Wet Leg have scored their first UK Number One album with their self-titled debut LP.
The Isle of Wight indie duo – comprising Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers – outsold the rest of the Top Five comfortably to earn themselves the second-biggest opening week for any chart-topping album in 2022 so far. Only Central Cee’s ’23’ has had a bigger opening week. The album also tops this week’s Official Vinyl Albums Chart and Official Record Store Chart.
“So today we found out that our debut album has placed at number one in the UK album charts!!” Wet Leg tweeted upon receiving the news about their album’s achievement. “It’s been such an unexpected journey for us hobbits so to find our shmalbum at number 1 is incredible!! We are lost for words and left feeling like we’re wearing our mums high heels.
“Thank you so so much to everyone that’s bought, streamed or downloaded the album!! It’s thanks to you guys that we’ve been given this heavy af trophy thing! Points to whoever can recommend the most practical use for it.”
They concluded: “I’m thinking I might start using it instead of a kettle bell. Also useful for holding down paperwork on a windy day.”
So today we found out that our debut album has placed at number one in the UK album charts!! It’s been such an unexpected journey for us hobbits so to find our shmalbum at number 1 is incredible!! We are lost for words and left feeling like we’re wearing our mums high heels 👠🥹 pic.twitter.com/1KJJwMaGdA
— Wet Leg (@wetlegband) April 15, 2022
I’m thinking I might start using it instead of a kettle bell. Also useful for holding down paperwork on a windy day. 💨
— Wet Leg (@wetlegband) April 15, 2022
Wet Leg’s debut album, released on Domino Records, marks the fourth time this year that an independent label act has earned a UK Number One album, following Stereophonics’ ‘Oochya!’, Central Cee’s ’23’ and Don Broco’s ‘Amazing Things’.
The band’s latest album was one of three new releases to land inside the Top Five. Father John Misty‘s ‘Chloe And The Next 21st Century’ (released via Bella Union) debuted at Number Two, while Jack White‘s ‘Fear Of The Dawn’ (via Third Man) took the Number Three spot.
This means the entire Top Three of this week’s album chart is made up of independent label releases. The last time this happened was back in 2011 – Adele’s ’21’ (One) and ’19’ (Three) and Fleet Foxes’ ‘Helplessness Blues’ (Two).
Rounding out the rest of the Top Five is Ed Sheeran‘s ‘=’ (Four) and Olivia Rodrigo‘s ‘Sour’ (Five).
Elsewhere in the Top 10, Little Mix rise five spots with their greatest hits collection ‘Between Us’ (Seven); Kae Tempest earns their first Top 10 entry with ‘This Line Is A Curve’ (Eight); while Camila Cabello’s third album ‘Familia’ (Nine) becomes her second Top 10 hit.
In a five-star review of Wet Leg’s debut album, NME‘s Rhian Daly wrote: “Wet Leg began life while Teasdale and Chambers were riding a Ferris wheel at a festival, where the pair decided to give music another chance; fittingly, their debut album feels like a giddy race around a funfair, those pesky lows batted away with wit and wisecracks like a game of verbal whack-a-mole.
“It rushes with liberating, infectious joy that makes you want to grab your own partner-in-crime and speed off on an adventure to find somewhere that’s, as ‘Angelica’s mantra suggests, is ‘good times all the time’. With Wet Leg as your soundtrack, it seems inevitable you’ll find that place.”
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