Paul Weller chasing sixth Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart with Fat Pop

Paul Weller is leading the race for Number 1 on this week’s Official Albums Chart with Fat Pop.

The Modfather’s 16^th studio album has notched up the most CD and vinyl sales of the week so far and holds an overall advantage of almost 13,000 chart sales over his closest competition.

Should The Jam vocalist hold onto his momentum, Fat Pop will mark Weller’s sixth UK Number 1 album, and second in less than 12 months following historic 2020 chart-topper On Sunset.

MORE: Official Top 40 biggest albums of 2021 so far

Hot on his heels at Number 2 is J. Cole with The Off-Season; The North Carolinian rapper’s sixth record is far and beyond the most streamed album so far this week, and is on track to become his third Top 10 entry, and joint-highest charting, matching the peak of 2018’s KOD.

Rag’n’Bone Man slips to Number 3 with the current Number 1 album Life By Misadventure, but has racked up the most downloads across the last 72 hours of the sales window.

Funk album Daddy’s Home from GRAMMY-winning US artist St. Vincent is at 4 and on course to achieve her best chart placement ever in the UK, and rounding out the Top 5 at 5 are the Black Keys with their covers album Delta Kream.

One more new release is in line for a Top 10 finish and that’s The Ides of March, the seventh solo album from Alter Bridge’s Myles Kennedy, which is Number 7 midweek.

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English actor and musician Matt Berry is eyeing his highest charting album to date with psychedelic record The Blue Elephant (11), Nicki Minaj’s 2009 mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty is orbiting the Top 20 following its first-time streaming release with three extra tracks (13), Jorja Smith is back with her new ‘project’ Be Right Back (14), and David Gray is looking to pick up an 11^th Top 40 entry with his Irish-inspired album Skellig (15).

A belated 50th anniversary edition of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s Top 5 album Deja Vu occupies Number 20, two spots ahead of Mercury Prize-nominated jazz group Sons of Kemet with Black To The Future at Number 22.

Paul & Linda McCartney’s chart-topping 1971 album Ram could charge back into the Top 40 for the first time since January 1972 following a vinyl reissue (27), and finally, electronic duo Morcheeba could claim their first Top 40 entry since 2005 with 10th record Blackest Blue (28).

See the full Official Albums Chart Update Top 100 (from 5:45pm)

View this week's Top 100 Official Singles Chart Update (from 5:45pm)