Toppermost of the Poppermost: Paul McCartney’s 24 Number One albums, explored

Paul McCartney’s new studio album, The Boys Of Dungeon Lane entered the UK chart at No 1 on Friday and as many commentators have pointed out, (and confirmed by the official charts company), it’s his 24th chart-topping album, in total in the UK, if you include all his various bands and his solo years.

But which albums made it to number one and why? SDE explores Macca’s chart-toppers over the years…

THE BEATLES

This one’s easy. All 11 of The Beatles official UK studio albums (Magical Mystery Tour was an EP in the UK, and Yellow Submarine doesn’t count either) reached the top of the UK charts. That’s quite some achievement. Has any other act – with a significant number of albums – ever done this?. 

Paul and Linda McCartney / Ram (1971)

You would have expected Paul’s first solo album McCartney to get to No 1 in the UK, especially since it was released before The Beatles’ Let It Be, but unfortunately for Paul, Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water was a complete monster of a seller. It had already enjoyed 10 consecutive weeks at No 1 when McCartney was released so Paul may have been optimistic about his chances, but no, he could not outsell Simon & Garfunkel’s long-playing swansong and had to settle for No 2. These positions remained the same for three consecutive weeks until Paul got a revenge of sorts (although I’m not sure he cared) when The Beatles’ Let It Be finally dislodged Bridge Over Troubled Water from the top spot. But only to No 2, and McCartney also slipped down a place to No 3. The top three stayed the same for two further weeks until Simon and Garfunkel went back to the top again. At this point The Beatles were No 2 and The Who’s Live at Leeds had pushed McCartney down to No 4. McCartney was a massive seller, mind you, and stayed in the top 10 for a further 11 weeks, selling many more copies than some future Macca albums that did get to No 1!

As with McCartney, there was no single released (in the UK) ahead of Ram, Paul’s second post-Beatles album, and one that was credited to Paul and Linda McCartney. The album entered the UK charts at No 1 in early June 1971, replacing The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers. Guess what was at No 3? Only Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water! Ram stayed at the top for 2 weeks and after that Bridge Over Troubled Water went back to the top for another five consecutive weeks! ‘The Back Seat Of My Car’ was eventually issued as a UK single in the middle of August but Ram was still in the top 10 at that point and it’s hard to say whether the single helped much, especially since it was a bit of a flop by McCartney standards, only peaking at No 39. But Ram sold strongly and didn’t drop out of the UK top 40 until late October.

Paul McCartney and Wings / Band on the Run (1973)

The first proper Wings album, Wild Life (1971) didn’t even get into the top 10 (peaked at No 11) while Red Rose Speedway (1973) did a little better, reaching No 5, thanks to the single top 10 single ‘My Love’. Band on the Run, which was released in late 1973, was a very slow burner, showing that at the time the general public were no longer buying Paul’s albums as a matter of course but wanted to perhaps ‘wait and see’ what was doing. Ram had gone straight into the UK charts at No 1 but less than 18 months later, Band on the Run entered at No 45! This was in early December 1973. The album eventually topped the charts in late July 1974, some 33 weeks later, when it enjoyed a seven-week stay at the top. It remained in the top 10 for most of the rest of the year and Paul was back to McCartney / Ram type success (even though those albums are never characterised a massive sellers).

Wings / Venus and Mars (1975)

After the massive success of Band on the Run, it would have been a shock if 1975’s Venus and Mars hadn’t got to No 1. Band on the Run was still in the top 30 when Venus and Mars entered the UK chart at No 3 in June 1975 and a week later it was No 1. It slipped down to No 2 for a few weeks (Carpenters’ Horizon went to No 1) but regained the top spot for another solitary week in mid-July.

Perhaps surprisingly, after all this success, that was it, as far as Wings’ studio albums topping the UK charts was concerned. Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976) peaked at No 2, kept off the top by the soundtrack to TV’s Rock Follies. In April 1978, the London Town album peaked at No 4 with Nat King Cole’s 20 Golden Greats, the soundtrack to Saturday Night Feverand Genesis’ …And Then There Were Three… above it. 1979’s Back to the Egg entered at a lowly No 27 in June 1979 and peaked the following week at No 6. (ELO, ABBA, James Last, Blondie and Dire Straits were the artists above Wings).

Even 1977’s best of, Wings Greatest, couldn’t make it to No 1 (it peaked at No 5) despite including what is still the best-selling non-charity single in the UK, ‘Mull of Kintyre’. Paul hasn’t had much luck with compilations over the years; none of them have topped the charts, with 1987’s All The Best coming the closest (peaking at No 2). 2001’s Wingspan got to No 5 and 2016’s Pure McCartney, No 3. 

Before we close the door on the 1970s there is one twist. EMI released The Beatles’ Live at the Hollywood Bowl in June 1977 and it spent a week at No 1, replacing ABBA’s Arrival. 

