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The UK Albums Chart is a weekly record chart based on album sales from Sunday to Saturday in the United Kingdom. It listed only physical album sales until 2007, after which it also included albums sold digitally and streams (the latter included in 2015).[1] The chart is currently compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC) on behalf of the UK music industry,[2] and each week's new number one is first announced by BBC Radio 1 on their weekly chart show.[3]
The definition of a "one-hit wonder", as given by the reference text The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums, was any act that achieves a number one on the UK Album Chart and no other Top 40 entry. However, when Guinness first published the list in the 1980s the hit albums chart was a Top 100 with compilations included, until being split at the end of 1989 into a Top 75 Hit/Official Albums Chart and Top 20 Hit/Official Compilations Chart,[4] with a Top 200 artist albums chart being available to industry insiders from the 1990s. One hit wonders on the Singles Chart are artists with their number one being also their only Top 75 entry. Since the album chart was first published on 28 July 1956,[5] 20 acts have reached number one and had no other hit albums (Top 75 entries). Artists who have topped the album chart as solo artists but also charted as members of groups are exempted from the main list as well as those with smaller hits (listed separately).
| Artist | Album | Record label | Reached number one (for the week ending) |
Weeks at number one | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Freddy Cannon | The Explosive Freddy Cannon | Top Rank | 12 March 1960 | 1 | The first number one album on the Record Retailer chart | [6] |
| Blind Faith | Blind Faith | Polydor | 20 September 1969 | 2 | Although the band Blind Faith had one number-one album and nothing else, each member of the supergroup (including Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton) had further album chart success. | [7] |
| Johnny Hates Jazz | Turn Back the Clock | Virgin | 23 January 1988 | 1 | Follow-up album Tall Stories (with The Cure's Phil Thornalley on vocals) failed to make the Top 75, while a couple of reunion albums in the 21st Century also failed to reach the chart. | [8] |
| The Farm | Spartacus | Produce | 16 March 1991 | 1 | Follow-up albums failed to make the Top 75 | [9] |
| Chaka Demus & Pliers | Tease Me | Mango | 29 January 1994 | 2 | Had originally peaked at number 26 in July 1993, before being re-released and topping the chart in January 1994. | [10] |
| Steve Brookstein | Heart and Soul | Syco | 21 May 2005 | 1 | Winner of the 2004 series of The X Factor. Follow-up album 40,000 Things failed to make the Top 75 | [11] |
| Ray Quinn | Doing It My Way | Syco | 24 March 2007 | 1 | Runner-up in the 2006 series of The X Factor Follow-up album Undeniable failed to chart. | [12] |
| The Commonwealth Band | Sing | Decca | 9 June 2012 | 3 | Co-credit with Gary Barlow | [13] |
| Pnau | Good Morning to the Night | Mercury | 28 July 2012 | 1 | Co-credit with Elton John. Pnau have had charting albums in their native country Australia, band member Nick Littlemore has had three albums chart on the UK Album Top 100 with Empire of the Sun[14] | [15] |
| Conor Maynard | Contrast | Parlophone | 11 August 2012 | 1 | Follow-up album Covers failed to make the Top 75. | [16] |
| Jahméne Douglas | Love Never Fails | RCA | 3 August 2013 | 1 | Runner-up in the 2012 series of The X Factor. Follow-up album Unfathomable Phantasmagoria failed to make the Top 75. | [17] |
| Viola Beach | Viola Beach | Fuller Beans | 11 August 2016 | 1 | The band's only album was released posthumously, all of the band members having died in a road accident earlier in the year. | [18] |
| Celeste | Not Your Muse | Polydor | 11 February 2021 | 1 | Compilation 1.1, a digital-exclusive re-issue of the EP Lately with extra songs "Coco Blood" and "Strange", reached number 7 on the UK Album Downloads Chart. | [19] |
| Wet Leg | Wet Leg | Domino | 15 April 2022 | 1 | As well as getting an OCC Award for a number one album, this duo were nearly in the running for the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles list of 'Least successful chart acts' (one single at number 75 for one week) as their discography now consists of two singles which have peaks of number 74 and 75,[20] with each single staying on the chart for 1 week each. | [21] |
| Sam Ryder | There's Nothing but Space, Man! | Parlophone/Warner | 22 December 2022 | 1 | Ryder was the entry for the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2022, with his song "Space Man" coming second on 466 points.[22] | [23] |
| Boygenius | The Record | Interscope | 7 April 2023 | 1 | Boygenius is an indie supergroup[24] with the act collectively having two Top 75 album chart hits to their name before releasing The Record. Out of the three members, Phoebe Bridgers[25] has had the most success in the UK chart as a solo artist with Punisher, her second studio album, getting to number 6 in July 2020, while Julien Baker's third album Little Oblivions peaked at number 51[26] in March 2021. In addition to these solo Top 75 hits, Home Video by the band's third member Lucy Dacus managed a number 85 chart position on the Top 100 in July 2021, but has no solo hits to her name, whether on the singles or albums chart.[27] In addition, The Record also debuted at number one on the Official Charts Company's Irish Albums Chart Top 50, making them a one hit wonder in Ireland as well.[28] | [29] |
| Cian Ducrot | Victory | Polydor | 17 August 2023 | 1 | This album sold the same amount of CDs (10,299) as the number two, Smile by Skindred, and managed to reach the number one spot with a gap of 149 units with Ducrot's 15,668 total sales being made up of 1,413 LPs, 689 cassettes, 1,484 downloads and points from streaming (the 15,519 sales for Skindred was also made up of CDs, digital sales, LPs and cassettes plus 312 USB sticks). However, neither act was at number one in the first released chart update, with People Like Me & You by The Sherlocks at the top and Skindred taking over the top spot for most of the week until the very last day.[30] | [31] |
