Five British albums that debuted at the top of the US charts
Ever since rock and roll first inspired a generation of British kids to pick up the guitar or step behind the mic, the American charts have always stood as any artist’s ultimate conquest.
Perhaps it’s the musical mythos? The States feature in its very sediments popular music’s buried DNA, the blues, country, gospel, and jazz, all evoking fascination around the globe with rock and pop’s mother country. Then there’s the sheer size. The mammoth scope of America’s 50 states means that if you can crack its official albums chart, you can strike gold anywhere. Also, once Americans love you, they love you forever. Unlike the fickle Europeans, fans across the Atlantic seem possessed of a loyalty less reliable back home.
Whatever the case, any presence on the Billboard 200 is quite the feat. It’s easy to forget just how many British LP classics never made a dent Stateside, key albums from Blur, The Kinks, Status Quo, Slade, The Stone Roses, or Pulp forming essential soundtracks to the UK pop landscape while not even charting on the US album rankings. Yet Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Adele’s Billboard-gobbling LPs likely accounted for the bulk of their hefty unit shifts from the American market.
Occasionally, a British artist will find themselves catapulted to the very top spot of the coveted 200 chart within their very first week. It’s a triumph rarely won even by American artists, but check out below a selection of the UK albums that went straight for Billboard gold once released to the world.
Five British albums that debuted at the top of the US charts:
Muse – ‘Drones’
Release Date: June 2015 | Producer: Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange and Muse | Label: Warner Bros
It took six albums before Muse finally topped the US charts, cracking the top ten with Black Holes and Revelations and hovering near number one while having smashed the European charts for years. The UK had pretty much fallen in love with their widescreen prog metal attack once the sci-fi music videos from their sophomore album, Origin of Symmetry, dominated Kerrang! and MTV2, but it took Muse a sharp pop detour before the Billboard 200 started paying attention.
Once frontman Matt Bellamy made the U-turn to Prince funk with ‘Supermassive Black Hole’, American gold was on the horizon. Two more albums would creep closer to the top spot, but the full-throated hurtle toward Drones’ conceptual dystopia and its electronically slicked progressive rock was catapulted to US number one with such force that it knocked fellow Brit Florence and the Machine off the top Billboard 200, shifting How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful out of the way in summer 2015.
The Prodigy – ‘The Fat of the Land’
Release Date: June 1997 | Producer: Liam Howlett | Label: XL
They were virtually a different band once ‘Firestarter’ burned itself onto the UK charts in 1996. Only a handful of years earlier, The Prodigy stood as one of the leading forces of the UK rave scene, all big, chunky Roland keyboards, and Keith Flint just another baggy breakbeat dancer from Essex.
Then, the British state’s clampdown on the free rave scene sharpened the seethe that coursed throughout Music for the Jilted Generation, leading to the punk dancefloor of 1997’s The Fat of the Land. Brewing a rock edge and industrial blister amid the electronic pummel, The Prodigy’s much-anticipated third album effort smashed the charts all over the world, no less than in America, where they shot to number one and helped bring dance music to the alternative world.
Radiohead – ‘Kid A’
Release Date: October 2000 | Producer: Nigel Godrich and Radiohead | Label: Parlophone
The post-OK Computer acclaim showered on Radiohead was so great that success was all but assured despite their chase toward career suicide. Out went the rock guitars and obvious melodies, in came a greater lean toward the apparitional sonics that had reared its head as early as The Bends and a creative clamour at IDM electronics, krautrock drive and eerie orchestral pieces.
To make life extra difficult, zero singles and a promo campaign of weird “blips” featuring strange, gnashing bears sought to stave off Kid A’s commercial potential. It didn’t work. Surrounding intrigue and the mammoth anticipation for the OK Computer follow-up saw Kid A explode in sales around the world, debuting at the Billboard 200 from the word go in October 2000, and every subsequent Radiohead LP sitting in the top ten from then on.
David Bowie – ‘Blackstar’
Release Date: January 2016 | Producer: David Bowie and Tony Visconti | Label: ISO
Remarkably, David Bowie spent his entire career never grabbing a US number one, be it his glam heyday or Let’s Dance’s stadium sell-out. Station to Station nabbed a number three in 1976, but it took the big decade away for Bowie to reach his highest American position at that point, 2013’s The Next Day peaking at number two after ten years in the seeming wilderness away from the studio and the stage.
After his comeback, Blackstar would drop three years later and stand as the Cracked Actor’s farewell eulogy, passing away two days later after a private battle with liver cancer he’d kept secret for much of the sessions. Wrapped in lyrical musings on mortality and death’s beckoning shadow, Bowie’s passing would propel his final album to US number one for the first time in his oeuvre, exceeding Billboard’s commercial expectations by a hefty 51,000 copies in the week of its release.
Elton John – ‘Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy’
Release Date: May 1975 | Producer: Gus Dudgeon | Label: DJM
The joint creative force of Elton John and Bernie Taupin was unstoppable across the 1970s, counting ten albums together with an extra two John dropped without his long-running songwriting partner. The two were arguably the most successful UK act to orbit the glam era, with records routinely topping the Billboard 200 since 1972’s Honky Château.
On such a roll, not only did 1975’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy bring John another US number one, but his ninth studio LP would break Billboard records as the first album to ever debut at number one. Even before the release date, the album had already struck gold sales and sold nearly 1.5 million in the first four days alone. At the peak of their powers and the last of his glam offerings, it’s likely Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy stand as the last of an era for many hardcore fans of the ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ singer.
