DATAFILE SALES - 01.12.07.

Increasing for the fifth of, barring disasters, what should be nine consecutive weeks of growth, album sales totalled 3,544,177 last week - their highest level of the year.

The bad news is it is the first time in the 21st century that sales have been below 4m in the year's 47th week and it is nearly a million fewer albums than were sold in the same week last year, when the total was 4,476,165. The last time fewer albums were sold in the comparative week was in 1998.

Album sales so far this year have exceeded same-week tallies for 2006 on just seven occasions, most recently in April, when Easter helped sales to 2,619,340 - but the only reason it beat the same week in 2006 was that Easter fell a week later last year. Since that Easter blip, album sales have been down on same week 2006 for 33 weeks in a row.

Leona Lewis's Spirit, however, enjoyed robust second week sales of 196,997 to remain top of the artist album list but was replaced at the head of the combined albums chart by Now That's What I Call Music! 68, whose opening week brought 280,172 sales. That is below the 288,579 copies that Now! 66 sold on its first week in the shops in Easter. Now! 68's first week sales are, however, the fourth highest yet for the long- running series, and easily beat the 235,716 start made a year ago by Now! 65.

Now! 68's ...