Irish rockers Fontaines D.C. are on course to score their first-ever UK Number 1 album with Skinty Fia.
The Dublin-born group - comprising Carlos O’Connell, Conor Curley, Conor Deegan III, Grian Chatten and Tom Coll – are currently outselling their closest competition 4:1, with physical sales accounting for over 90% of Skinty Fia’s midweek sales. Previously, the band have claimed two UK Top 10 studio albums; 2019’s Dogrel (9) and 2020 record A Hero’s Death (2).
Spiritualized’s Everything Was Beautiful rides at Number 2 midweek, if their ninth studio album maintains its position through to Friday, it would see the space rock group claim a career best on the Official Albums Chart.
Close behind follows Another World, Brian May’s second solo album, looking to make a Top 3 debut (3), 24 years after its initial 1998 release. Remastered as part of the Queen guitarist’s Gold Series of reissues, the release includes remixes, rarities and live tracks, and if it holds on, it could become Brian May’s first Top 5 placing as a solo artist.
Elsewhere in the midweek Top 10, there are new entries from Stone Broken with third studio record Revelation (5), Bob Vylan and their unique fusion of punk and grime with Bob Vylan Presents: The Price of Life (6) and Bronx-born rapper Pusha T, who could manage his highest-charting UK album to date with It’s Almost Dry (7).
The Streets’ seminal debut Original Pirate Material (9) could reach a new peak thanks to its limited edition Record Store Day 2022 vinyl release, the record originally peaked at Number 10 in 2002. A condensed EP release of David Bowie’s Number 5-charting album Toy, also exclusive to Record Store Day 2022, sees the record vault back into the Top 10 midweek (10).
Record Store Day’s impact could also see Childish Gambino’s 2014 mixtape Kauai make its UK chart debut, after the record became available on vinyl for the first time (16).
Almost 60 years after they first played together, Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder’s Get on Board – an album of covers by blues icons Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee - currently sits at Number 18 after a weekend of sales.
Elsewhere in the Top 40, Record Store Day releases see the possibility of Blur’s 1998 album Bustin’ + Dronin’ making its UK Official Albums Chart debut (21), T-Rex’s 1972 record The Slider re-entering the chart (26) and David Bowie claiming his second new entry of the week with Brilliant Adventure (27).
More vinyl reissues propel midweek chart movement for Slipknot’s eponymous 1999 debut (30), The Cure’s Pornography, which benefitted from an RSD picture disc edition vaults up the chart (34) and Frightened Rabbit’s 2013 LP Pedestrian Verse (36).
Nothing But Thieves’ combined release of Moral Panic and Moral Panic II as The Complete Edition is on track to make the Top 40 (38), and finally Blues legend Bonnie Raitt sits at Number 39 midweek with Just Like That…
