Eminem breaks 36-year-old UK chart record for most consecutive No. 1 albums

By breaking the 36-year-old record for consecutive No. 1 albums on the UK chart, Eminem has surpassed Abba and Led Zeppelin.

His second album in less than a year, Kamikaze, was released last week to a surprise. It is his ninth consecutive No. 1 album, a streak that dates back eighteen years to his second collection, The Marshall Mathers LP. In a statement released in conjunction with the announcement, Eminem asked, “Does this mean I get to call myself Sir Eminem?”

Kamikaze has outsold the No. 2 album, the Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again soundtrack, by three copies to one, making it the fourth-fastest-selling album in the UK this year after Arctic Monkeys, Drake, and George Ezra. Two more album tracks, Lucky You and Fall, also made it into the Top 10, and the album’s first single, The Ringer, which attacks Donald Trump by calling him a “evil serpent,” peaked at No. 4 on the singles chart. Eminem gained notoriety in the late 1990s as a ferocious “battle rapper,” and in 1999, with the release of his debut album The Slim Shady LP, he achieved even greater fame thanks to Dr. Dre’s signing and mentoring. Even though two of its songs made it into the top five, this album is still the only one of his to not debut at number one in the UK. Although that album included his cartoonishly violent alter persona Slim Shady, on The Marshall Mathers LP (released in 2000), which is widely considered as one of the best rap albums ever, he finally allowed his voice to be heard. Even though Eminem battled prescription drug addiction in the years that followed, his popularity hasn’t decreased—160,000 tickets for his two shows at Twickenham Stadium in July sold out in a matter of minutes.