Ed Sheeran crowned as the UK’s Official Number 1 Artist of the Decade 2010 – 2019
Ed Sheeran’s incredible run of chart success is reaffirmed today as he is crowned by the Official Charts Company as the UK’s Official Number 1 Artist of the Decade.
The Suffolk singer-songwriter turned global superstar is the recipient of a special Official Chart Record Breaker Award, celebrating the outstanding achievement of:
- Most Number 1s across the Official Singles and Albums Chart between 2010-2019 (12 Number 1s)
- Most weeks at Number 1 across the Official Singles and Albums Chart between 2010-2019 (79 weeks)
Ed is only the third recipient of the prestigious Official Record Breaker award from the Official Charts Company, who compile the UK’s Official Chart, as heard exclusively on BBC Radio 1 and MTV. Previous recipients including Justin Bieber (the first act in history to hold all top 3 positions in the Official Singles Chart simultaneously), and Sir Paul McCartney as the biggest albums act of all time (22 Number 1s across his career).
"Thank you to everyone who’s supported me over the past 10 years," Ed told Official Charts, "Especially my amazing fans. Here’s to the next 10!" Watch Ed celebrate the news with his award below:
MORE: View Ed Sheeran's Official Chart history in full
Martin Talbot, Chief Executive of the Official Charts Company, added: "Ed truly has dominated this decade and is a worthy recipient of this amazing new award.
"At the start of the decade, he was a little known (albeit highly rated) young 18-year-old lad from Suffolk - but his catalogue of achievements since then are genuinely remarkable. Today, he is firmly established among the highest level of global music superstars."
Shape Of You is officially the UK's biggest song of the decade
Ed Sheeran made his chart debut in 2011, when The A Team reached Number 3, kicking off his rise to superstardom. His first Number 1 came along in 2014 with Sing, and Ed has since claimed a total of eight chart-topping songs across the decade, most recently with Take Me Back To London ft. Stormzy this September.
Aptly, Ed Sheeran banks the UK’s biggest track of the 2010s with Shape Of You, which spent 14 weeks at Number 1 in 2017, amassing over 4.5m chart sales, and is one of three Ed tracks in the Top 5 end-of-decade chart - Thinking Out Loud (3) and former Christmas Number 1, Perfect (5).
Ed has racked up a massive 38 weeks at Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart to date, he’s shifted an incredible 53.8m chart sales across his singles, and his tracks have been streamed an eye-watering 4.6 billion times in the UK alone.
No other act has scored more Top 5s, Top 10s or Top 20 hits this decade, or spent longer in the Official Chart Top 40 during that period than Ed’s mind-blowing 572-week residency.
In the last few days, Ed has now also surpassed 1,000 weeks in the Top 75 (1002 weeks), the only other artists in history to have reached this milestone are Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, and Rihanna. Elvis achieved his 1,000 weeks in approximately 20 years, Cliff did it in 30 years, while Rihanna took some 11 years. Ed has reached the milestone in just 8 and a half years.
Ed also famously "broke the chart" in March 2017 when the release of his Divide album propelled all 16 tracks into the Singles Top 20 in the same week. A quirk of the streaming era, Official Chart rules have since changed to incorporate a limit of three tracks per artist, leaving Ed likely to hold the chart record forever as the artist with the most simultaneous Top 40 singles.
View the UK's Official Top 100 biggest songs of the decade
On the albums front, Ed is no stranger to breaking chart records there either. Divide is the fastest-selling album by a male soloist of all time after clearing a staggering 672,000 copies in its opening week, and Ed became the first and only act in chart history to log a whole year in the Top 10 with three different albums.
It’s no surprise then that three of Ed’s albums feature in the Top 10 biggest albums of the decade, led by x at Number 3 (3.5 million chart sales). All four of his albums, +, x, Divide and No.6 Collaborations Project, have now shifted 10.2 million combined sales and spent 41 weeks at the summit of the Official Albums Chart, more than any other artist this decade.
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I would just love to know how much of those 53.8 million song sales equivalent are actually sales.
I would guess around 10 million since he had 4.6 billion streams but would love to have a confirmation.
I know this is not all about the money but and rules but chart rules did changed a lot and that's why it's possiblie for Ed Sheeran to break this kind of records now otherwise would have been impossible.
Also physical singles in order to be eligible to chart would have to at least be priced over £1.99 yet now free streams equivalent singles are valued at £0.10 and still count toward charts and certifications. Many CD-singles not long ago on the previous decade there were selling for £4.99 so that's almost 50 times what 1 song unit from stream equivalent singles it's sold for and yet we are comparing both on this article like they were exacly the same. Also CD-singles had from 3 to 8 tracks but you talk like they were just 1 track like streams and digital sales.This cannot be compared the same way as it's bad for everyone (both new artists and older artists).
How much pure sales did Ed Sheeran really have (both songs and albums) can you please put that on these kind of articles as well? (just like you also put streams).
Piran
His songs might've been played to death, but yeah, it was always going to be Ed topping this list!
I don't think there's one musical genre that he hasn't at least worked with, haha. :)
Marcothedonjuan
It's so funny I was coming here to comment that Ed Sheeran is literally on top for solo males and the only two solo males that can even claim Prince Of Pop currently is himself and Justin Bieber. Then I read the article:
"Ed is only the third recipient of the prestigious Official Record Breaker award from the Official Charts Company, who compile the UK’s Official Chart, as heard exclusively on BBC Radio 1 and MTV. Previous recipients including Justin Bieber (the first act in history to hold all top 3 positions in the Official Singles Chart simultaneously), and Sir Paul McCartney as the biggest albums act of all time (22 Number 1s across his career)."
My point proven yet again....lol.
I'm looking at these worldwide numbers for 2019. We know The Greatest Showman was the number one selling album worldwide of 2018 but 2019 is not in the bag for BTS if the numbers I am looking at are accurate. They had a huge first week but Billie Eilish has caught up and continues to sell over 80,000 per week globally selling 88,000 this past week. There are two more weeks left and they have been selling around 9,000 a week. BTS: 4,203,000 Billie Eilish: 4,170,000. It seems like next week she should take over and I hope so!!!! I thought BTS was so far ahead. We shall see. Her no. 1 single, no. 1 debut album and 11 Grammy nominations associated with her debut album is more than enough win for her though. Album Of The Year, Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, Best New Artist.
Billie also has been crowned biggest album of 2019 by Billboard. :) I'm so happy for Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. The four biggest albums and Grammy nominations for all of them! :)
Piran
Ah, that's cool, although I'm surprised Ed never got the Record Breaker Award for having nine songs in the Top 10 all at once, as well as every track from that '÷' album inside the Top 20 simultaneously! :)