Madonna has been denied her 12th UK Album Chart number one, as Sam Smith has swooped in and nabbed the top spot again, with his debut album ‘In The Lonely Hour’.
Since its release in May 2014, ‘In The Lonely Hour’ has topped the chart on six separate occasions, and this time around, Sam snuck past Madonna at the last minute, outselling her by just 12,000 copies.
Sam has now sold more than 1.4 million copies of his debut, in the UK alone
‘Rebel Heart’ had been in the lead all week, but an appearance on Friday’s Comic Relief telethon boosted Sam’s sales, and he also topped the singles chart with his new version of ‘Lay Me Down’, recorded with John Legend.
Sam has shared his joy at his double chart victory on Twitter, but his posts focus more on the singles chart, and there’s no mention of Madonna.
‘Rebel Heart’ is Madonna’s 13th studio album, and the only other one not to reach the top spot was 1994’s ‘Bedtime Stories’.
Madonna has been busy promoting the album in recent weeks, but she wasn’t too happy with the lack of airplay her single ‘Living For Love’ received.
Madonna
The track wasn’t added to BBC Radio 1’s playlist and it’s been played just a handful of times on other stations, including Capital FM.
“I thought it was so discriminatory and unfair,” she stated when asked of the lack of airplay. “Shouldn’t it be to do with whether you wrote a good, catchy pop song?
“We’ve made so many advances in other areas - civil rights, gay rights - but ageism is still an area that’s taboo and not talked about and dealt with.”