Two rock bands bound for Belfast this December are battling it out for the fastest-selling album of 2008. Coldplay and Kings of Leon are fighting it out to be the biggest band in the world.
Kings of Leon released their new album, Only By The Night, at the start of the week and are already seeing sales heading towards the 250,000 mark. The band, who headlined Glastonbury and Oxegen this year, play the Odyssey Arena on Saturday, December 20. Tickets for the show sold out within a few hours. The Tennessee four-piece are snapping at the heels of Coldplay, whose 2008 album Viva la Vida Or Death And All His Friends is currently the biggest seller of the year. Coldplay play the Odyssey Arena on Thursday, December 18.
Gennaro Castaldo of HMV said: “Current sales of Only By The Night are absolutely astounding. Just a few days into its release and it’s already proving one of our fastest-selling albums of 2008. We estimate that by the end of this week the band may well have shifted the best part of 250,000 copies across the whole retail market — this year only Coldplay’s Viva La Vida has sold more in its first week."
The band look set to stay at the top of the official singles charts as well, enabling them to join the elite club of artists who have enjoyed a simultaneous number one and album.
“This success shouldn’t really come as such a surprise — it’s been on the cards for a while now, ever since Kings of Leon were confirmed as one of the headline acts at this year’s Glastonbury. “And, of course, the band have recently appeared on the highly influential Later... show and are still reigning supreme in the official singles charts with Sex On Fire — so all the clues have been there.”
Gennaro said that while their success had been “a little while in coming”, it confirmed that Kings of Leon were now ranked among “the world’s biggest rock acts.”
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