U.K. CHARTS:
ATLANTIC RULES

The last Official Singles and Albums #1 of 2018 in the U.K. has been claimed by Atlantic, which has now spent exactly half the year at the top of albums, while boosting its #1 singles count to five. Incidentally, the Warner label ended 2017 with a dual #1 too.

Ava Max (pictured) is at the top of the Official Singles Chart with “Sweet But Psycho” on 65k combined sales, including 7m streams. Just 152 combined sales behind is Mariah Carey, who sets a new one-week streaming record with 15.3m plays for “All I Want for Christmas is You” (Columbia) at #2. That leads a trio of festive classics in the Top 5, as this modern-day seasonal standard is followed by Wham with “Last Christmas” (RCA) at #3, and “Fairytale of New York” (Rhino) by The Pogues f/Kirsty MacColl at #4. Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next” (Island) ends at #5.

On the Official Albums Chart, Atlantic ends its 26th week at #1 this year with The Greatest Showman s/t, which has claimed 24 of those. With 61k combined sales, it’s now spent the most weeks at the top for an album this century, overtaking Adele’s 23 weeks with 21.

George Ezra is at #2 with Staying at Tamara’s (Columbia), Roy Orbison is #3 with Unchained Melodies (Sony Music CG), and Michael Buble claims #4 and #5 with Love and Christmas (Reprise), respectively.

For those who are counting, Ava Max follows #1 singles from label mates Rudimental and Clean Bandit this year, as well as Ed Sheeran and Jess Glynne, who have also each spent a week at the top of the albums chart. It was Sheeran who ruled singles and albums for the last chart week of 2017.