The Beatles have won a lot of accolades in their time and now they have another to add to the trophy cabinet as they’ve just been given the award for ‘Britain’s Biggest Album’ for their 1967 masterpiece Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Beating acts like Adele, Oasis and Pink Floyd in the process.
The competition was pretty close to name Britain’s favourite studio album according to Official Charts Company who are marking National Album Day with the announcement. The Fab Four beating Adele in 2nd, with Amy Winehouse, Ed Sheeran and many more falling in behind.
The Beatles LP has 5.34 million combined sales (physical sales, streams and downloads) while there was another victory for Sir Paul McCartney as he was crowned the artist with the most successful album positioning in U.K. chart history with an astonishing 22 number one albums across his career (15 with the Beatles, two with Wings, four solo and one with Linda McCartney.)
The chart reflects album sales of 135 million across a whopping 60 years. The top 5 combined sales reached nearly 25 million alone. Adele’s 21 is in second place (released in 2011 with 5.11 million sales). The Oasis mega-album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory is in third place (1995, 4.94 million), followed by Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon (1973, 4.47 million), and Michael Jackson’s Thriller (1983, 4.47 million).
With the introduction of ‘combined sales’ including downloads and streams, there is a strong presence of modern music with acts like Coldplay, Adele, Dido (Dido!?), Ed Sheeran and Michael Buble all having multiple entries in the top 40.
