SO MUCH for the boy band hype. The first ever chart of the top-selling albums of modern times in Ireland is bereft of Boyzone and Westlife. Despite their legions of teenybopper fans, and boasts of huge sales in Britain, both pop bands failed to make it.

Only two Irish groups — U2 and The Corrs — feature. There is also no place among Ireland’s favourite records for The Cranberries, Sinead O’Connor or Enya, who has sold 60m albums worldwide.

The biggest-selling album in Ireland since 1992 is White Ladder by David Gray, a Welsh singer-songwriter. His album of folk-tinged love songs beat greatest hits records from U2 and The Beatles into numbers two and three respectively.

The Irish Top 10 is heavily skewed towards male solo artists and rock bands. Absent are the likes of Madonna, Britney Spears and the Spice Girls who all enjoyed huge success worldwide in the last 10 years.

The chart was compiled from over-the-counter sales in Irish record shops by Chart-Track, the official Irish chart producers. The data was collected from January 1992, when the chart was first based on over-the-counter sales, to the present. Before 1992 the charts were compiled from the number of albums that record companies shipped to stores.

Larry Gogan, the veteran disc jockey who presented the singles chart on radio for 20 years, said: “I’m surprised that Westlife aren’t there, but they mightn’t be big album sellers.

“Ireland was always different from Britain. They go for more poppy acts than we do, and it has always been that way. We go more for rock bands and have always been more like America in our taste.”

There has been some dispute about the chart, which was compiled from sales in designated record stores. The record company that released A Woman’s Heart claims it sold more than Gray. “People have been going on about how big David Gray is but we say that A Woman’s Heart has sold more than that,” said Paul O’Reilly, managing director of Dara Records.

According to IHT, the record label that released White Ladder, Gray has sold 388,176 copies of his album to date in Ireland. O’Reilly said A Woman’s Heart has sold about 475,000 copies.

Its position at only number four in the official chart can be explained, he said, by the fact that many who bought the record were tourists. “A Woman’s Heart sold through a lot of gift stores which are not counted in the chart,” he said.

IRELAND’S TOP 10 ALBUMS

1 White Ladder, David Gray, 1998

2 The Best of 1980-1990, U2, 1998

3 1, Beatles, 2000

4 A Woman’s Heart, Various, 1992

5 Talk on Corners, The Corrs, 1997

6 Gold — The Greatest Hits, Abba, 1992

7 All That You Can’t Leave Behind, U2, 2000

8 (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, Oasis, 1995

9 Play, Moby, 1999

10 The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem, 2000

Compiled by Chart-Track, copyright IRMA

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