Sir Tom Jones has set a chart record with his No.1 album Surrounded By Time (EMI).
At 80 years and 10 months old, Tom Jones becomes the oldest male to claim a No.1 album. He is the oldest artist ever to do so with an album of new material, overtaking Bob Dylan, who topped the chart at 79 years old last June with Rough And Rowdy Ways.
The late Dame Vera Lynn holds the overall record with her greatest hits collection We’ll Meet Again – The Very Best Of, which reached No.1 in 2009 when she was 92.
Surrounded By Time opened at the summit with sales of 14,936 (including 13,243 physical sales), according to the Official Charts Company. It’s the fourth chart-topper so far this year for Rebecca Allen’s EMI, following two No.1 LPs by Taylor Swift and another by Barry Gibb.
Surrounded By Time is Tom Jones’ fourth No.1 album and his first since 1999’s Reload, which debuted at the summit and had further spells at No.1 in 2000. Reload has sales to date of 1,491,749. Jones is also the first Welsh soloist to land a UK chart-topper in nine years (Marina & The Diamonds’ Electra Heart in 2012).
"I am thrilled beyond words with the reception for Surrounded By Time, and to now hold these UK chart records is tremendous, just unbelievable,” Tom Jones told Officialcharts.com. “I am so proud of everyone who helped me create this music, I had a ball working with them and to get this result is just incredible. It’s wonderful that the public has allowed me to be musically expressive at my time of life and have shown their support. I am forever grateful."
Last week’s No.1 album, Californian Soil by London Grammar, dropped to No.2 (6,612 sales).
Subscribers can read our Aftershow interview with Tom Jones here.
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