Charts analysis: Drake scores No.1 album just 11 months after Her Loss reached summit

Top Dog: Eclipsing Celine Dion and Michael Bublé, who have five No.1 albums apiece, Drake becomes the first Canadian to have six UK No.1 albums this week, debuting atop the chart with For All The Dogs. Consisting of 23 tracks with a playing time in excess of 80 minutes, For All The Dogs is currently only available digitally but that doesn’t stop it from becoming the 19th album to debut at No.1 in as many weeks, on consumption of 29,408 units (455 digital downloads, 28,953 sales-equivalent streams). The 37th new No.1 in another year of frenetic action at the top, it is only the third No.1 in 2023 by a rap act, following J Hus’ Beautiful And Brutal Yard and Travis Scott’s Utopia. Drake’s 16th studio set, including collaborations and mixtapes, and 15th chart album, For All The Dogs arrives at the summit just 11 months after his 21 Savage teaming, Her Loss, which opened at No.1 with consumption of 36,194 units last November. His biggest first week sale came in 2016, when his fourth album, Views, debuted at No.1 on consumption of 78,397 units. It remains his biggest seller, with to-date consumption of 799,394 units. The Torontonian, who turns 37 a week on Tuesday (October 24), has had four of his No.1 albums in the 2020s, a total second only to the six accumulated by Taylor Swift. The only rapper in the whole of chart history to have more No.1 albums than Drake is Eminem (10). For All The Dogs is also certain to become Drake’s 13th No.1 in the USA – where its first week consumption is projected at more than 400,000 units – and his 14th in Canada Twenty-three weeks after his last album, Crop Circles 2, debuted and peaked at No.2 (17,271 sales), London rapper Nines’ follow-up Crop Circles 3, debuts in the same position albeit with first week consumption 16.80% lower at 14,369 units. The 33-year-old previously reached No.4 with 2017 debut One Foot Out, No.5 with 2018 album Crop Circle and No.1 with 2020 release Crabs In A Bucket. With Drake at No.1 and Nines at No.2, rap albums occupy the top two places on the chart for the first time since September 2021, when an earlier Drake album, Certified Lover Boy, held sway over Lil Nas X’s Montero. In the news more for his controversial political views than his music recently, legendary Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, 80, has the sixth solo chart entry of his career and second of the year with The Dark Side Of The Moon Redux, a reimagining of the band’s most celebrated album to mark the album’s 50th anniversary. Debuting at No.4 (9,882 sales) just below the No.3 peak of his highest charting solo set, 2017’s Is This The Life We Really Want? – it is No.1 on physical sales and its release comes 18 weeks after his 2022 album The Lockdown Sessions belatedly peaked at No.56. And it is just 28 weeks since Pink Floyd’s own 50th anniversary celebration of the set sparked a brace of simultaneous Top 20 entries with the original album, newly remastered and expanded, vaulting 100-17 (4,001 sales) to achieve its highest chart position since October 2011, while a standalone release of The Dark Side Of The Moon: Live At Wembley Empire Pool, London 1974 – which is also part of the 50th anniversary box set – debuted at No.4 (13,001 sales). Although Pink Floyd have had six No.1 albums, The Dark Side Of The Moon isn’t one of them – it peaked at number two, behind the K-Tel compilation 20 Flash Back Greats Of The Sixties. It is, however, their biggest seller