At this point Paul had enjoyed 10 chart-toppers in the 1960s (all The Beatles albums except Let It Be) and five in the 1970s (Let It Be, Ram, Band on the Run, Venus and Mars and Live at the Hollywood Bowl).

SOLO YEARS

Paul was about to enjoy a mini renaissance in the early 80s. In fact, he would have more number ones as a solo artist in the UK in the 1980s than he enjoyed with Wings in the 1970s. 

Paul McCartney / McCartney II (1980)

The massive success of ‘Coming Up’ (No 2 in the UK) and sheer joy of McCartney II’s lead single (not to mention the brilliant video) helped propel the album straight to No 1 in late May 1980, displacing The Magic of Boney M (oh yes). Paul’s experimental solo album stayed at the top for one more week before Peter Gabriel 3 replaced it. 

Paul McCartney / Tug of War (1982)

Another smash single, this time transatlantic No 1 ‘Ebony and Ivory’ ensured that the George Martin-produced Tug of War entered the UK charts at the top in May 1982 (sending Barry Manilow’s Barry Live in Britain to No 2). It only stayed at the top for another week, but it hung around for a while as Paul mixed with the likes of Duran Duran (Rio), Roxy Music (Avalon) and ABC (The Lexicon of Love).

Paul McCartney / Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984)

1983’s Pipes of Peace had not topped the UK chart, which was a shock. I say this because it contained the title track, which was a No 1 single in Britain as well as ‘Say Say Say’ the massively successful duet with Michael Jackson that peaked at No 2 (as with ‘Coming Up’ it went one better in the USA). Pipes peaked at its first appearance in the chart when it entered at No 4. At this point Lionel Richie was No 1 with Can’t Slow Down, Culture Club’s Colour By Numbers was No 2. and a K-Tel compilation called ‘Just The Two Of Us’ was No 3.

However, McCartney’s soundtrack to his ill-fated film Give My Regards To Broad Street saw him return to the top of the UK charts, albeit for one week in early November 1984. The soundtrack, which contained re-recorded Beatles and Wings hits, along with a trio of new songs, benefitted from all the publicity the film received which included a South Bank Show TV special. The movie was certainly not well received, but ‘all publicity is good publicity’, as the saying goes. A big factor was also a good old-fashioned hit single, in ‘No More Lonely Nights’, which peaked at No 2 in the UK singles chart prior to the album release. Arguably, the last ‘classic’ Paul McCartney single and his fifth single in the UK to reach No 1 or No 2 in the previous five years. 

Paul McCartney / Flowers in the Dirt (1989)

A BBC TV special didn’t help 1986’s Press to Play which received mixed reviews and was hampered by a lack of hits (lead single ‘Press’ was the best effort, and it stalled at No 25). The album entered at No 8 in mid-September but had dropped to No 20 a week later. Four weeks after that it had dropped out of the top 75 completely. 1988’s CHOBA B CCCP was never designed to challenge the top of the charts (it peaked at 63) but 1989’s Flowers in the Dirt was another proper effort helped considerably by the fanfare around a Paul McCartney World Tour that would see Macca embracing his Beatles back catalogue. Paul was no longer troubling the sharp end of the charts with his singles (the first two 45s – ‘My Brave Face’ and ‘This One’ – did the best, both peaking at a modest No 18) but the album itself reached No 1 in June 1989 a week after debuting at No 3. Jason Donovan’s Ten Good Reasons was the album displaced. 

Paul needed to enjoy his 1989 solo chart-topper because he wouldn’t have another one for over 20 years. His three ‘90s albums – Off The Ground (1993), Flaming Pie (1997) and Run Devil Run – peaked at 5, 2 and 12 respectively, but it was his work with The Beatles that gave Paul three more number ones in his decade, with Live at the BBC, Anthology 2 and in 2000 the ‘1’ compilation all topping the chart. 

After Driving Rain (2001) and Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005) reached 46 and 10 respectively, Paul publicly blamed EMI and moved to Hear Music to release 2007’s Memory Amost Full. This worked to a degree and the album reached No 5 in the UK with 2012’s Kisses on the Bottom and 2013’s New both peaking at No 3.

For 2018’s Egypt Station Paul moved to Capitol Records and another album reached No 3. What could Paul do to get back to the top?

Paul McCartney / McCartney III (2020)

The answer was to embrace modern marketing techniques, producing multiple coloured vinyl variants (and CDs with different bonus tracks) for different retail channels and hope that collectors would pick up more than one copy of the album. This worked a treat for McCartney III (recorded in ‘Rockdown’) and Paul was back at number one with one of his solo albums for the first time since Flowers in the Dirt.

The Boys of Dungeon Lane (2026)

Less than six months later the remix album McCartney III Imagined peaked at No 13 using the same methods and on Friday 5 June 2026 The Boys of Dungeon Lane repeated the achievement of McCartney III and Paul was back at the top of the UK charts once more. At 83, he’s the oldest person to get to No 1 on the pop charts with an album of new material, 63 years after The Beatles topped the Charts with their debut album Please Please Me. 

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