Peter Gabriel is the new UK number 1 with his new double album ‘I/O’, which plays the same 12 songs in two different mixes.
‘I/O’ has sold 15,645 copies in its first week only within the islands, of which the majority have been CDs: 11,178. Just over 2,000 people have opted for vinyl, while 1,400 have opted for mp3 downloads. The album has achieved only 737 streaming points, but the sum is enough to leave ‘THE WORLD EP.FIN: WILL’ by the South Korean band ATEEZ in number 2. Peter Gabriel’s victory occurred by less than a thousand units.
Peter Gabriel’s 10th solo studio album and first in 12 years is the third all-time No. 1 for the English artist in his country. The previous number 1s for the artist date back to the 80s. They were ‘Peter Gabriel 3’ in 1980 and ‘So’ in 1986. As it has been 37 years since Peter Gabriel was number 1 in the United Kingdom, this represents the 2nd longest period of the history between number 1s by the same artist on the album chart, only behind what happened with ‘Voyage’ by ABBA.
‘So’ was the artist’s only album to surpass one million copies in the UK, including hits such as ‘Sledgehammer’ and ‘Don’t Give Up’ with Kate Bush. We included the latter in our selection of the 50 Best Kate Bush Songs.
As for the results of the album ‘I/O’ in other territories, the album has been number 2 in Germany, Switzerland and French-speaking Belgium. Also top 5 in Holland, top 7 in France and top 20 in Australia. The Spanish data will be known this week.
