Taylor Swift breaks Arctic Monkeys chart-topping streak

Taylor Swift has denied Arctic Monkeys their seventh straight chart-topping album, after her own new LP raced to number one on Friday.

Her 10th album, Midnights, became the fastest-selling record of 2022, with 204,000 equivalent sales in week one.

The Sheffield rock band finished in second place with more than 100,000 chart sales in seven days for The Car.

That would have been enough sales to reach number one in a normal week where there was no competition from Swift.

The US singer more than doubled her previous best opening week album sales, which she achieved in 2014 for her album 1989.

Anti-Hero, the breakout hit from the 32-year-old's latest album, also topped this week's singles chart.

Suitably named Swift has now surpassed Harry Styles' third album Harry's House to record the UK's fastest-selling record of 2022 so far.

Perhaps even more notably, Swift has overtaken Madonna by setting a new chart record for the quickest succession of nine UK number one albums by a female artist.

She managed it in 10 years flat, while it took the Madonna 21 years to achieve the same feat. However, the Queen of Pop is still ahead of Swift on the overall league table for most number one albums.

Start the Car: Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner

Midnights is Swift's first original studio album in two years, and sees her return to a more mainstream sound following the acoustic tone of her previous two albums.

It was devoured by fans, breaking the record for the most-streamed album on Spotify in one day.

The album was also met with rave reviews from critics, although some said its subdued tone meant it lacked potential hit singles.

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The new record retains some of the folksy charm of sister albums Folklore and Evermore, both released in 2020 during the pandemic. But it also sees her re-engage her pop sensibilities, with lyrics that explore more personal subject matters.

Some songs offer fans further insight into the star's normally low-key relationship with her boyfriend, English actor Joe Alwyn.

The only slight bump in the road during a glorious run this week came when her team re-edited a music video days after its release, following a backlash over one of the scenes.

In the original video for Anti-Hero - which this week knocked Sam Smith off top spot - the singer steps onto a scale that reads "FAT", as her alter ego shakes her head, seemingly in disappointment.

Recent Reading and Leeds headliners Arctic Monkeys will be disappointed not to have added to their collection of six number one albums, with the follow-up to their divisive Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, which marked a move towards a more expansive, cinematic sound.

Also released last Friday, The Car is tighter and more immediate than its predecessor but it spins in the same sonic universe, with beautifully crafted orchestral, soulful and at-times funky tracks like There'd Better Be a Mirror Ball and Body Paint.

"I made a big deal about the piano on the last record," singer Alex Turner recently told BBC music correspondent Mark Savage. "But when I look at it now, the shift in sound between that record and the one before [AM] is more to do with the fact that my writing process [changed] around that time".

"So the piano had a part in it, but being able to record myself and write to those recordings is perhaps what got us into this mess," he added.

Remarkably, all of this week's top five albums are new entries, meaning that, despite it being a particularly crowded field, there were still strong showings from Loyle Carner, Simple Minds and Kylie Minogue.