Liam Gallagher and John Squire Snag U.K. Chart Crown With Collaborative LP
Written by djfrosty on March 11, 2024
Liam Gallagher and John Squire blast to No. 1 with their first collaborative album.
In the end, it wasn’t even close. The leader at the halfway mark, Liam Gallagher & John Squire (via Warner Records) outsells its nearest rival by a ratio of 3-to-1, the Official Charts Company reports, chalking up 39,400 chart sales in its first week.
Of that total, 94% are sales (physical and downloads), according to the OCC. Liam Gallagher & John Squire was the most-purchased album on wax, with vinyl accounting for 45% of its full-week tally.
Gallagher and Squire are members of Manchester rock royalty. Gallagher, as frontman of Oasis (eight No. 1s), Beady Eye and as a solo artist (five), now claims 14 U.K. No. 1 albums across a career that launched in the ‘90s.
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For Squire, leader guitarist with The Stone Roses, a first-ever U.K. No. 1 album. As a member of The Stone Roses, Squire has landed four top 10s, including multiple appearances for the band’s seminal, self-titled debut from 1989, and a top 10 with the Seahorses’ Do It Yourself, peaking at No. 2 in 1997.
That distant, second-placed album is another all-Britain collaboration, Rod Stewart and Jools Holland’s Swing Fever (EastWest/Rhino), which slips from the chart zenith, 2-1.
Another legendary British rocker, Bruce Dickinson, slots in at No. 3 on the Official Chart, published Friday, March 8. Dickinson, best known as lead singer of Iron Maiden, earns a solo chart best with The Mandrake Project (BMG), his seventh solo record.
Leeds guitar band Yard Act enters the chart at No. 4 with Where’s My Utopia (Island), their sophomore studio album. It’s the followup to 2022’s The Overload, which peaked at No. 2.
After cleaning up at the Brit Awards, where she accumulated a record-setting haul of six wins, RAYE returns to the top 10 with My 21st Century Blues (Human Re Sources), spiking 98 places to No. 5. Winner of the Brit Award for British album of the year, My 21st Century Blues originally peaked at No. 2 following its release in 2023.
Close behind is Kaiser Chiefs’ Easy Eighth Album (Kaiser Chiefs), new at No. 6. That’s the Leeds indie band’s eighth top 10 appearance, a career tally that includes a No. 1 for 2007’s Yours Truly, Angry Mob.
Manchester’s renowned music scene produces another title in the top 10 this week, Everything Everything’s Mountainhead (BMG), new at No. 9 for the rock act’s seventh studio album.
Finally, British rapper and songwriter Skrapz (real name: Christopher Kyei) scores a career-best with his fourth studio collection Reflection (1&Only). It’s new at No. 10, his first stint in the U.K. top 10.