Still selling at a torrid clip, the Syco/Columbia set moved 661,000 copies (a 14% week-to-week gain) in the Christmas run-up, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures for the week ending Dec. 20. Boyle's American sales have topped 2.4 million within a month.

Despite a run of media exposure fueled by her ubiquitous New York homage "Empire State of Mind," Alicia Keys' new "The Element of Freedom" was unable to unseat Boyle's album in its first week. Pop/R&B singer's J Records collection enters at No. 2, logging a solid 417,000-unit debut.

SoundScan predicts vinyl sales will reach 2.8 million units in 2009, up from 1.9 million in 2008, a record since SoundScan began tracking sales data in 1991. Already in 2009, vinyl sales have topped 1 million. At this point last year, vinyl sales stood at 701,000 copies. To be fair, the number is still tiny compared to overall album sales.

Vinyl, SoundScan points out, accounts for less than 1% of overall album sales. In other words, vinyl sales represent about six months in the life of Taylor Swift, whose late 2008 release, "Fearless," has already sold more than 3.3 million copies. To date in 2009, 121.8 million CDs have been sold, versus 33.2 million digital albums, compared to 151.01 million CDs and 27.52 digital albums for the same period last year.