Lana Del Rey has shot straight to Number One in the UK albums chart with ‘Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd’.
The singer-songwriter beat off competition from Depeche Mode‘s 15th full-length effort, ‘Memento Mori’ to score her sixth chart topping album, tying herself level Arctic Monkeys, Blur and Radiohead on the list of acts with the most UK Number One records to their name.
Del Rey also ranks as the female solo artist with the fifth-most chart topping albums in the UK after Madonna (12), Taylor Swift (9), Kylie Minogue (8) and Barbra Streisand (7).
She previously hit the top spot with ‘Born To Die’ (2012), ‘Ultraviolence’ (2014), ‘Lust For Life’ (2017), ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell!’ (2019) and ‘Chemtrails Over The Country Club’ (2021).
‘Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd’ also tops the Official Vinyl Albums Chart, proving the most popular record of the week on wax, and is the week’s most-purchased LP in independent record shops, too.
Reviewing Del Rey’s album, NME wrote: “As she steps into new lyrical territory here, so too does Lana enter new sonic worlds. Her ninth album merges the soulful, classic, timeless sounds of a singer-songwriter from a distant time and the vocal melodies and techniques of an old Hollywood starlet (it’s not hard to imagine the likes of Audrey Hepburn singing parts on songs like ‘Sweet’) with trap beats, speaker-wobbling bass and spoken word tracks edited with a sense of Warholian spirit.”
‘Memento Mori’, meanwhile, gave Depeche Mode their highest-peaking record in 10 years (2013’s ‘Delta Machine’ reached Number Two, while the 2017 follow-up ‘Spirit’ came in at Number Five).
Meanwhile, Del Rey recently said it was “unfathomable” to her that she is headlining the Other Stage at this year’s Glastonbury Festival.
The singer-songwriter was recently announced as part of the first wave of acts for this summer’s Worthy Farm event, which will be headlined by Arctic Monkeys, Guns N’ Roses and Elton John.
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