Professor Green spends a second week at Number 1

Professor Green triumphs this week with his single ‘Read All About It’ft. Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sande holding firm at Number 1 for a second week, despite a mid-week chart battle with 2010 X Factor finalist Cher Lloyd who had to settle for the Highest New Entry accolade at Number 4 with ‘With Ur Love’ ft. US singer Mike Posner.

‘Read All About It’, the first Official Singles Chart Number 1 for the 27-year-old Hackney native, sometimes dubbed the English Eminem, follows previous hit singles ‘I Need You Tonight’ ft. Ed Drewitt (Number 3, February 2011) and Just Be Good To Green ft. Lily Allen (Number 5, August 2010).

Over on the Official Albums Chart, 25-year-old Florence Welch and her band return in style with second album ‘Ceremonials’ storming straight to the top spot with sales of over 90,000 in its first week.  ‘Ceremonials’ follows the band’s debut, the multi-platinum ‘Lungs’ which spent six months in the charts, having entered at Number 2 in July 2009, before taking the Number 1 title in January 2010.  The album has spent a total of 79 weeks in the Top 40, 33 of them in the Top 10.  ‘Lungs’ won the Mastercard British Album at the 2010 BRIT Awards and Florence & The Machine, nominated Best New Artist at the 53rd Grammy Awards, went on to take the US by storm, notching up a string of memorable appearances that included Saturday Night Live, Good Morning America, the 83rd Academy Awards, Anna Wintour’s annual Met Ball, and the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo. This year Time Magazine ranked Florence at number 51 in their 2011 list of the one hundred most influential people in the world. 

The Official Albums Chart Top 10 sees another three new entries behind Florence & The Machine’s ‘Ceremonials’ at Number 1 and Professor Green’s ‘At You Inconvenience’ at Number 3.

The English tenor Alfie Boe, currently performing in the West End production of Les Miserables, lands his best ever Official Charts performance with new album ‘Alfie’, a collection of popular covers, straight in at Number 6; Brighton duo Rizzle Kicks, who scored an Official Singles Chart Number 1 collaborating with Olly Murs on ‘Heart Skips A Beat’(August  2011), see their debut album ‘Stereo Typical’ straight in at Number 9 and Manic Street Preachers rack up their tenth Official Albums Chart Top 10 with ‘National Treasures – The Complete Singles’ straight in at Number 10. The Manic Street Preachers have had the highest number of consecutive Top 40 hit singles of any British rock band of the last 20 years (33 hits) while Status Quo hold the record for greatest number of consecutive Top 40 rock singles in history (36 hits). 

To see this week's full Official Singles Chart click here, or click here to see this week's Official Albums Chart click here.