British progressive rock group Pink Floyd topped the album charts for the first time in nearly 20 years on Sunday with The Endless River, the Official Charts Company said. The newly-released album, which the band says will be their last, became the third fastest-selling by a single group or artiste this year after shifting more than 139,000 copies during the last week, reports Reuters. The Endless River is based on unreleased material from the band’s sessions for 1994 album, The Division Bell. It is said by singer and guitarist, David Gilmour, to be a tribute to Floyd keyboard player Rick Wright, who died in 2008. Wright appears on the record posthumously.
Culled from some 20 hours of Division Bell outtakes, it is mostly an instrumental album featuring just one ‘song’ among its 18 tracks.
Pink Floyd was founded in 1965 by students Syd Barrett, Nick Mason, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright. They gained worldwide fame performing in London’s underground music scene during the late 1960s, and under Barrett’s leadership released two charting singles and a successful debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967).
David Gilmour joined as a fifth member of the band in December 1967; while Barrett left the band in April 1968 due to deteriorating mental health.
Foo Fighters were also a new entry at number two with Sonic Highways, while last week’s chart topper X by Ed Sheeran slid two places to number three.
Sheeran also featured in the singles chart, where his track Thinking Out Loud stayed in second place, ahead of One Direction’s Steal My Girl, which climbed six places to third.
Topping the singles chart was a celebrity cover version of Avicii’s Wake Me Up, recorded by Gareth Malone’s All Star Choir in aid of charity Children in Need.
Cheryl’s single I Don’t Care holds the number four place on the chart, while Meghan Trainor’s latest hit All About That Bass stays put in the fifth place.
-With New Age input