and also one of the 10 biggest selling albums of all-time in the UK, with a to-date tally of 4,762,621 sales, including 1,056 this week. 4,423,274 (92.88%) of that total is from physical sales, the remainder being 169,385 digital downloads and 169,962 sales-equivalent streams. Waters’ erstwhile Pink Floyd colleague, David Gilmour’s 2010 No.10 collaboration with The Orb, Metallic Spheres, was released in a newly remixed version as Metallic Spheres In Colour a fortnight ago, and peaked at No.90 last week. Indie singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens’ 15th album in all, and 10th solo effort, Javelin debuts at No.7 (6,207 sales) becoming only his fourth Top 75 entry, and his second Top 10 success, arriving in the top tier eight years after Carrie & Lowell debuted and peaked at No.6. The 48-year-old from Chicago’s biggest seller is nevertheless a 2005 release that is named for and celebrates his home state, Illinois, and has to-date consumption of 110,597 units, despite peaking at No.124. Carrie & Lowell is a close second (106,071 sales). No.24 on debut in July when released as a 13-song digital set, climbing to a peak of No.21 seven weeks later, Joel Corry’s debut album, Another Friday Night, is newly expanded to 18 tracks, and available on CD and vinyl for the first time, triggering a 37-5 jump. Consumption of 6,803 units in the week raise its 13-week total to 47,104 units. Another Friday Night includes all 13 of Corry’s hit singles to-date. In total, he is credited on 37 songs on the OCC database, with overall consumption of 9,747,356 units. None of his six previous No.1 albums was lower than No.2 on its second week in the chart but Ed Sheeran’s seventh, Autumn Variations, dips 1-8 (5,560 sales) on its second frame. The rest of the Top 10: Guts (2-3, 11,413 sales) by Olivia Rodrigo, The Highlights (5-6, 6,742 sales) by The Weeknd, 50 Years: Don’t Stop (10-9, 5,224 sales) by Fleetwood Mac and Midnights (9-10, 5,187 sales). Departing the Top 10 are: Tension (8-36, 2,838 sales) by Kylie Minogue, Falling Or Flying (3-56, 2,131 sales) by Jorja Smith, Ultraviolence (7-111 1,420 sales) by Lana Del Rey, The Harmony Codex (4-172, 1,103 sales) by Steven Wilson, and last week’s No.6, Screamin’ At The Sky, which exits the Top 200 (820 sales) for Black Stone Cherry. Four years after his debut album, Still Working, reached No.33, Lewisham rapper Slim returns with Still Working 2, which debuts at No.22 (3,527 sales). The lengthy gap between releases is explained by the fact that he spent much of the intervening period in jail, even writing some of the tracks on the album while incarcerated in Glasgow. Also new to the Top 75: Dig The Mountain (No.49, 2,311 sales), the fourth album (all chart entries) for reconvened Oxford indie trio Stornoway more than eight years after their third. The Darkness’ chart-topping 2003 debut album, Permission To Land, has been reissued in various expanded 20th anniversary ‘Permission To Land…Again’ editions and returns to the chart (No.31, 3,172 sales) for the first time in more than 19 years. Permission To Land’s sales are treble those of the rest of The Darkness’ album canon combined, at 1,431,738. Barbie The Album is No.1 compilation for the 12th week (5,205 sales including 271 CDs, 273 vinyl albums, one cassette, 29 digital downloads and 4,631 sales-equivalent streams). Overall album sales are down 1.62% week-on-week at 2,179,863, 10.98% above same week 2022 sales of 1,964,224. Physical product accounts for 248,185 sales, 11.39% of the total.

