Lady Gaga narrowly beats Sports Team to number one

The star's sixth album was originally due out in April, but was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic

Lady Gaga's Chromatica has topped the UK album chart for a second week - but only by the narrowest of margins.

The US pop star faced a tough challenge from British indie newcomers Sports Team, whose debut album took an early lead in the race to number one.

In the end, Chromatica held on to the top spot by just 571 copies, with total sales of 12,819.

Gaga has not been promoting her album in order to acknowledge the Black Lives Matter movement.

The singer halted all advertising for Chromatica and disabled her website's online store on 3 June, with business only tentatively resuming yesterday.

Despite that, Chromatica secured the biggest opening week of 2020 last week, with 53,000 combined streams and sales.

Her chart success this week was largely due to fans continuing to stream the album, with Sports Team outselling her in every other format.

Their record, Deep Down Happy, was the week's most popular vinyl record, selling 4,300 copies. They also topped the physical sales and download charts; and had been ahead of Gaga's album for several days before losing ground at the end of the week.

They responded by cutting the price of their album to 99p on the Google Play download store for a limited time on Thursday, but the BBC understands those sales did not count towards the chart.

The six-piece, who formed at Cambridge University, took their loss in good spirits - comparing the week-long competition to 1995's "battle of Britpop", when Blur's Country House beat Oasis's Roll With It to number one.

"It was Blur vs Oasis, and we were Oasis," they wrote on Twitter, next to a picture of them sharing a beer at a picnic table.

"Took it closer than we had any right to. Will be paying back the IOUs well into our forties but... what a ride. Love you all."

Elsewhere in the album chart, All Time Low's Wake Up Sunshine came in at number three, while there were new entries for The Human League, whose greatest hits album landed at number 14, and US hip-hop duo Run The Jewels, whose timely polemic RTJ4 debuted at 18.

Meanwhile, DaBaby and Roddy Ricch's song Rockstar extended its run at the top of the singles chart, securing its fourth consecutive week at number one.

Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande's Rain On Me came second, while Rover - a viral TikTok hit by Zimbabwean-British artist S1mba - was third.