EMI clinches top two positions as Beatlemania returns in 2000.

Something old and something new allowed EMI to claim the top two places in the annual best-sellers list for the first time since 1969. It did so courtesy of The Beatles' 1 and Robbie Williams' Sing When You're Winning.

The Beatles album -- the first best of released on CD to cover the group's entire career -- sold more than 319,000 copies in its first week in the shops, and went on to sell a massive 1.85m copies in the last 48 days of the year. It is the first Beatles album to top the annual rankings in the 31 years since Abbey Road triumphed, and the first compilation of previously released material to emerge as the year's biggest seller since 1994 when Cross Road -- The Best Of Bon Jovi was number one.

Robbie Williams was not even alive when The Beatles split up in 1970 but Stoke-on-Trent's most famous son sold 1.6m copies of his third solo album Sing When You're Winning, thereby snatching the runners-up slot at the death from Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP.

Williams has emerged as a consistent performer since splitting from Take That, with each of his solo albums thus far selling well in excess of 1m copies. I've Been Expecting You was the sixth biggest-selling album last year and fifth in 1998, while Life Thru A Lens was ranked fourth in 1998.

The Beatles and Robbie Williams were also the two biggest-selling albums acts overall in 2000, with The Beatles' back catalogue adding a further 480,000 sales to their 1 tally, to take their total sales for the year to 2.33m. As usual, Sgt Pepper was the star performer of their catalogue, although its sales tally of 66,000 and rank of 205 were both well down on 1999, when it was 131st with 92,000 sales. Revolver held up much better, occupying 284th place for the year with sales in excess of 44,000, compared to 228th place and sales of 50,000 in 1999. Altogether 24 albums by The Beatles were ranked among the Top 5000 for the year. The only artists with more albums in the list were Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley -- joint winners with 36 albums apiece -- Bob Marley (29) and Van Morrison (26). The entire list, covering sales down to 1,700 copies, was used for the purpose of our artist rankings.

One of the more remarkable success stories is that of Shania Twain's Come On Over. This March 1998 release was placed 67th in the 1998 rankings after selling 174,000, and topped the 1999 list with a staggering 2,202,000 further sales. It sold another 665,000 last year to claim 20th place in the list.

As well as Twain, Universal has two even longer-running successes to pay the bills. Abba's 1992 compilation Gold -- Greatest Hits entered 2000 with 12 platinum discs to its credit and a place in the all-time Top 20. It still managed to sell a further 367,000 copies in the year to claim 41st place.