Radiohead are looking good for a number 1 album this weekend, despite the record having been available for download since October.
The band are outselling nearest rival Take That, who themselves are enjoying an increase in sales following a New Year’s Eve televised gig.
Gary Warren, product director at HMV, has said in an interview with BBC 6Music: "No doubt many fans appreciated the opportunity to download the album, but this current demand also underlines the enduring appeal of the CD, and I think demonstrates that, as fans, we love to buy and collect albums by our favourite artists in their physical form while also having the opportunity to create our favourite playlists via downloads.”
HMV say ‘In Rainbows’ is on course to sell 50,000 copies this week.
Thom Yorke, also in a BBC interview, this one with Radio 4, has said the band always wanted the album to appear in shops because “80% of people still buy physical records, so we'd be stark raving mad not to address that.
"We didn't want it to be a big announcement about 'everything's over except the internet, the internet's the future', because that's utter rubbish. It's really important to have an artefact as well, as they call it, an object."