Rick Astley Scores First UK No 1 In 29 Years

Singer Rick Astley has made up the ground and officially scored his first number 1 album since 1987.

At mid-week, he was trailing Tom O’Dowd by a couple of hundred units and, by Wednesday, had cut the lead to fourteen. The final day’s sales on Thursday pushed him over the top.

Rick had previously had the number one album during the week of November 28, 1987 with his debut album, Whenever You Need Somebody. Since then he has had a varying degree of success:

Whenever You Need Someone (1987 / #1)
Hold Me In Your Arms (1988 / #8)
Free (1991 / #9)
Body and Soul (1993 / Did Not Chart)
Keep It Turned Off (2001 / Did Not Chart)
Greatest Hits (2002 / #16)
Portrait (2005 / #26)
Ultimate Collection (2008 / #17)
My Red Book (2013 / Did Not Chart)
50 (2016 / #1)

50 is also at the top of the Overall Album Sales, Physical Album Sales, Independent Albums and Albums in Scotland charts.

Astley tops a chart that sees eleven albums by veteran artists in just the top twenty.

Paul McCartney’s new compilation, Pure McCartney debuts at number 3 while All Over the World: The Best of ELO returns at 4 and last week’s number 1, Paul Simon’s Stranger to Stranger drops to number 8.

At 9 is the debut of British soul singer Beverly Knight’s Soulsville, the third best charting album of her career and her best since 2007 when Music City Soul reached number 8.

The fifth charting hits set by Gilbert O’Sullivan has also gone the highest on the charts. The Essential Collection premiers at 11, one spot better than his 2012 The Very Best of Gilbert O’Sullivan. It’s also his highest charting album overall in 42 years back to 1974’s A Stranger In My Own Back Yard which peaked at 9.

Not doing as well is Garbage whose new album, Strange Little Birds, opens at number 17, the first of their six studio albums not to make it to the British top ten.

Motorhead start at 36 with the live album Clean Your Clock while Van Morrison debuts at 47 with the multi-disk It’s Too Late to Start Now…Volumes 2, 3 & 4.

Among deluxe versions of older albums premiering are the Beach Boys Pet Sounds at 26, Phil Collins’ But Seriously at 55 and Collins’ The Essential Going Back at 77.

The UK top ten albums

1. 50 – Rick Astley
2. Wrong Crowd – Tom O’Dell
3. Pure McCartney – Paul McCartney
4. All Over the World: The Very Best of ELO – Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)
5. Views – Drake
6. A Head Full of Dreams – Coldplay
7. Lemonade – Beyonce
8. Stranger to Stranger – Paul Simon
9. Soulsville – Beverly Knight
10. The Ride – Catfish and the Bottlemen