Taylor Swift claims her third Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart
Congratulations to Taylor Swift, whose new album Reputation lands straight in at Number 1 on this week’s Official Albums Chart.
The singer-songwriter sold 84,000 copies of her sixth studio album to take the top spot, earning her the fifth biggest opening week for an album this year, behind Ed Sheeran’s ÷, Rag’n’Bone Man’s Human, Liam Gallagher’s As You Were and Sam Smith’s The Thrill Of It All.
Sales of Reputation this week were a 50/50 split between physical and digital downloads. The album is currently not available on streaming services.
Taylor now lays claim to a hat-trick of Number 1 albums in the UK, following 2012’s Red and 2014’s 1989. Check out her complete Official UK Chart history here.
MORE: See this week's Top 100 Official Albums Chart in full
Meanwhile, last week’s Number 1, Sam Smith’s The Thrill Of It All,drops to 2, and Michael Ball & Alfie Boe’s former chart-topper Together Again holds at 3.
Roy Orbison’s A Love So Beautiful slips from 2 to 4, and Elton John’s new retrospective, Diamonds, which celebrates 50 years of his songwriting partnership with Bernie Taupin, debuts at 5 to earn Elton a 32nd Top 10 album.
MORE: The UK's Official Top 40 biggest albums of 2017 so far
New entries and high climbers
British rock band Shed Seven land at 8 with their fifth album Instant Pleasures – matching their 1996 album A Maximum High as highest charting studio album to date (though their 1999 greatest hits Going For Gold reached Number 7). The band also claim the biggest selling vinyl record of the week. See the full updated Official Vinyl Chart here.
Five brand new albums make a Top 20 debut today: Bradley Walsh’s second record When You’re Smiling at 11, Tears For Fears best of Rule The World at 12, and Cliff Richard’s latest retrospective Stronger Thru The Years earns the legendary crooner a 63rd Top 40 album at Number 14.
MORE: Look back through every Official Number 1 album EVER
Irish quartet The Corrs open at 15 with their seventh studio album Jupiter Calling, and Seal is new at 17 with Standards.
Further down, Evanescence’s fourth collection Synthesis (23), the Kidz Bop Kids 2018 collection (28) are both new entries, and finally, George Michael’s best of Ladies & Gentlemen rebounds seven places to re-enter the Top 40 at 39.
And finally, congratulations to Decca Records who have delivered a flawless full house over on the Top 10 of the Official Classical Albums Chart this week. Aled Jones’ One Voice – Believe is the week’s best-selling classical record, and is joined on the classical weekly leaderboard by nine other Decca releases including the likes of Einaudi, Cecilia Bartoli & Sol Gabetta, Andre Rieu and Gareth Malone.
Join the conversation by joining the Official Charts community and dropping comment.
Already registered?
Log in
No account?
Register
IF
ian fisher
Taylor Swift has a great reputation now of killing it in charts all over the world! This album proves that she's comfortable in the world of contemporary pop. Her video collaborations with Joseph Khan have been awesome! Her stadium tour is going to be a massive hit with her fans, ignore what the critics say. She slays.
braindeadpj
The UK charts have the right idea as they use a complicated formula (i think) whereby the streams of the biggest two singles (i.e. officially released songs) only count as the average (or median streams) of the other songs on the album, thus not distorting the popularity of an album due to a song (or two). This helps prevent albums charting due to one song like the Latino various hits album that went top ten because it had despacito on it - though i believe Billboard have changed it so that doesn't happen now.
Alfred Lock
So even Sam Smith is now the umpteenth one week wonder .That's the difficulty with 2nd album syndrome and when you;re up against equally big names like Taylor Swift of course you're not going to hold on for at least a 2nd week. Well Taylors next challenge will come from Paloma Faiths' new offering. Can she hold on for a 2nd week?I cannot see it again because no one came near to Ed Sheerans Divide in the Uk this year.
T
TaylorJM
Doesn't Taylor have 4 songs on Spotify and other streaming services in the UK, like in other countries, ie SEA, to count towards album sales as well? (or however that works) :)
plus 4 songs on itunes
Piran
Yeah, those songs are charting on Spotify, but I don't think TEAs nor SEAs count towards the albums chart in the UK.
T
TaylorJM
Isn't streaming usually counted in the UK though? It mentions the album wasn't on streaming services but some songs were available, so thought they would at least count. Although I know lot more fans were buying the whole album this week because they couldn't wait until it was fully streamed. Those 4 songs have already dropped out of the Spotify Global Top 50 and The UK Top 50, so maybe it wouldn't have made much difference anyway?
Are the 4 songs sold on itunes counted towards that digital download album total?
Piran
Regarding the streaming, I'm not sure if streaming just the songs would've counted towards the total album figure, but yeah, they wouldn't have much of an effect if they did anyway.
Regarding the sales of the official & promotional singles, I know they definitely don't count towards the digital download figure that Official Charts reported. That is purely based on digital & physical sales of the album itself.
Piran
'Reputation' might not be my favourite Taylor Swift album, but it was still a very interesting & fun listen! She took several risks here & I respect her a lot for that, but they mostly paid off & this new album of hers proves she's very versatile as an artist. I'd still easily recommend it! :)