It’s no surprise that Arctic Monkeys have the No.1 album today (May 18) with Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino. The Sheffield band’s sixth album powered to the summit with first week sales of 86,359 (OCC) – the biggest opening so far this year.
What’s more interesting is that the album’s broken some records, following an unusual release campaign without a lead single. As revealed in Music Week’s charts analysis, it’s the first album ever to sell more than 20,000 copies across each of the three main formats – CD, download, vinyl – in the same week. CD was just ahead (27,681 OCC sales), followed by vinyl (24,478) and downloads (15,679). Sales-equivalent streams accounted for 18,016 sales.
Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino actually accounted for 31.05% of vinyl album sales this week, while the album's overall sales push Domino into fourth place in the corporate group rankings for albums (both artist albums and all albums).
The LP's opening tally means it secures a new chart record as the fastest-selling vinyl record of the last 25 years, surpassing the 16,164 copies that Liam Gallagher’s As You Were moved in seven days last year. The high proportion of vinyl sales was predicted in Music Week last month.
However, the album only ranks fifth in terms of Arctic Monkeys’ week one sales. Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006) sold 363,735 copies in its first week, Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007) moved 227,922 copies, AM (2013) sold 157,329 and Humbug (2009) had a tally of 96,313. The band have improved on the opening sales of 82,424 for 2011’s Suck It And See.
Arctic Monkeys are only the fourth band to reach No.1 with their first six studio albums, following The Beatles, Oasis and Coldplay.
The band have now released a video for Radio 1 A list track Four Out Of Five, which has charted at No.18. Under the OCC’s three-track limit, it’s joined by Star Treatment (No.23) and One Point Perspective (No.26).
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