Susan Boyle's Dream run keeps going as album stays at No 1

Published on Sunday 6 December 2009 21:53

SUSAN Boyle last night held on to the top spot in the album charts with her debut release I Dreamed a Dream.

There was also no change at the top of the singles chart with The Official BBC Children in Need Medley by Peter Kay's Animated All Stars sticking at number one.

Westlife came the closest to ending Boyle's dream with their latest album Where We Are going straight in at number two.

There was another new entry at number three with Take That's The Greatest Day – The Circus Live.

The Heroes album by the Band of the Coldstream Guards was a new entry at 13, The Official UK Charts Company said.

The X Factor finalists' charity single, a cover of Michael Jackson's You Are Not Alone in aid of Great Ormond Street children's hospital, dropped from two to five.

This week's charts showed music lovers were feeling festive, with Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You and The Pogues, featuring Kirsty MacColl, with Fairytale of New York, both rising more than 20 places to 29 and 31 respectively.

Boyle's debut album is already the third biggest seller of the year, the Charts Company said.

I Dreamed a Dream shifted more than 410,000 copies in its first week on release – the best first week's sales figures for a debut album since records began – and total sales have now passed the 700,000 mark.

The 48-year-old Britain's Got Talent finalist from Blackburn, West Lothian, smashed the record held by 2006 X Factor winner Leona Lewis, who sold 375,872 copies of her debut Spirit in the first week of its release in November 2007.

Martin Talbot, managing director of the Charts Company, said: "Susan Boyle's debut was historic and we expect the Susan Boyle effect to be felt in the charts for a long time to come yet."