WH Smith and Woolworth have charts which include 'new entries' of albums released that week. I don't know what they base the predictions on (pre-orders?), but Musicology charts at number 14 in WH Smith and number 7 in Woolworths.

Which probably means it will chart officially in the top twenty at least.

The sleeve on the copy in Woolworths says that Musicology is Heat's album of the week. For the non-UK folk, Heat is a popular gossipy type of magazine.

What was Prince's last top 40 album in the UK? Chaos and Disorder?

Emancipation was #18

It's amazing how having the muscle of SONY behind you and real promotion/advertising can make people "buy in" and go out and purchase the CD. For most of the general public it must be getting on for 10 years since they heard of Prince.

I have made it clear on many threads that while I like Musicology I personally don't think it is a great/classic album. In fact some of his late 90s and recent stuff is better. But that really doesn't matter because I think it is clear with all the buzz that this will chart and do fairly well (certainly by Prince's recent standards).

Prince is back (commercially at least)

Good press (front page Metro today) but releasing the single after the album is a bad, bad move. This is a balls up.

It was No 7 in our local Tesco superstore, but even better than that it was Tesco's ALBUM OF THE WEEK. £9.77. Wh Smiths and Woolworths were £12.99

i got a feeling its gonna be a top 5 album here. the amount of press and promotion is amazing. everyone seems to be reviewing it and making it album of the week. i can't go anywhere without seeing a poster of it. quite amazing really.

releasing the album first is purely financial. don't make money on singles. in my opinion i don't think the single will chart that high anyway.

It's a projected #15 in my local Safeway.

I was surprised to see the CD get it's own, and fairly big, section in HMV today. However, I can't say I was impressed at all with the shoddy packaging! A cardboard cover, with a silly flap at the front and nothing holding the insert.

And the final insult is the writing on the spine - it's going the wrong bloody way, from bottom to top! A minor mistake many may think, but this is just sloppy work from Sony/NPG/whoever. It's a cardboard presentation just not built to last. I wasn't impressed by NEWS either before anyone asks!

I'll be sticking to my homemade CDR for a bit I think.

ASDA #9

#2 in Sainsbury's!

#1 in my house

He's #3 on the official charts so far - from Monday's sales.

#2 on the carpet.

Damn that dog!

If I hear more mid-week updates, I'll post them here.

he sold 9,000 on day one. this put hm at 3 in the midweeks. this is amazing as both the records above him had the advantage of sales from sunday 18th april. As things go he'll probably only fall down 1 place by the end of the week and sell a total of 50,000.

not bad at all.

rave utjf would have made the uk top 40 but it was banned.

banned u say, how come? I bought mine in Eire ok.

it was banned from the charts, but it was on sale.

Woolworth's? In my area,we don't even a Woolworth's anymore! That's such an old School store...lol...

NME said:

So what do you need to sell to get to no.1 on the UK album charts these days? and how do you find out the midweek stats anyway? R U a record industry insider?

Can anyone list the chart positions of Prince's albums in the UK? I'm sure there was a period when he could do no wrong. If I recall correctly, ATWIAD, Parade, SOTT, Lovesexy, and Batman were all no.1 albums but I couldnt be sure.

On the basis of album chart positions achieved, could the UK be designated as his most successful territory?

It would seem that there are a lot of "dormant" fans out there snapping Musicology up anyway. A top 5 album from absolutely nowhere would be excellent.

MattUK said:

i work at a major record company. we get them (midweeks) daily.

DavidEye said:

I think they all went out of business in America.

MattUK said:[quote]Can anyone list the chart positions of Prince's albums in the UK? I'm sure there was a period when he could do no wrong. If I recall correctly, ATWIAD, Parade, SOTT, Lovesexy, and Batman were all no.1 albums but I couldnt be sure.



no way! prince didnt get a number one album till lovesexy. and im fairly sure it dropped right off. its bizarre cos during that period his sales dipped in the USA but finally the UK seemed to accept him. come was number one too. dont think owt else was?

Still holding steady @ #3 upto Wednesday's mid-weeks.

Still Top3? Should definitely end up being Top5 then.

What a return to prominence.

Seems daft to be releasing the single next week. I should think that may miss Top40 altogether.

softandwet said:

His UK no.1 albums are:

Lovesexy
Batman
Graffiti Bridge

Come

MattUK said:

I think that too - but maybe, since singles are only a loss-leader any way these days - maybe the exposure of it being released that week, and the album being top 3 will propell album sales more than singles sales?

A happy coincidence?

A month ago Top 30 anywhere would have been good for me. To think it's a potential Top 5 is frankly astounding.

When you consider that Janet Jackson was over here doing promotional TV appearances and the like and that album effectively bombed, I think the performance of Musicology shows a to date un-tapped respect for him within the UK.
- He's done no TV or Radio.
- The Grammy performance was only shown on Satellite TV
- The RRHOF performance hasnt been seen at all
- He's not on tour
- He's effectively been off-radar since TGE

All there has been is
- London bill-poster campaign
- PR / Reviews
- Radio2 album of the week

You could argue that even the exposure he has got is as a result of the link up with Sony but you can't tell me that the JJ album didnt have a major push either.

The UK has always loved Prince it's just that only a few of us have always known it. Seems that everyone else is waking up to it to now.

Bring on the tour. It will be THE event of 2004.

I was having a drink with an old friend of mine last night who has never really digged Prince particularly.

She asked me what the album was like and said that about 70% of the reviews she'd read had been good. If she was reading the reviews and buying the album (and after a little reassurance she did say she's going to buy the album) then something is working in a big fucking way.

TheFrog said:

May be we are all tired of the likes of Westlife, Busted, McFly, Atomic Kitten, Girls Aloud, S Club, I could go on...

The man said it himself - "real music by real musicians"...