Their debut album St. Jude, originally released in April 2008, received a 15th anniversary rerelease courtesy of Polydor and Universal Music Recordings (UMR) – and it proved to be a shrewd move, with the album currently sitting pretty above the likes of Taylor Swift’s Midnights and SZA’s SOS.
The album now holds the record for the longest gap between its original release and it reaching number one spot, with a gap of 14 years, 9 months and 7 days between the two. St. Jude had previously peaked at number four.
The record includes three Official Top 40 singles: ‘Not Nineteen Forever’, ‘No You Didn’t, No You Don’t’ and ‘What Took You So Long?’.
Liam Fry of Courteneers proudly showing off his Official Charts number one album trophy. Courtesy of Official Charts Company.
Courteneers frontman Liam Fry told The Official Charts Company simply: “Good Things come to thems [sic] that wait. God bless the fans.”
Remarkably, the chart-topping feat now puts the indie-rockers in the esteemed company of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, by becoming only the third band to achieve a number one album with a reissue. (The Rolling Stones did so with Goats Head Soup and Exile On Main Street, whilst the Fab Four achieved the same feat with Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the album becomes the band’s first number one album – although they came close in 2020 with More. Again. Forever., which reached number two.
Elsewhere in the charts, Miley Cyrus is positively blooming atop the singles chart with her self-empowering dance-pop tune ‘Flowers’.
The track is rumoured to be a diss track aimed at Cyrus’ ex-husband Liam Hemsworth, and not without good reason: it was released on Hemsworth’s birthday, and references the couples former Malibu home, which was burnt down in 2018 by major wildfires.
But whether the track is about her former marriage to the Aussie actor or not – and frankly, so what if it is? – it’s been an undeniable smash hit, becoming the most-streamed song in a single week in Spotify history, with more than 100 million streams in that period.
Such numbers of course bode brilliantly for the album it’s the lead single for, Endless Summer Vacation, which arrives 10 March, and will be Cyrus’ first full-length album release since 2020’s Plastic Hearts.
