Something had to give this week, with the biggest head-to-head between new releases for nearly 11 years, with Taylor Swift’s Midnights looking to become her ninth No.1 in succession and in total, while Arctic Monkeys were looking to extend their career-long record of debuting at No.1 with every album to seven with The Car.

Both achieved spectacular first weeks but Swift was comfortably the winner, with Midnights dashing to 204,501 sales – the highest for any album since Adele’s 30 ...