| Ren | Sick Boi | The Other Songs | 26 October 2023 | 1 | This album was placed at number two in the midweek charts with Rick Astley's Are We There Yet? being the number one album for most of the week. As Ren Gill was only 133 sales behind Astley when the update was issued on Wednesday, it was decided that a £4.99 digital version of his album would go on sale on his website on the Thursday, securing 4,533 more sales on the last day of tracking and the number one spot when the Official Albums Chart was released on 20 October 2023.[32][33][34][35] | [36] |
| The Last Dinner Party | Prelude to Ecstasy | Island | 9 February 2024 | 1 | The 2024 Brit Award Rising Star winner sold 32,846 copies, including 14,058 LPs, 10,981 CDs and 1,852 cassettes, to debut at number one.[37] | [38] |
| Chappell Roan | The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess | Island | 15 August 2024 | 1 | This album reached number one, 46 weeks after being released thanks to the release of the Popstar (Clear Coke Bottle)[39] edition, which added 8,591 double vinyl album sales to the weekly total. The album features the Top 40 singles "Hot to Go!"[40] and "Red Wine Supernova" which were at number 15 and number 32 at the time, but not the Top 3 hit "Good Luck, Babe!". | [41] |
Most recent one-hit wonder to be removed from the list: What a Time to Be Alive by Tom Walker[42][43] (October 2024)
The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums was first issued in 1983, six years before the Top 75 albums chart hit definition came into being (with a full Top 150 Artist Albums Chart being published for people within the industry at this time).[44] As of January 2022, the OCC still track the number of Top 75 album hits on their website, but make available a Top 100 countdown to the public. The following list includes artists with more than one album chart hit who would have been seen as a one-hit wonder under the Guinness definition of 1983.
- Neil Reid reached number one for three weeks on 19 February 1972 with his self-titled debut album on Decca, after winning the 1971 series of Opportunity Knocks. He was the youngest person ever to top the album chart but success was short lived as follow-up album Smile peaked at number 47 in September 1972.[45]
- Journey South hit number one on the albums chart on 1 April 2006 with their self-titled debut album (Syco Music) after coming third in the 2005 series of The X Factor. Follow-up album Home peaked at number 43 in November 2007.
- Noah Kahan reached number one with his third album Stick Season on 16 February 2024, due to a new edition of the album being released, which featured new track "Forever" alongside collaborations with Hozier, Post Malone and Sam Fender. Stick Season topped the chart 69 weeks after the original album was released and 35 weeks after it first charted in the UK albums chart.[46][47][48][49][50] Due to this success,[51] Noah's second album from 2021, I Was / I Am, was reissued by UMG/Republic on 20 April 2024 for Record Store Day UK,[52][53] with the album charting at number 70[54] for 1 week.[55]
When The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums was last published in the 1990s, the list of 'number one albums with the fewest weeks on the chart' was based on the Top 75, with the shortest chart stay for a number one album being 5 weeks with acts such as Little Angels (with their 1993 album Jam),[56] topping the list. In 2021, a never-to-be-beaten record was set with a number of albums debuting at the top and exiting the Top 75 the next week. In 2023, The Lottery Winners became the first artist to have a number 1 album go from #1 to outside the top 200.
The following is an update to the original 'number one albums with the fewest weeks on the chart' list but only lists those number one hit albums with one week in the Top 75 (as per The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums data):
- You Me At Six - Suckapunch (reached the top on 28 January 2021)[57]
- Ben Howard - Collections from the Whiteout (reached number one on the chart of 08 April 2021)[58]
- The Wombats[59] - Fix Yourself, Not the World (reached the top on 27 January 2022)[60][61] The following week this album had dropped out of the Top 75 and was at number 96, and so would be still eligible for The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums list.
- Ellie Goulding - Higher Than Heaven (reached the top on 20 April 2023)[62] The following week this album had dropped out of the Top 75 and was at number 84, and so would be still eligible for The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums list.[63]
- Enter Shikari - A Kiss for the Whole World (4 May 2023)[64] The first album to drop out of the top 120 in its second week ending up at number 126.[65][66]
- The Lottery Winners - Anxiety Replacement Therapy (11 May 2023)[67][68] A week later, this album broke Enter Shikari's record for the biggest second week drop from the top by selling 880 copies in its second week, meaning that it was unplaced in the UK top 200.[69][70]
- Royal Blood - Back to the Water Below (14 September 2023)[71][72] This album fell outside the Top 75 (the area which The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums tracked) on its second week and landed at number 94, making it eligible for the list.
- The Libertines - All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade (18 April 2024) Another Number 1 album which fell outside the Top 75 in its second week, ending up at number 93.[73][74][75]
- Shed Seven - Liquid Gold[76][77] (10 October 2024)[78] Where their first No.1 album of 2024, A Matter Of Time dropped to number 29 in its second week of release, this re-recorded greatest hits album[79] [80] slumped from number one to number 111 on sales of 1,707 copies, the week after being released.[81]
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