Official Charts' New Year Honours 2020: Billie Eilish, Idles, Taylor Swift and more

It’s been a year like no other for everybody, on every level, and 2020 has marked a truly extraordinary year of record breakers and milestones in the UK’s Official Chart.

Incredible chart feat after incredible chart feat, achieved by a fascinating range of faces – from rising rappers to a 100 year-old war veteran, pop icons, rock legends and social media influencers - every one of them rewriting the history books in the process. Nobody can say that the Official Chart (and the world in general) hasn’t kept us on our toes in 2020.

OfficialCharts.com takes a look back at the biggest chart stars, moments and pictures of this year.

The name's Eilish... Billie Eilish

Billie Eilish: Biggest ever opening week for a James Bond theme

Back in February, Billie Eilish earned her first ever UK Number 1 single with her James Bond theme No Time To Die. In its first week not only did Billie perform the song for the first time on the BRIT Awards, win Best International Female at the ceremony, AND score a Number 1 hit – she also scooped the biggest opening week of all time for a Bond theme after racking up 90,000 chart sales including 10.6 million streams.

Billie is now the youngest artist and the first female to take a Bond theme to the top of the Official Singles Chart. View Billie Eilish's Official UK Chart history in full.

2020 proved age is just a number

Captain Sir Tom Moore: Oldest person to earn a Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart

Not satisfied with raising tens of millions of pounds for the NHS by walking laps of his garden at the beginning of lockdown, the then-99-year-old war veteran, Captain Tom Moore – who has since received a knighthood – teamed up with Michael Ball and the NHS Voices of Care choir to release a new version of You’ll Never Walk Alone, going straight to Number 1, with proceeds benefitting NHS Charities Together.

At the age of 99 years and 11 months, Captain Tom became the oldest artist to reach Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart in its near 70-year history, he celebrated his 100^th birthday just a few days later while still at Number 1 - the first ever Centenarian to enjoy a UK chart-topping single.

Decades upon decades of chart success - Kylie, Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard and Springsteen showed the kids how it’s done

As Britain welcomed in a new decade in 2020, the Official Chart ushered in yet another new chapter of record-breaking success for some of music’s longest-serving chart icons. 2020 has been a remarkable showcase for an elite tier of talent who are still blasting out hit records decades into their careers:

Dame Vera Lynn – May welcomed the 75^th anniversary celebrations of VE Day with the song We’ll Meet Again forming the centrepiece of the celebrations. At 103 years young, Forces’ Sweetheart Vera Lynn re-entered the Official Albums Chart at Number 30 with her greatest hits album, setting a new record for the oldest artist ever to land a Top 40 album.

The Rolling Stones – September saw The Stones pip Declan McKenna by 800 copies to Number 1 with a reissue of their 1973 album Goats Head Soup, becoming the first band in history to hit Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart in six different decades.

Bruce Springsteen – October saw The Boss make chart history as he scored his 12th Number 1 album with Letter To You. The Boss became the first credited solo artist to have a Number 1 album in five consecutive decades, topping the charts in the 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s and 20s. Paul McCartney, John Lennon, David Gilmour and Paul Weller have also scored five decades of chart-topping success, but only when including their work in groups alongside their solo material.

Kylie Minogue - just two weeks after Springsteen, Kylie Minogue with her eighth UK Number 1 album DISCO became the first female to claim Number 1 albums in five consecutive decades.

Dame Shirley Bassey – her final album I Owe It All To You debuted at Number 5 in November, becoming her 35^th Top 40 collection, making her the first female artist to claim a Top 40 album in seven consecutive decades.

Cliff Richard – November saw Cliff Richard set an astonishing new chart record – the first artist ever to score a Top 5 album in EIGHT consecutive decades as Music…The Air That I Breathe landed at Number 3.

Rappers' delight

DaBaby ft. Roddy Ricch: Scored the UK’s Official Song of the Summer 2020 with Rockstar

Logging six weeks at Number 1 in May and June, Rockstar by DaBaby ft. Roddy Ricch solidified its spot in our summer playlists early in the season. Through one of the most unusual summers on record, DaBaby and Roddy, boosted by a viral dance challenge on TikTok, notched up a cool 654,000 chart sales during the three-month period from June to August to become the UK’s biggest song of the Summer 2020.

Pop Smoke: The first solo artist to earn a posthumous Number 1 debut album

Late rapper Pop Smoke’s debut album, Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon, landed at Number 2 upon its release in July, before 12 weeks later rising to Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart in a “bittersweet” moment for the rapper’s legacy.

Pop Smoke is the first ever solo artist to have a debut album go to Number 1 posthumously, and only the second act in Official Charts history to do so, following Warrington indie band Viola Beach in 2016. Shoot For The Stars is also the only debut album to top the Official Albums Chart in all of 2020, claiming the longest climb to Number 1 for an album since George Ezra’s Wanted On Voyage in 2014.

