it eventually debuted at No.5 on sales of 40,669 copies. U2 last topped the chart in 2009, when No Line On The Horizon debuted at the summit on sales of 157,928 but missed out with 2014 follow-up Songs Of Innocence, which debuted and peaked at No.6 on sales of just 15,998 copies, having been available for more than a month as a free download from iTunes before being released physically and in expanded download form. Their best ever first week sale – and the highest by any album to that point – came in 1988 when their sixth studio album, Rattle And Hum raced to a first-week sale in excess of 360,000.