Sony Music UK is on a roll in the market’s album chart.
The major has today scored its sixth week in a row at the top, with Little Mix’s Glory Days selling 96k to reach the summit.
The record is Syco Music’s 30th No.1 UK album since the label was founded by Simon Cowell in 2002.
That’s some achievement for Syco Music MD Sonny Takhar (pictured inset) – who is widely rumoured to be exiting the label in the New Year for a fresh Sony-related venture in Los Angeles.
Sony signed a new six-year partnership deal with Syco last year.
Glory Days’ 96k sales figure (including streaming equivalents) puts Little Mix only behind Blackstar by the late David Bowie for a UK week-one haul in 2016.
It also makes Glory Days the quickest-selling album by a girl band since Destiny’s Child’s Survivor in 2001.
It’s the quickest-selling album by a UK girl band since The Spice Girls with Spiceworld in 1997.
Glory Days is Syco-signed Little Mix’s fourth studio album and their first UK No.1; their previous three LPs – Get Weird, Salute and DNA – have all gone Top 5.
The 96k sales represent the biggest single week album sale for the Modest!-managed group in their history, since they formed out of the X Factor in 2011.
Talking of X Factor, here’s a stat for you: Glory Days is the 23rd UK No.1 album from an act to emerge from the Simon Cowell-fronted show.
The last, another Syco release, was James Arthur’s Back From The Edge, which hit No.1 four weeks ago.
In addition, Syco has two of the Top Five singles today with two former No1 tracks: Shout Out To My Ex (Little Mix) is at No3 and James Arthur’s Say You Won’t Let Go is at No4.
Say You Won’t Let Go has now sold more than 763k and Shout Out To My Ex has sold more than 454k.
Sony Music have had the No1 album in the UK charts for the last six weeks – Olly Murs; Robbie Williams; James Arthur; Elvis Presley with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Kings Of Leon – and for seven of the last eight weeks, going back to Craig David’s Following My Intuition, released in September.
In addition, the UK major – run by Chairman and CEO Jason Iley (pictured inset) – has had four of the Top Five and seven of the Top Ten quickest selling albums of the year to date, including No1 and No2 with David Bowie and Little Mix.
Sony Music has now had 13 No.1 albums this year… more than any other major.Music Business Worldwide