The year we barely left our houses, pop stars delivered some impressive residencies in the Offiical Charts too

Lewis Capaldi: Most consecutive weeks in the Official Albums Chart Top 10

Lewis Capaldi’s debut album Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent was the biggest album of 2019 – and the album’s hot streak didn’t stop in the Noughties. The album held its own in the Top 10 through 2019 and into 2020 – picking up three non-consecutive weeks at Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart this year, surpassing one million chart sales, and even more impressively, racking up 78 consecutive weeks in the Top 10 – more than any other solo artist in the history of the UK chart.

Dua Lipa: Most weeks in the Official Singles Chart Top 10 for UK Female solo artist

The lead single from Dua Lipa’s second album Future Nostalgia and released in late 2019, Don’t Start Now was our first taste of the next era of Dua – and judging by its chart run, the UK public loved what they heard. Don’t Start Now debuted at Number 2 and went on to claim 25 non-consecutive weeks in the Top 10, the most ever for a British female soloist.

The fastest sellers of 2020

LadBaby: Scored a Christmas Number 1 hat-trick, and the fastest selling single of the year

In just three short years Ladbaby – real name Mark Hoyle, and his wife Roxanne – have gone from social media influencers to household chart names with a series of sausage roll-themed singles. In 2020, his third song Don’t Stop Me Eatin’ became his third consecutive Christmas Number 1, putting him in the history books as only the third act ever to manage the festive hat-trick, alongside The Beatles and the Spice Girls.

Don’t Stop Me Eating not only clocked the fastest-selling single of 2020 (158,000 chart sales in just seven days), but the fastest seller in over three years, since Artists For Grenfell’s 2017 cover of Bridge Over Troubled Water.

LadBaby told OfficialCharts.com:

“From the bottom of our hearts, we just want to say thank you again to everybody. We can’t believe that, a third year on, we’ve had so much support yet again. We’re trying to raise money for an amazing cause, so thank you. Merry Christmas to everyone and don’t stop believin’ – that things are going to get better. 2021 is going to be better for everyone.”

AC/DC: Powered their way to the fastest-selling album of 2020

Legendary rockers AC/DC 18^th studio album Power Up charged in at Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart in November, notching up 62,000 chart sales in its first seven days. It’s the band’s fourth Number 1 album in the UK and their first in 10 years since 2010’s Iron Man 2 – OST.

Celebrating their victory, AC/DC’s Angus Young said: “A very big thank you to everyone who put in their time, effort and creativity to get PWR/UP to Number 1! Also a big shoutout to all our fans, old and new. You are, and always have been, our guiding inspiration”.

Idles: Fastest-selling vinyl album

Idles’ third album Ultra Mono became the Bristol punk band’s first Number 1 album in September, and became the fastest-selling vinyl album of 2020 with 15,400 of its first-week total made up of vinyl sales.

Upon scoring their Number 1, the band thanked their fans: “Beyond all the praise and accolades we have received there is something magic about feeling carried by the ones you love. Forever grateful, IDLES x”

When one's just not enough...

Taylor Swift: Delivered two Number 1 albums in one year

Taylor Swift earns a place in the Official Charts’ New Years Honours List thanks to the release of not one but two surprise albums, Folklore and Evermore.

She’s not only the first artist in eight years to have two studio albums be Number 1 in the same year (Rihanna was the last to do so in 2012), but the chart-topping debut of Evermore in December marked her sixth Number 1 album. Taylor now joins fellow music icons Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Barbra Streisand as the only females to have notched up six chart toppers, but the best bit… Taylor did it in record time - just eight years.

Ariana Grande: Most Number 1 singles in 2020

Ariana is the only artist to enjoy two different songs at the top of the Official Singles Chart in 2020. Her first chart-topper this year was with Lady Gaga collaboration Rain On Me, which went straight in at Number 1 in May, and was followed in October by the title track of Ari’s latest album Positions, which held on for a total of six consecutive weeks.

And finally...

Christmas came early to the Official Chart, but proved good things come to those who wait... and wait

Mariah Carey: Set a new record for most weeks in the Official Chart Top 40 before reaching Number 1

Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You has been a Christmas staple ever since it was first released in 1994 – what the song never had, despite this, was a place at Number 1, having missed out on the Christmas Number 1 that year to East 17’s Stay Another Day.

This was until December 11 2020, when Britain decided to wish away the troubles of 2020 with some festive cheer. Streams of Christmas hits were up more than 50% year on year throughout November and December, sending Mariah’s feel-good festive hit all the way to Number 1 on the Official UK Singles Chart for the very first time, 26 years after its release. The song had spent a total of 70 weeks on chart up until then - the most weeks that any song had spent in the Top 40 before eventually reaching Number 1.