Best-selling debut album in the UK by a female artist

Spirit (2007), the debut solo album by vocalist Leona Lewis (UK), has sold more than 3.17 million copies in her homeland. The winner of Series 3 of the UK version of the reality show The X Factor (ITV) led the Official Albums Chart for seven consecutive weeks with Spirit from 24 November 2007, and it returned to the top spot a year later, on 29 November 2008, upon the release of a deluxe version. Spirit sold 375,872 first-week copies in the UK and racked up 1 million sales just a month after its release on 12 November 2007.

Spirit is the UK’s third-best-selling debut solo album, after Meat Loaf’s Bat out of Hell (1977; 3.5 million) and Back to Bedlam by James Blunt (2004; 3.36 million). Lady Gaga’s The Fame (2008) and Dido’s No Angel (1999), both having sold 3 million copies in the UK, are ranked second and third among female solo artists.

Spirit features the singles “A Moment Like This”, “Bleeding Love”, “Better in Time”, “Footprints in the Sand”, “Forgive Me”, “Run” and “I Will Be”, while several other tracks – including Peggy Seeger’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, a Grammy-winning ballad for Roberta Flack in 1973 – charted in the UK on the strength of download sales.