Niall Horan sets the stage for second Number 1 album with The Show

Niall Horan has set the stage to debut at Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart this Friday with The Show.  

The third solo album from the One Direction alumnus – which features the UK Top 20 single Heaven – is on track to become Niall’s second chart-topping LP, following 2020’s Heartbreak Weather. His debut record, Flicker, reached Number 3 in 2017. 

As a member of One Direction – alongside Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik – Niall achieved four UK Number 1 singles and a further four Number 1 albums. 

MORE: See where all of Niall’s solo singles and albums have charted in the UK.  

Currently tracking for second place, McFly look to net their seventh Top 10 album this week with Power To Play (2), while Mancunian rockers James are on track to claim their eighth Top 5 album with Be Open To The Wonderful (3). 

Experimental French pop auteur Christine & The Queens could return to the Top 10 for the first time in half a decade with Paranoia, Angels, True Love (4) - the three-part album, and follow up to 2022’s Redcar les adorables étoiles (prologue), includes collaborations with Madonna, 070 Shake and Mike Dean. Also eyeing up a Top 5 debut are American hard rock outfit Extreme, returning after a 15-year hiatus to potentially net their first UK-charting album since 1995 with Six (5). 

Two more albums that could land in the Top 10 on Friday are Tears For Fears’ 40th anniversary re-issue of their debut record The Hurting (7), which originally reached Number 1 in 1983, and Space Heavy, the new LP from influential English singer, producer and rapper King Krule who could achieve his first Top 10 album (8). 

Further down, Brighton post-punk band Squid’s new album O Monolith could become their second Top 20 (15), US singer Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit could score his highest-charting album yet with Weathervanes (16), and This Is The Kit (the alias of singer-songwriter Kate Stables) is on track to hit the Top 20 for the first time thanks to sixth album Careful Of Your Keepers (20). 

The inimitable Janelle Monae returns this week with funky fourth album The Age of Pleasure, on its way to becoming her third Top 40 entry in the UK (21), while US singer-songwriter Noah Kahan could make his Official Chart debut with an expanded edition of third album Stick Season: We’ll Be Here Forever (22). 

The arrival of P!nk’s Summer Carnival tour into the UK sends her chart-topping album Trustfall flying back into the Top 40, up 29 places to Number 25. 

Similarly, Sam Fender’s two homecoming shows at St James’ Park in Newcastle at the weekend send his second Number 1 album Seventeen Going Under rocketing 47 places to Number 32. 

Finally, Rob Grant – the father of Lana Del Rey – is heading for a Top 40 debut with his first album Lost At Sea (39) which sees him collaborate with his daughter on several tracks.  

See the Official Albums Chart Update in full here from 5:45pm.