Olivia Rodrigo's Sour beats Queen's Greatest Hits to Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart

Plus brand new albums from Laura Mvula and Bobby Gillespie & Jehnny Beth enter the Top 40.

Sour by Olivia Rodrigo scores a fourth week at Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart, narrowly fending off Queen’s Greatest Hits collection.

Sour - the UK’s biggest album of 2021 so far - finishes the week just 270 chart sales ahead of Queen’s Greatest Hits, extending Olivia’s reign as the only artist to spend more than a week at Number 1 this year on the Official Albums Chart.

Queen’s record-breaking Greatest Hits enjoys a boost in sales thanks to a 40^th anniversary re-issue. As a result the band lead on physical sales this week, with 78% of their final total made up of vinyl, CD and cassette copies. Queen also land Number 1 on the Official Vinyl Albums Chart with the collection.

MORE: Official Top 40 biggest albums of 2021 so far

Last week’s Number 1, Jack Savoretti’s Europiana, drops to Number 4 though it remains the week’s biggest seller on digital downloads. In its fourth week, Inside (The Songs) by Bo Burnham rises one place to a new peak of Number 5.

Further down, Utopian Ashes by Bobby Gillespie and Jehnny Beth debuts at Number 12. It’s Bobby’s first solo Top 40 album – having earned 12 so far as the frontman of Primal Scream – and Jehnny’s first.

Laura Mvula’s third studio album Pink Noise also makes a Top 40 debut as it opens at Number 21, her third Top 40 album. Laura was the guest on this week’s Record Club with Bowers & Wilkins, talking all about the album and answering fan questions.

Finally, debuting just outside the Top 40 is London-based post-punk band Snapped Ankles with Forest of your Problems (41), and Joni Mitchell collection The Reprise Albums (1968-1971) (42).

See the full Official Albums Chart Top 100

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Marko

9th July 2021

Where the are Lawson??
Their album Cmd Z is great.
Can't believe it didn't chart but all this garbage did.

reyw

25th July 2021

Count Plutarch

9th July 2021

The last few Queen 40th anniversary editions have had a picture disc release - News of the World, Jazz, The Game and Flash Gordon. Each of them sold out within 10 minutes and were instant sales for the album. I half expected Greatest Hits to follow suit yesterday with a 2LP picture disc release. That would've generated another 1,981 sales and absolutely trounced the competition.

Ah, well... with over 950 weeks in the chart in its own right and another 270 weeks or so as part of "The Platinum Collection", it's amazing there's still people who need to buy a copy of Greatest Hits in the first place!

Count Plutarch

9th July 2021

PS. It's telling that streaming was the deciding factor here... with Queen at #1 on the sales charts compared to Olivia Rodrigo at #10, but Rodrigo at #1 on streaming and Queen at #7.

Overall, it's an impressive result for a 40 year old album up against the biggest hit record of the year.