DATAFILE SALES - 12.01.08.

After the heady sales of December, January always provides a reality check about the state of the market, and this week is no exception to that rule, with no album coming close to selling 50,000 copies, whereas 35 albums (28 artist, seven compilation) breached that mark a fortnight ago.

It is not all gloom, however, and sales of 2,727,704 albums last week - although off 40.4% week-on-week - are just 0.4% below the 2,738,751 albums sold in the same week last year, when there appeared to be a lot more low-priced clearance product massaging the figures upwards.

Artist albums sales were down even less - just 0.1%, or 1,976 sales - on the same week in 2007, while compilations eased by 1.6%.

Topping the compilation chart for the seventh week in a row, Now That's What I Call Music! 68 lost more sales last week than the compilation sector as a whole, sagging 67.1% to 27,396 sales. However, that is much better than the 19,105 copies that Now! 65 sold a year ago, and Now! 68's overall sales tally of 1,148,805 is 20.07% ahead of same stage sales of Now! 65, and 0.3% ahead of Now! 62's seven-week tally. In fact, Now! 68 is selling better at this stage than any album in the iconic series since Now! 56, which had sold 1,253,485 copies at the same stage of its life four years ago.

With many people heading back to work rather than spending their extra leisure time surfing ...