Hear'Say, the British pop band based on New Zealand television creation TrueBliss, is headed to the top of the charts in record time.
The band - five winners from the TV show Popstars - have clocked up a huge mid-week sales figure with their single Pure And Simple, now destined to
become the hottest debut single in history.
Hear'Say was created from auditions, in a hugely popular television show that mimicked the way the now defunct all-girl act TrueBliss was assembled in New Zealand.
Three thousand young hopefuls - male and female - lined up for auditions in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. London Weekend Television bought the rights to the Popstars show from Australia.
Based on early sales, it was predicted Hear'Say would sell half a million units by Sunday.
A spokesman for Britain's biggest music retailer, Woolworths, told Britain's Evening Standard it sold 65,000 copies in one day. In second place, boy band Westlife sold just 17,000.
Woolworths predicted the single would sell 500,000 around the UK by the end of the week.
"This is an amazingly high figure just from our stores in one day," said a spokesman.
The band would knock Britney Spears off the all-time top spot. She sold 400,000 copies of her debut track Baby One More Time in the UK in November 1998.
The biggest-selling single of all time was Elton John's Princess Diana tribute Candle In The Wind, which shifted one million copies on its first day.
About 3500 fans queued for up to 10 hours to get a glimpse of the band at their first public appearance at HMV record store off Oxford Circus, central London, yesterday.
"This is bigger than the Spice Girls were," a HMV spokesman said.
- NZPA
