Foo Fighters pip Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds to Number 1 with But Here We Are after intense race

Foo Fighters secure their sixth Official Number 1 album with But Here We Are, following a closely-fought race against Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

The American rock titans – comprising Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett, Rami Jaffee and Pat Smear – reach the summit with their 11^th studio album, and first since the death of drummer Taylor Hawkins in March 2022. Over the last seven days they racked up 44,500 chart units.

Prior to this, Foo Fighters topped the Official Albums Chart with One By One (2002), Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (2007), Wasting Light (2011), Concrete And Gold (2017) and Medicine At Midnight (2021).

MORE: Where every Foo Fighters song and album has charted in the UK

At Number 2, Council Skies provides Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds a fifth Top 5 album. Under his solo moniker, Noel previously saw chart-topping success with eponymous debut Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (2011), Chasing Yesterday (2015), Who Built The Moon (2017) and compilation album Back The Way We Came: Vol 1 (2021).

Across a career spanning 29 years, Noel held an Official Chart record for his unbroken streak of all ten previous studio albums – released both as part of Oasis and High Flying Birds – reaching Number 1, the most for any artist, although this run comes to an end today.

Council Skies does debut atop the Official Vinyl Albums Chart, as well as the Official Record Store Chart, the best-selling album of the past seven days in UK independent record shops.

Elsewhere, Sophie Ellis-Bextor celebrates her fifth UK Top 10 LP with HANA (8). Previously, the singer-songwriter saw Top 10 success with 2001 debut Read My Lips (2), 2007 release Trip The Light Fantastic (7), 2014’s Wanderlust (4) and 2020 compilation Songs From The Kitchen Disco (8). HANA also debuts inside the Top 5 of both the Official Record Store Chart (2) and Official Vinyl Albums Chart (5) this week.

Read our exclusive interview with Sophie here.

MORE: The Official Top 40 biggest albums of 2023 so far

Louise celebrates 30 years in music with her Greatest Hits compilation, a new entry at Number 11 this week. Greatest Hits also debuts at Number 4 on this week’s Official Record Store Chart.

Meanwhile, Bob Dylan’s landmark 40^th album Shadow Kingdom, a re-recorded collection of songs from his early career, debuts at Number 14 to become the legendary singer-songwriter’s 67^th Top 40 LP.

Wrexham indie-pop outfit The Royston Club, comprising Tom Faithfull, Ben Matthias, Sam Jones and Dave Tute, make their Official Chart debut with Shaking Hips And Crashing Cars (16), while Jake Shears’ second studio album Last Man Dancing provides him a solo career-best (18). Last Man Standing also debuts inside the Official Vinyl Albums Chart Top 10 (6).

US heavy metal five-piece Avenged Sevenfold’s eighth studio record Life Is But A Dream… provides the group a sixth UK Top 40 collection (21), as Nashville-based rockers Rival Sons score their fifth with Darkfighter (30).

Finally, K-pop group Stray Kids – comprising Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, Han, Felix, Seungmin and I.N – make their Top 40 debut today with third studio album 5-Star (40).

See the full Official Albums Chart Top 100 here from 5.45pm.