The much-hyped singer-songwriter Adele went straight to No 2 yesterday with her first single release.

The 19-year-old is hotly tipped to be the biggest act of 2008, and after a week on sale, the song Chasing Pavements now sits above Britney Spears, Rihanna and a raft of other big names on the UK singles chart.

Although her debut album, 19, isn’t released until next week, Adele, who doesn’t use her last name, Adkins, has already won the Brit Awards Critics Choice prize and was named the Sound of 2008 after topping a BBC poll.

Eurodance track Now You're Gone, by Basshunter, remained at No 1 for the second week, while X Factor winner Leon Jackson, who previously occupied the top spot, dropped to No 15.

He was joined in the Top 20 by fellow X Factor winner Leona Lewis, whose song Bleeding Love now sits at No 17.

Britney Spears’s paparazzi-goading song Piece of Me dropped from No 2 to No 3, while Gimme More, the first single from her current album, Blackout, dropped one place to No 35.

On the album chart, London band Scouting for Girls climbed three places to knock the young Scottish singer-songwriter Amy MacDonald from the top spot.

Radiohead's In Rainbows dropped from No 2 to No 6. The album has surprised the music industry by doing so well on the charts despite having been given away as an “honesty box” download last year.

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