Charts analysis: Fifth week at summit could be the last for Doja Cat's Paint The Town Red

Doja Cat is No.1 for the fifth straight week with Paint The Town Red but with consumption down for the fourth week in a row to 41,014 units (41 CDs, 972 digital downloads and 40,001 sales-equivalent streams) its tenacity is compromised and its claws blunted by the fact it falls into ACR next week. It has the lowest consumption for a No.1 since Adele hit Easy On Me’s 39,156 on the last of its eight weeks at No.1, 91 weeks ago. Determining who will replace Doja Cat at No.1 is difficult – though the most likely contender is Greedy, which records growth of 23.98% week-on-week for Tate McRae as it jumps 5-3 (34,769 sales), equalling her personal best, as set by her 2020 debut hit, You Broke Me First. Kenya Grace’s debut hit Strangers remains at No.2, but itself suffers a 2.63% dip in consumption to 38,775 units while Cassö, Raye & D-Block Europe’s Prada falls 3-4, with consumption down 1.61% to 34,607 units. Any of these or something new could top the list a week hence, but probably not this week’s highest new entry, 3D, which opens at No.5 (30,232 sales) for 26-year-old South Korean singer Jung Kook and 25-year-old American rapper Jack Harlow. Kook’s sixth Top 10 hit (including four with BTS) and Harlow’s third, its weakest suit is streaming, in which it ranks 19th for the week with a sales-equivalent tally of 12,039 units. It is No.1 on physical sales (3,078 CDs) and digital downloads (12,039 sales) but they are unlikely to hold up as well next week. Kook has had 24 Top 75 entries, 21 of them with BTS, and Harlow has had eight. The only other new arrival in the Top 10 is Water, the debut hit by South African singer Tyla, which jumps 16-10 (19,873 sales). The rest of the Top 10: Vampire (4-6, 28,885 sales) by Olivia Rodrigo, Adore U (6-7, 23,950 sales) by Fred Again.. feat. Obongjayar, Disconnect (8-8, 22,354 sales) by Becky Hill, Chase & Status and Baddadan (10-9, 21,820 sales) by Chase & Status and Bou feat. Irah, Flowdan, Trigga & Takura. Exiting the Top 10: Bad Idea Right? (9-12, 18,903 sales) by Olivia Rodrigo and – on ACR after 13 weeks in the top tier – Taylor Swift’s 2019 single, Cruel Summer (7-17, 13,008 sales). The release of a new Ed Sheeran album has, in more heady days, seen him command nine places in the Top 10 in a week. That precipitated the introduction of the primary artist rule, which limited artists to three concurrent chart singles – but there was no need for that this week with the only tracks from his new album Autumn Variations to breach the Top 75 being American Town (No.27, 9,931 sales) and Magical (No.49, 7,016 sales). Their arrival increases Sheeran’s tally of Top 75 hits to 74, and his haul of Top 40 entries to 62. Released almost exactly five years ago, as a track on his Don’t Forget About Me demos EP, Babydoll (No.63, 6,351 sales) becomes singer/songwriter Dominic Fike’s fourth hit. Increasing consumption for the seventh week in a row due to its current viral success on TikTok, it is his third most-consumed track with a to-date tally of 227,963, inferior only to the uncharted Phone Numbers (327,012) and his 2019 debut hit 3 Nights (1,732,499 sales). Performed by Olivia Rodrigo on BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge this week, the title track of Noah Kahan’s 2022 album Stick Season makes a belated chart debut, entering at No.69 (5,989 sales) to become his second hit. It is already his second most-consumed track (170,431 sales), behind uncharted 2017 Julia Michaels collaboration, Hurt Somebody (243,848 sales) but ahead of his summer No.32 debut hit Dial Drunk (137,522 sales). Also new to the Top 75: Hide And Seek (No.38, 8,305 sales), the first hit – indeed first release – for London rapper 163Margs, and the 22nd (14th Top 40) for featured guest Digga D; Feelings (No.50, 6,910 sales), the 15th hit for Jorja Smith and the 24th for featured rapper J Hus; and Mosquito (No.74, 5,621 sales), the eighth hit for PinkPantheress. Asking reaches a new peak, advancing 14-11 (19,055 sales) for Sonny Fodera & MK feat. Clementine Douglas. At the start of its career in the Top 75, Asking became the first hit in chart history to climb 10 places a week for four weeks, advancing 61-51-41-31-21. Meanwhile, two debut hits make significant gains to secure toeholds in the Top 20. They are My Love Mine All Mine (34-15, 14,321 sales) by Mitski and DNA (Loving You) (30-18, 12,512 sales) by Billy Gillies feat. Hannah Boleyn. Making the Top 40 for the first time are Got Me Started (56-34, 8,959 sales) by Troye Sivan, Ecstacy (52-33, 8,962 sales) by Suicidal-Idol and Back On 74 (41-36, 8,681 sales) by Jungle. They are the first Top 40 hits for Suicidal-Idol and Jungle and the sixth for Sivan. There are also new peaks for: City Boys (17-14, 15,436 sales) by Burna Boy, Bittersweet Goodbye (25-19, 11,368 sales) by Issey Cross, Snooze (27-20, 11,230 sales) by SZA, Liquor & Cigarettes (35-29, 9,631 sales) by Chase & Status and Hedex feat. ArrDee and Would You (Go To Bed With Me) (75-48, 7,060 sales) by Campbell & Alcemist. Overall singles sales are up 0.31% week-on-week to 26,445,684 units, 11.57% above same week 2022 consumption of 23,703,712 units. Paid-for sales are up 6.23% week-on-week at 281,578 – 9.37% below same week 2022 sales of 310,699.

Charts analysis: Ed Sheeran scores seventh consecutive No.1 album

It’s autumn but there is no variation in Ed Sheeran’s debut position, as his seventh full length studio album, Autumn Variations, emulates its predecessors by opening at No.1. ...

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