Plan B’s Ill Manors set to hijack charts in Olympics opening week

As the world’s media spotlight shines on the very best of London’s East End this weekend for the opening of the long-awaited London 2012 Olympics, it is the grittier side of East London that looks likely to dominate the charts.

Plan B (aka Ben Drew) is on track to score his second Official Albums Chart Number 1 with Ill Manors, the soundtrack to his film directorial debut of the same name. The follow up to 2010’s chart-topping album The Defamation Of Strickland Banks, Ill Manors features, amongst other works, six original songs that provide the score and narration to the dark British crime drama set on the streets of Forest Gate, London. A plot in which social issues such as gangs, drugs and prostitution run rife, as the lead characters fight for respect.

The album features collaborations with Labrinth, Kano and John Cooper Clarke. The snarling title track, Ill Manors, which dissects the prejudices against London’s disaffected youth, peaked at Number 6 upon its release back in April.

New entries

A total of seven new entries are set to secure a Top 40 placing this weekend. Led by Plan B (Number 1), New Jersey rockers The Gaslight Anthem are back with fourth studio album Handwritten, currently riding at Number 2. If the Bruce Springsteen-influenced four-piece can maintain this performance, the band will scoop their first Top 10 album here in the UK.

Soul songstress Joss Stone is at Number 3 today with The Soul Sessions – Vol 2, the counterpart to her 2003 Top 5 multi-platinum debut, while Jennifer Lopez is on course to enter at 4 with the first Greatest Hits record of her career Dance Again – The Hits featuring Number 1 smashes Love Don’t Cost A Thing, Get Right and On The Floor, among a string of her UK Top 10 singles.

Elsewhere, Slipknot’s own Best Of collection, Antennas To Hell is at 16, while Chariots Of Fire composer Vangelis’ The Collection (38) and Passion Pit’s Gossamer (39) complete today’s Official Albums Chart Update new entries.

The Official Albums Chart Update Top 40 is as follows:

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