Fourteen Prince albums climb UK charts, but Beyonce goes top

LONDON (Reuters) - Fourteen albums by U.S. pop superstar Prince have flooded back in to the British charts since his sudden death last week but Beyonce's "Lemonade" went straight to the top after notching up some of the fastest sales of the year. "The Very Best Of" Prince was at two, "Ultimate" was third and "Purple Rain – OST" from "Prince & The Revolution" climbed 51 places to fourth, the Official Charts Company said on Friday. Three more Prince albums entered the higher reaches of this week's chart: "The Hits/The B-Sides" at 13, "Sign O’ The Times" at 15 and "1999" at 28. In all, 14 of the singer's albums were in the top 100. The influential singer, musician and songwriter was found dead at age 57 on Thursday last week in an elevator at his Paisley Park Studios compound in a Minneapolis suburb. The cause of death is not yet known. Lemonade, Beyonce's sixth studio collection, racked up 73,000 chart sales, making it Britain's second-fastest selling artist record of 2016 behind David Bowie's "Blackstar," the charts company said. It is her third chart-topping album in the UK, following her 2003 debut "Dangerously In Love" and 2011’s "4." On the singles chart, rapper Drake's "One Dance" notched up a third week at No. 1 while Sia’s "Cheap Thrills" remained at two for the fourth week running, followed by Mike Posner’s "I Took A Pill In Ibiza" unchanged at three. (Reporting by Stephen Addison; editing by Michael Holden)