Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly sees off fierce competition to win first UK Number 1 album

The rapper wins a very close race to top this week's Official Albums Chart.

Kendrick Lamar has scored his first Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart with To Pimp A Butterfly.

The rapper’s second record held off fierce competition to top this week’s tally, finishing just 572 chart sales ahead of Sam Smith’s In The Lonely Hour, which slips to second place.

Lamar’s latest record beats the Number 16 peak of his 2012 debut Good Kid M.A.A.D City and takes the title of this week’s most-streamed album with 3722 weighted streams. Earlier this week it was revealed the album had set a new record on Spotify after it had been streamed 9.6 million times worldwide in one day.

Meanwhile, Dire Straits guitarist Mark Knopfler earns the highest-charting album of is his career with his eighth studio opus Tracker at Number 3, and Ed Sheeran’s X is at 4.

Rounding off the Top 5 is Van Morrison’s Duets – Re-working The Catalogue. The Irish singer-songwriter’s 35th studio album is his highest-charting collection since 2005’s Magic Time, which peaked at 3.

New entries and high climbers

Marina and the Diamonds earns her third Top 10 album with FROOT, which debuts at Number 10, and Bjork’s Vulnicura re-enters the Top 40 at Number 14 following its physical release.

US rock band Sleeping With Sirens score their first UK Top 40 album with their fourth record Madness, Modest Mouse are new at 28 with Strangers To Ourselves, and REM’s 1992 chart-topper Automatic For The People makes its first Top 40 appearance in 15 years today, re-entering at Number 40.