NewsUK 17 Jun 2016

UK: Rick Astley Scores First #1 Album in Almost 30 Years

BMG recording artist Rick Astley has soared to the top of the Official UK Albums Chart with 50 debuting at Number One after winning one of the UK’s most high profile and hardly-fought chart battles in years.

50 is Astley’s seventh studio album and his first to be released by the new BMG. It is his best-performing album in nearly 30 years.

The pop icon fought off stiff competition from Sony's Tom Odell, whose second studio album Wrong Crowd was neck and neck with 50 until the last minute, before Astley pulled ahead.

At one stage earlier in the week the two albums were just 14 sales apart. But Astley opened up a convincing lead to win by a margin of nearly 20%.

The chart battle generated significant media interest with Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper The Sun declaring its allegiance to Rick.

The chart-topping 50 joins three other UK Top 10 studio albums in Astley's discography – including 1987 Number One, Whenever You Need Somebody – along with two Top 20 greatest hits LPs.

The singer has five UK Top 20 albums to his name in total along with eight Top 10 singles, having sold more than 40 million records worldwide.

Fred Casimir, BMG EVP Continental Europe, said, “From the moment we first started discussing this release right through this incredible week, Rick has been a real pleasure to work with. We are delighted for him and proud to have been a part of this tremendous success story.”

Alistair Norbury, EVP International Artists, said, “This campaign really epitomises BMG’s approach to the record business – focused, integrated internationally and results-driven. We believe there are many other artists who feel abandoned by the traditional labels who could benefit from the BMG approach.”

BMG UK EVP New Recordings Korda Marshall said, “BMG is all about the team and this is a classic example. I’d like to thank Fred for his vision in bringing Rick to BMG, Alistair for being the driving force behind the overall campaign and Pat Carr, Gemma Reilly and the UK recordings team for delivering a detailed, effective and clever campaign on the ground.”

50 is the third Number One album to be released by BMG in the UK after You Me At Six’s Cavalier Youth and alt-J’s This Is All Yours.