ATEEZ challenge Taylor Swift for first UK Number 1 album with GOLDEN HOUR : Part.1

The K-pop sensations have already claimed two Top 10 albums in less than a year.

K-pop boyband ATEEZ will be hoping to best the mighty Taylor Swift this week to claim their first Number 1 album in the UK.

The eight-piece group – comprising Hongjoong, Seonghwa, Yunho, Yeosang, San, Mingi, Wooyoung and Jongho are currently pacing to debut atop the Official Albums Chart with GOLDEN HOUR : Part.1, their tenth EP.

ATEEZ have previously logged two UK Top 10 albums in less than a year; THE WORLD EP.2 : OUTLAW (10) and THE WORLD EP.FIN : WILL (2).

However, the omnipresent The Tortured Poets Department is not far behind, at Number 2 midweek, with Taylor Swift less than 1,000 chart units from overtaking.

British dance queen Becky Hill is approaching her first UK Top 5 LP with second album Believe Me Now? expected to land at Number 4. Becky previously earned a Number 7 peak with debut album Only Honest On The Weekend in 2021.

Former Longpigs and Pulp member Richard Hawley is on his way to a fifth Top 10 solo album with In This City They Call You Love (5), Australian rockers Crowded House zoom in for their prospective sixth Top 10 LP with eighth record Gravity Stairs (6) and South London MC K-Trap’s debut album SMILE? could become his first Top 10 project (7).

Fairport Convention co-founder Richard Thompson tracks to claim his second solo Top 10 album, and first in 9 years, with Ship To Shore (9).

As his brand-new single Houdini stands to top the Official Singles Chart this week, we see uplift of two Eminem LPs; Curtain Call – The Hits could crash back into the Top 10 (10), while 2022’s Curtain Call 2 is set to return to the Top 40 (36).

Acclaimed indie-pop star Bat For Lashes’s sixth album The Dream of Delphi eyes a Number 29 debut, which would give Natasha Khan a fifth UK Top 40 LP.

Finally, Suede guitarist Bernard Butler could enter at Number 40 with his latest solo offering, Good Grief.