The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 (Top 40), and published in Music Week magazine (Top 75) and on the OCC website (Top 100).
To qualify for the UK albums chart the album must be the correct length and price. It must be more than 3 tracks or 20 minutes long and not be classed as a budget album. A budget album costs between £0.50 and £4.24. Additionally, various artist compilations - which until January 1989 were included in the main album listing - are now listed separately in a compilations chart. Full details of the rules can be found on the Official Charts Company website.[1]
Though album sales tend to produce more revenue and, over time, act as a greater measure of an artist's success, this chart receives less media attention than the UK Singles Chart, due to overall sales of an album being more important than its peak position. Indeed, in recent years, the album chart has been in good health despite fears that music innovations such as MP3 players would threaten the traditional album. 2005 even saw a record number of artist album sales with 126.2 million sold in the UK.[2]
According to the canon of The Official Charts Company, the official British albums chart is the Melody Maker chart from 8 November 1958 to March 1960 (although the Record Mirror published charts from 28 July 1956 [3]); the Record Retailer chart from 1960 to 1969; and the Official UK Albums Chart from 1969 on. In the 1970s the new album chart was revealed at 12.45pm on Thursdays on BBC Radio 1, and then moved to 6.05 pm (later 6.30 pm) on Wednesday evenings during the Peter Powell and Bruno Brookes shows. In October 1987 it moved to Monday lunchtimes, during the Gary Davies show, and from April to October 1993 it briefly had its own show from 7.00-8.00 pm on Sunday evenings, introduced by Lynn Parsons. Since October 1993 it has been included in the UK Top 40 show from 4.00-7.00 pm on Sundays. A weekly 'Album Chart' show was licensed out to BBC Radio 2 and presented by Simon Mayo, until it ended on 2 April 2007.
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The most successful artists in the charts depends on the criteria used. As of 2005, Queen albums have spent more time on the UK album charts than those of any other musical act,[4][5] followed by The Beatles, Elvis Presley and U2. By most weeks at number 1, however, The Beatles lead; by most top ten albums, it is Elvis Presley.[6] Madonna is the most successful female solo recording artist in the U.K. with 11 number 1 albums and most weeks at number 1 on the albums chart - 29 (though these tallies includes the Evita film soundtrack which was a cast recording and not strictly a Madonna album). She is tied with Elvis Presley in second place for the artist having the most number 1 albums, though The Beatles are first with 15 albums.
As of June 2009, Queen's Greatest Hits is the best-selling album in UK chart history with 5.6 million copies sold, followed by The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with 4.9 million copies sold and Abba's Gold (Greatest Hits) with 4.6 million copies sold.[7] The longest running number one album, both consecutively and non-consecutively, is the soundtrack of the film South Pacific. It had a consecutive run of seventy weeks from November 1958 to March 1960 (meaning it was number one for the entire year of 1959), and had further runs at the top in 1960 and 1961, making a non-consecutive total of 115 weeks.
The youngest person to top the charts is Scotland's Neil Reid, who after winning Opportunity Knocks topped the charts in 1972 at the age of 12 years 9 months old. The youngest female artist to top the chart is Joss Stone at 17 years and 6 months old with Mind, Body & Soul in 2004.[6]
The oldest person to top the charts is Vera Lynn at the age of 92 with We'll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn, released in 2009.
The album to spend the most weeks on the charts is ABBA's Gold: Greatest Hits , which has spent 494 weeks on the charts. The rest of the top five albums are, in order, Queen's Greatest Hits (492 weeks), Fleetwood Mac's Rumours (478 weeks), Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell (474 weeks), and Bob Marley & The Wailers' Legend (424 weeks).
In 1980, Kate Bush became the first British female to have a No. 1 album in the UK with Never for Ever, as well as being the first album by any female solo artist to enter the chart at number 1.
Though the way sales figures were collected was less precise before 1995, the fastest selling album (first week sales) is Oasis' Be Here Now, selling 663,389 copies in its first week in the UK in August 1997.[8]
The fastest selling debut albums (first week sales):
The X Factor's 2006 runner up, Ray Quinn, became the only solo artist to top the album chart without ever releasing a single, though Led Zeppelin achieved eight consecutive number one albums from 1970 to 1979 without releasing a single in the UK until 1997.
The first artist to reach Number One on the Singles Chart, Downloads Chart and Albums Chart simultaneously were the Sugababes on two occasions, for "Push the Button" and "About You Now".
The biggest drop from number one was by Christina Aguilera with her 2010 album, Bionic. The album fell from the top spot in its second week to number 29.[9]
The Rolling Stones have reached no.1 in the album chart during five different decades (1960, 70s, 80s, 90s and then in the 2010s with a deluxe re-release of their 1972 album Exile on Main Street). ABBA have reached the top spot in four consecutive decades, though this was with the same album (Gold) in the 1990s and the 2000s. Elvis Presley has scored UK number-one albums in four different decades (1950s, 60s, 70s and 2000s), though Cliff Richard is the first male solo artist to score UK number-one albums in four consecutive decades (1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s). Kylie Minogue became the first female solo artist to have UK number-one albums in four consecutive decades (1980s, 90s, 2000s and 2010s).
The album which held the number one spot the longest is the soundtrack to South Pacific which was number one for 115 weeks between 1958-61 (of which 70 weeks were consecutive). The longest number one by a group is Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water which was no.1 for 41 weeks (13 of which were consecutive). The longest consecutive number one by a group was The Beatles' Please Please Me, which held the top spot for a straight 30 weeks. The longest number one by a male solo artist was Elvis Presley with G.I. Blues which stayed at the top for 22 weeks (his Blue Hawaii album was also the longest consecutive number one album for a male artist with 17 weeks). Adele's album 21 has the most weeks at number one by a female solo artist with 18 weeks, 11 of which were consecutive (which is also a record for a female artist).
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