The Beatles record is followed by a crash: Robbie Williams’ BRITPOP falls from number 1 to 35 in week 2. What’s behind the dramatic chart collapse.
Robbie Williams broke the Beatles record with BRITPOP. But the album turned out to be a huge disappointment in the UK charts in its second week.
Deep fall after record week
BRITPOP debuted at number 1 in the UK album charts on January 29th, officially making Williams the sole record holder with 16 number one albums, ahead of The Beatles, who have 15 chart-topping records. However, in just the second week, the album fell from number 1 to number 35.
The fall illustrates how thin the basis of this record is. For Williams, however, crashes of this kind are nothing new: the soundtrack for his biopic flop “Better Man,” released at the end of 2024, also immediately went to number 1 in the United Kingdom, but only stayed in the top 100 for a single week. Here, too, it is clear that the fan base still ensures impressive entry numbers, but the plateau phase in which the ex-Take-Thatter’s earlier albums were able to make themselves comfortable is completely absent.
His five most successful UK albums
For comparison: These five albums represent his greatest successes in the UK – with massively higher sales and a significantly longer stay in the top 100.
1. GREATEST HITS (2004)
Sales: 2.7 million
Weeks in the UK Top 100: 135
2. I’VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU (1998)
Sales: 2.6 million
Weeks in the UK Top 100: 133
3. SWING WHEN YOU’RE WINNING (2001)
Sales: 2.5 million
Weeks in the UK Top 100: 85
4. SING WHEN YOU’RE WINNING (2000)
Sales: 2.3 million
Weeks in the UK Top 100: 77
5. LIFE THRU A LENS (1997)
Sales: 2.1 million
Weeks in the UK Top 100: 147
Some of these catalog titles stayed in the charts for years – dimensions that BRITPOP can currently only dream of.
Singles: It hasn’t been a hit for a long time
Things don’t look much rosier in the UK singles charts: Williams last reached the top ten there as a solo artist in 2013 with “Go Gentle” from his second swing album SWINGS BOTH WAYS; Since then he hasn’t had his own hit in the top ten. He owes later top ten placements primarily to charity projects and ensemble singles in which his name is included in the collective. So while the album format still brings him record numbers, his solo presence in the singles charts has noticeably eroded for over a decade.
These chart trends paint a picture of a star whose myth is currently bigger than actual reality. Or, to paraphrase his only studio album that didn’t make it to number one in the UK: Legend Killed The Reality Star.
