Music News

[UPDATED] Fifty years after the first time, The Beatles’ Abbey Road is a number one album again.

When The Beatles released their Abbey Road album on September 26, 1969, it, like all other Beatles album, shot to number one on the charts around the world. In the UK, it stayed there for 17 weeks.

Last Friday (September 27), The Beatles released an expanded 50th-anniversary edition of the album. When the chart week closed in the UK and Australia last night, guess what was at number one again?

Abbey Road is at the top of the UK charts for the first time in 49 years and 252 days. That’s the longest interval ever for an album to reach the top spot. Which album had the old record? Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at 49 years and 125 days.In the UK, the album sold 9,000 copies on vinyl, too.

In the Canada, the album moved from 120 to number 3, beaten out only by Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding and KIRK from Dababy. If you look at individual markets, Abbey Road was the biggest-selling physical album of the week.

Over in the US, Abbey Road sold a staggering 69,713 units, a huge number for a deluxe box set reissue. That made it #1 on SoundScan by far.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 38863 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

Let us know what you think!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.