Mistletoe and grime: Stormzy beats Cliff Richard’s Christmas album to No 1



This Is What I Mean surges beyond Christmas With Cliff to clinch London rapper’s 3rd successive chart-topper

Perfect hat-trick … Stormzy unneurotic with his No 1 trophy for 3rd medium This Is What I Mean. Photograph: ZebiePerfect hat-trick … Stormzy on with his No 1 trophy for 3rd medium This Is What I Mean. Photograph: ZebieShaad D'Souza@shaaddsouzaFri 2 Dec 2022 thirteen.00 ESTLast changed connected Fri 2 Dec 2022 13.34 EST

Stormzy’s 1/3 medium This Is What I Mean has debuted astatine No 1 connected the United Kingdom albums chart, beating Cliff Richard’s Christmas With Cliff to the pinnacle spot successful a photograph finish. It was suggested this week that Richards became blistery astatine the ungraded kingpin’s heels on with his archetypal Christmas record successful 19 years; successful the agelong run, it turned into a “last infinitesimal surge”, accordant with the Official Charts Company, that clinched Stormzy’s win. A fantastically tiny borderline of illustration units – a metric that encompasses streams and income – separated the 2 statistics, with This Is What I Mean transferring 27,800 units compared to Christmas With Cliff’s 24,three hundred.

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This Is What I Mean, which was released connected 25 November, is Stormzy’s 1/3 consecutive No 1 album. His debut, Gang Ss & Prayer, go the archetypal filth medium to deed No 1 astatine the chart. Richard finished 7 No 1 medium placements astatine immoderate signifier successful the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, and reached No 3 with 2020’s Music… The Air That I Breathe.

Christmas With Cliff’s No 2 decorativeness is his maximum placement fixed that The Album, which peaked astatine No 1 successful April 1993. Appearing connected This Morning, Richard said this week that helium didn’t “know Stormzy successful immoderate respect”. He introduced: “Next 12 months is my 65th 12 months and close present I americium successful the charts with the maximum celebrated creator of the decennary and I americium capable to nevertheless compete. So I americium conscionable genuinely gladsome astir it.”

This Is What I Mean is Stormzy’s archetypal medium successful 3 years nevertheless the London rapper has remained successful the nationalist oculus for a bully woody of the interim, persevering with to station books via his Penguin Random House imprint Merky Books, backing a assistance for Black British assemblage students astatine Cambridge University and moving with main brands connected Merky FC, an inaugural aiming to boost off-pitch scope successful soccer.

This Is What I Mean has been cited for its muted tone, with Guardian professional Alexis Petridis describing the medium successful a four-superstar measure arsenic “highly much introverted and personal” than its predecessors. Gary Younge, 1 of the fewer newshounds to person interviewed Stormzy wrong the past fewer years, told the Guardian remaining period that This Is What I Mean is “not simply each different album” for the grime superstar, nevertheless “a assertion astir his state arsenic an artist.” Stormzy volition usher This Is What I Mean with a amusement astatine the O2 area, London, connected 11 December and a header show astatine Victoria Park, dubbed This Is What We Mean Day, connected 18 August arsenic a portion of London’s All Points East competition.