Rag’N’Bone Man’s Human LP has reached another milestone after hitting 1 million sales in the UK.
Debuting at No.1 last February after first-week sales of 117,000, the album (Best Laid Plans/Columbia) sold a further 40,291 copies in the final week of 2017 for total sales of 1,001,913, according to Official Charts Company data. It was the second biggest-selling album of the year in the UK, trailing only Ed Sheeran’s ÷, and remains in the UK Top 5 almost 11 months on from its release.
Speaking to Music Week, Rag’N’Bone Man, aka Rory Graham, said: “I'm not trying to tell people I've reinvented the wheel, I'm basically singing soul music, but I believe that songs are key. You can be the best, most innovative singer in the world but if you haven't got good songs, you haven't got anything.”
More than three quarters (773,469) of Human’s sales have been physical, which Graham credits to his diverse fanbase. “People actually buy my records,” he said. “I’ve seen at gigs that my audience is made up of kids, who are like 12/13/14, to people my mum's age - it's everybody - and I think that's part of the reason why it's been successful, it's not just one group of people. It's wicked to see a whole family come to your gig."
The singer was recently crowned Music Week's Breakthrough Artist Of The Year in recognition of his stunning 2017. He counts his US tour and festival dates in Canada and Japan among his highlights from the past 12 months.
“I probably would never have travelled to these places if it wasn't for music,” he said. “I got to play the Fuji Rocks Festival in Japan. I didn't really like Tokyo very much and I was down in the dumps because I was missing my pregnant girlfriend. But then we went up into these mountains on the way to Fuji Rocks and it was the most beautiful thing. It was one of those moments where you’re like, ‘I'm actually fucking well lucky to do this as a job. I'm in the mountains of Japan, crazy!’”
Click here for the full Music Week interview with Graham and his team. Rag'N'Bone Man discusses the worldwide impact of Human's title track, his international breakthrough single, here.
