Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto storms to no.1 on the UK album charts as 'Spotify boycott' begins

Coldplay have gone straight to number one in the UK with their fifth studio album Mylo Xyloto, which sold 208,000 copies in its first week, according to the BBC this evening. The album, which was withheld from streaming service Spotify, outsold the rest of the top five put together. It notched up the second highest first-week sales of the year so far, behind Lady Gaga's Born This Way, which sold 215,000 copies in May. [Discuss this and other latest MX chart news from around the world in the Coldplay sales updates thread at the messageboard now (thanks mimixxx, nancyk58, teernabh5 & jeremyy)]

Meanwhile in the US and as previously reported, Coldplay is easily cruising to its third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart as Mylo Xyloto will top the tally. While on Wednesday, the set was projected -- by industry sources -- to sell at least 440,000 to 450,000 copies by week's end on Oct. 30, that prognostication has grown a bit. MX should start with a minimum of 450,000 -- and could be bigger, depending on how the weekend shakes out. With lots of people out shopping this weekend for the Halloween holiday, anything is possible. A sales start north of 440,000 would secure Coldplay the third-biggest sales week of the year, behind Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" debut (1.1 million) and Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter IV" start (964,000).

On SoundScan's Building chart below -- a precursor to the final Billboard 200 ranking -- reflecting the first four days (Monday through Thursday) of SoundScan's tracking week (which ends Sunday) as reported by six major merchants, Coldplay is expectedly found at No. 1.

And the person Coldplay have knocked off the UK top spot, Noel Gallagher, has indicated he'd be happy to collaborate with Coldplay or U2 - mainly due to the size of their record sales. Noel told the Sunday Mirror he'd be up for working with anyone who 'sells 50 million albums'. He said, "I’ve never been asked to do a collaboration. I guess I just don’t give off that come-and-get-me vibe. I wouldn’t be adverse to doing one with Coldplay or U2."

However, the interview perhaps indicated that Gallagher has a selective memory, as he also claimed that he's never been asked to do a collaboration.

This is despite the fact he has featured on a number of artists' tracks over the past 16 years, including two hook-ups with The Chemical Brothers - on 1998's 'Setting Sun' and 1999's 'Let Forever Be'. Gallagher has also appeared on tracks by Ian Brown, Paul Weller and more recently Miles Kane, along with a number of other collaborations.

Meanwhile, the New York post are asking "Is a Spotify boycott getting started?" As streaming music services gain ground, artists’ managers and their labels are starting to give more thought to how to window their new releases, to keep people buying the CDs and the digital downloads. Last week, CNET reported that Coldplay reps told a bunch of streaming services, including Spotify, Rhapsody and Pandora, that it didn’t want its new album Mylo Xyloto available there. The reasoning: They wanted fans to hear the album in its entirety. Windowing is something that is definitely being debated at the moment,” said one music label executive.

While movies tend to have big opening audiences and then drop off, music is a different animal. Some artists take a while to build (Adele, for example), while others (say, Bruce Springsteen) have huge sales on day one. “The shelf life is different,” explains one music-label executive, who doesn’t think such windowing is a great idea. “Windowing could be a logistical nightmare. We already do exclusives with retailers.”

This person lamented that even getting a release out on iTunes is something of a task, given that it can take as long as 10 days to get it there. While streaming services are where the music business is headed, one can hardly blame artists for wanting to preserve their revenue models. Paul Vidich -- a former Warner Music executive who appears in Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography for his role in helping build the iTunes platform -- told On the Money last week that the music business is in a deflationary period. He points out that CDs were once $18, and digital downloads are 99 cents. Vidich told On the Money, “Consumers are enjoying the music at different price points. The new and convenient on-demand service is cannibalistic and... is creating overall deflationary pressure on revenue.”

He added that there were very few artists who can control their streaming deals, since those are locked up with the labels.

More photos of Coldplay on the TODAY Show at Rockefeller Plaza {21st October 2011):