Frank Turner has said it feels “particularly crazy and awesome” to achieve his first number one album for his ninth studio record FTHC.
The punk and folk singer, 40, has secured his chart victory with almost 90% physical sales and has also topped the vinyl albums chart and is the week’s best seller in UK independent record stores, according to Official Charts Company.
Turner has previously produced eight albums which have all made the top 75, with his 2019 offering No Man’s Land peaking at number three.
FTHC is here! An album made in weird & trying circumstances, but one that feels like a restatement of purpose to me. I'm pleasantly surprised to report that, as I enter my forties & add another album to the pile, I'm as fired up, inspired & hungry as ever. https://t.co/Dnv0pTWWj6 pic.twitter.com/qSpe2E4cAn
— Frank Turner (@frankturner) February 11, 2022
Accepting his award for FTHC – standing for Frank Turner Hardcore – at London’s Clapham Grand, Turner told OfficialCharts.com: “Getting a Number 1 album is crazy, it’s not a thing I ever thought would happen to me and it’s happened on my ninth album.
“That feels particularly crazy and awesome, and I’m proud of it. It feels quite fitting that, of all the records I’ve put out, this is the one that got the Number 1 trophy. I’m very proud of the record; it’s a more intense, more personal record.
“At this point in my career, I have to dig deep to prove to myself and everybody else that I’ve still got a reason to be making records and making art, and this Number 1 award is a pretty good justification of that.
“I’m very painfully aware that I did not do this on my own, so it’s not just my band, label and manager; it’s everybody who picked up a copy. I’m incredibly grateful, thank you very much.”
Turner sits ahead of Ed Sheeran who is still holding on to the number two spot with his previously chart-topping fifth studio album Equals.
Indie rock band alt-J’s recently released fourth studio album The Dream is a new entry at number three, while Adele’s award-winning record 30 holds on to a fourth place.
Slash and Myles Kennedy’s collaborative album titled 4 is also a new entry at number five and US rapper Eminem’s 2005 release Curtain Call – The Hits has re-entered the charts in eighth place after his performance during the Super Bowl halftime show this week.
Elsewhere in the Official Singles Chart, the soundtrack of Disney’s Encanto continues to hold strong with the track I Don’t Talk About Bruno achieving a fifth week in the top shot, which extends its lead as the longest-running number one of the year so far.
Two more songs from Encanto still remain in the top 10 too – Jessica Darrow’s Surface Pressure which drops one place to number four and The Family Madrigal rises to number eight.
The soundtrack is the best selling album of 2022 so far as it remains at the top of the Official Compilations Chart for a seventh week having racked up combined chart sales of 93,000 units in 2022, the Official Charts Company has said.
Sheeran also claims the highest new entry in the singles chart with the re-release of his track The Joker And The Queen now featuring his friend and pop mega star Taylor Swift – uplifting the new mix to number two.