Olivia Rodrigo has landed two further notable achievements in her stellar year, as she claims the UK’s biggest song and album of the first half of 2021.
New data from the Official Charts Company marks the halfway point in the sales year, to the end of June, and shows Rodrigo ruling the singles list with “Drivers License” and the album survey with Sour.
The album has now spent six weeks in the UK chart, of which the first, second and fifth were at No.1. The OCC reports that it now has chart sales of 170,000, from which 79% is from streaming equivalent sales. The remaining 21% comprises sales on CD and cassette sales (18%) and downloads (3%). There is yet to be a vinyl component in those figures, but that will change when the record is released in that format on August 20.
When Sour debuted at the top of the UK chart, it achieved the biggest opening week of 2021 so far in the UK, with 51,000 chart sales. It currently stands at No.2, having spent its entire chart life in the top two places of the chart. Rodrigo also became the youngest solo artist to achieve simultaneous No.1s on the UK singles and album charts, with “Good 4 U” leading the singles countdown that week.
Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia lands in second place on the “half-time” album honors list, with Harry Styles’ Fine Line at No.3. Queen’s incredibly enduring Greatest Hits set places at No.4, with Pop Smoke’s Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon at No.5.
“Drivers License” has now gone past the one million chart sales threshold, with combined sales of 1.03m. The composite total includes 123 million streams. The song spent nine weeks at No.1 in the UK, the longest run for a debut single since Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” in 2006.
Nathan Evans’ “Wellerman” is the second most popular song of the six-month period, with Tiesto at No.3 with “The Business.” Lil Nas X is fourth with “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” and The Weeknd’s “Save Your Tears” is at No.5.
