Beatles winning chart battle

Nov 21, 2006, 13:50 GMT

The Beatles are narrowly beating Oasis in the hotly contested race for this week's number one UK album spot.

The Fab Four's new compilation 'Love' was around 200 sales ahead of the Manchester band's best of 'Stop The Clocks' at the end of trading yesterday (20.11.06), according to British music retail giant HMV.

U2's singles collection '18 Songs' is currently trailing in third place narrowly ahead of Irish boy band Westlife's 'Love Album'.

The four groups are expected to sell in excess of a million copies between them during the next few weeks in the battle to have the biggest selling LP of the Christmas period. 

Despite The Beatles' early advantage, HMV's head of press Gennaro Castaldo believes Liam and Noel Gallagher will beat their idols to the top spot at the end of the week

He said: "Based on initial sales, it looks like first day honours may just go to The Beatles, which comes as no surprise given the nature of their fanbase. But it may be that Oasis will sell more over the week to go to number one while U2 and Westlife will aim to shift more copies over the Christmas period as a whole."

'Love' is a collection of classic Beatles tracks reworked by legendary producer Sir George Martin - who was famously dubbed the 'fifth Beatle' - to accompany the critically acclaimed Cirque du Soleil Las Vegas stage show of the same name.

(C) BANG Media International