Monkeys top sales league: Sheffield band's record first-week album sales take retail by surprise.(Retail)

Retail knew it was going to be big, but the sheer volume of sales for the Arctic Monkeys' album last week took even the most seasoned campaigners by surprise.

Despite all the hype surrounding the arrival of Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, based on similar acts' past opening performances, it seemed the best the album could hope for in week one was 200,000 over-the-counter sales.

As for what it would manage on day one, HMV appeared to reflect the general forecasts when it issued a press release last Monday, predicting the album would open with around 60,000 sales. Given that Oasis' first album Definitely Maybe had taken its entire first week to sell 86,000 copies in September 1994, this would represent an impressive performance.

So, when the actual Official Charts Company sales figures for last Monday rolled in the following morning, they were understandably greeted with genuine shock. The albums opening-day sales of 118,501 was remarkable by anyone's standards but, until last week, such figures remained the domain of superstars arriving with new albums or reality TV stars with debut album projects--not the first album by an indie guitar band from Sheffield.

By day two, sales had risen beyond 180,000 copies and comfortably passed the 200,000 mark last Wednesday. As a result, the question was no longer whether the band would beat the previous best first week for a debut album of 306,631 achieved by Hear'Say in April 2001, but how many they would beat it by.

"It's beyond everyone's expectations," says HMV's head of ...