Taylor Swift currently outselling Arctic Monkeys with fastest-selling album of 2022

Taylor Swift is leading this week’s chart battle for Number One ahead of the Arctic Monkeys.

  • READ MORE: Arctic Monkeys: “We know more tricks now, but we’re still rolling on that same instinct”

Swift’s latest album, ‘Midnights‘ has taken the lead against the Sheffield four piece’s seventh album, ‘The Car‘.

Both have sold well over 100,000 copies according to data from The Official Charts Company. The only other album to have broken that threshold earlier this year was Harry Styles’ ‘Harry’s House’, which sold 113,000 units in its opening week.  

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‘Midnights’ is already the UK’s fastest selling album of 2022, having sold 140,000 albums so far. Arctic Monkeys are behind in second place, having sold 105,000 chart units.

If ‘Midnights’ reaches Number One, it will be Swift’s ninth UK number one album and would end the Monkeys run of six back to back chart topping albums.

Elsewhere in the charts, Loyle Carner, is on track for a top five entry with his latest album ‘Hugo‘, as is Kylie Minogue’s with ‘Impossible Princess’, thanks to it being the 25th anniversary release of that album.

Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys playing guitar at a festival
Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys playing Cala Mijas Festival in Spain. Photo: Pablo Gallardo

Reviewing ‘Midnights’, NME said: “The confidence sees a level of self-assurance too. “Best believe I’m still bejewelled/When I walk in the room/I can still make the whole place shimmer”, she asserts on ‘Bejeweled’. A moment of recognition, perhaps, to the place she now holds in musical history, but also a statement that could apply to ‘Midnights’. After a foray into a different sonic world, on Swift’s return to pure pop she still shimmers.”

In a five star review of the Arctic Monkeys new record, NME said: “‘The Car’ is almost overwhelming in terms of its ambition and scope, but provides ample motive to revisit this record over and over again. Whether it’ll be enough to reach across the divide and convince the naysayers is yet to be seen, but given they’ll be playing in stadiums up and down the UK and beyond next year seems to suggest a rapprochement is in motion.

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“For now, though, Arctic Monkeys stand alone like the abandoned saloon on the rooftop: the last – and greatest – band of their generation still operating at their highest level.”