Official Charts Company launches weekly Vinyl Charts

Vinyl is selling more than for ‘quite a long time’ here in the UK, and so the Official Charts Company (the people who compile and release the official UK album and singles charts) have launched the Official Vinyl Charts.

From this week they’re publishing the top selling albums and singles on vinyl - and to start off they’ve revealed the top selling records of the year so far.

“We’re delighted to launch the UK’s first Official Vinyl Albums and Official Vinyl Singles charts onOfficialCharts.com, to coincide with Record Store Day this coming weekend,” comments Martin Talbot, Chief Executive of the Official Charts Company. “With vinyl album sales up by almost 70% already this year, vinyl junkies could well have snapped up 2 million units by the end of this year – an extraordinary number, if you consider sales were one-tenth of that just six years ago. This growth underlines the continuing resurgence of this much-loved format, whether you’re a fan of Arctic Monkeys, Noel Gallagher, Led Zeppelin or David Bowie.”

It’s not by chance he’s mentioned those old men (and Arctic Monkeys) - their records are the biggest-selling of the year so far on vinyl; Gallagher’s latest tops the poll, and there are also notable showings for Royal Blood’s debut (#4) and Peace’s ‘Happy People’ (#9).

The top selling singles are both from the former Oasis man, as ‘Ballad of the Mighty I’ and ‘The Dying of the Light’ are #1 and #2 respectively, though there’s also The Vaccines’ ‘Handsome’ (#8), Slaves’ ‘The Hunter’ (#6) and - obviously - Mark Ronson’s ‘Uptown Funk’ (#4).

Meanwhile, in the first weekly singles charts, Swim Deep’s ‘To My Brother’ is at #3, Everything Everything’s ‘Distant Past’ is at #6, and Django Django’s ‘First Light’ is at #11. All Time Low’s ‘Future Hearts’ tops the album vinyl chart as the regular one, while Drenge’s ‘Undertow’ is at #2, Courtney Barnett’s ‘Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit’ is at #6, and East India Youth’s ‘Culture of Volume’ is at #8.