Hard luck for Madonna as Tesco two-for-one sales disqualified.

Retail giant's album offer deemed chart-ineligible by OCC as healthy sales push four Madonna catalogue releases back into the albums rundown

Madonna has been denied a spectacular chart quintuple, after the Official Charts Company took the step of excluding Tesco sales of four of her albums from this week's rundown.

The OCC's decision stems from concerns over a Tesco promotion in which the supermarket giant offered Madonna's new Warner Bros album Hard Candy for #9 including a free copy of one of The Immaculate Collection, Confessions On A Dance Floor, Music and Ray Of Light.

The promotion gave a significant boost to sales of the four catalogue albums: by the end of last Tuesday, The Immaculate Collection, which had charted at 72 in the previous week's chart, had shot up to 28 in the midweeks, alongside Confessions... at 48, Music at 95 and Ray Of Light at 110. Sales of all four titles had significantly increased week- on-week.

However, Tesco sales of those four albums have been stripped out of the artist albums chart, published yesterday (Sunday), which Hard Candy was set to top after outselling its nearest competitor, Portishead's Third, by more than two to one in the first two days of release.

OCC managing director Martin Talbot says, "It is quite a core chart rule that we only count sales, and the marketing of this particular initiative is clear - if you buy Hard Candy through Tesco you can have one of these albums free of charge."

However, Talbot explains that Tesco sales of Hard Candy will still count towards the chart: as a retailer-led promotion it does not ...