Harry Styles has the biggest-selling album of 2022 so far, Music Week can reveal.
And the smash hit lead single As It Was has now passed a million chart sales.
Based on the latest Official Charts Company data, Harry’s House (Columbia) has moved ahead of = (Asylum/Atlantic) by Ed Sheeran in sales this year.
Both albums are streaming well and are in the running for Top 3 placings this week, but Harry Styles’ slight competitive advantage with the newer release helped Harry’s House ease ahead of its rival.
Up to the end of Tuesday (July 26), Harry’s House had sales of 289,701, putting it ahead of = by Ed Sheeran for the first time this year. Sheeran’s album, which was released in October 2021, is on 289,510 sales so far in 2022.
Of course, Sheeran’s album - No.2 overall in 2021 - has bigger total sales to date of 717,282, reflecting its consistent streaming performance in the last nine months.
The latest chart numbers this week mean that Harry Styles currently has the biggest album and single of 2022 so far.
As It Was became the longest-running No.1 of 2022 in May. And with 10 weeks at the summit, it ultimately secured the longest spell at the top since - guess who? - Ed Sheeran with Bad Habits last summer. Just ahead of the year’s halfway point, As It Was moved ahead of Peru by Fireboy DML & Ed Sheeran to become 2022’s biggest track. Peru is currently on 981,590.
As It Was has now passed a million sales this week after reaching 994,422 in Friday’s chart (July 22). With a further 22,894 sales since Friday, it’s on 1,017,316.
Styles is now the front-runner in the race for 2022’s overall biggest album. Music Week has tracked its consumption since its release in April and showed how it’s been outperforming 2019’s Fine Line by 200% in terms of streaming.
On Friday, Harry’s House became the album with the most weeks at No.1 of the 2020s. It has so far spent six non-consecutive weeks at the summit.
Harry’s House is set to achieve platinum status (300,000 sales) next month. For its sales up to last Friday, the album has moved 100,654 physical copies, as well as 174,555 sales-equivalent streams and 7,921 downloads.
It’s another big moment for Harry Styles, who this week earned his first shortlisting in the Mercury Prize, which honours the album of the year by a UK or Irish act.
“Obviously, he’s one of the most successful British artists of the last 10 years,” BPI, BRITs and Mercury Prize chief executive Geoff Taylor told Music Week. “He’s a fantastic performer, a fantastic icon really. We’re delighted to see his international success and thrilled to have him on the list.”
It’s now only a matter of time before Harry Styles eclipses his own success on previous campaigns. Fine Line has sales to date of 641,046 in the UK, while his self-titled 2017 debut is on 433,417.
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