Taylor Swift album lands eighth week at number one
Taylor Swift has started 2015 as she ended 2014 - on top of the charts.
The pop star's 1989 has landed an eighth non-consecutive week as the Billboard 200 chart's number one album.
It has become her longest-running chart-topper since her second
album, Fearless, spent 13 weeks on top in 2008 and 2009.
More than 244,000 fans snapped up a copy of 1989 in the first week
of 2015 - 160,000 copies more than second-placed Nicki Minaj's The
Pinkprint.
Ed Sheeran's X returns to the top three at three, while fellow Brit
Sam Smith's In the Lonely Hour rises a spot to four and the
Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack jumps back into the top five at
five.
Meanwhile, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson have prevented Swift from
starting off the new year with a chart double - their Uptown Funk
hit topples her Blank Space - and ends a 19-week girl power run at
the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
Uptown Funk is Ronson's first number one as an artist, and Mars'
sixth Hot 100 chart-topper.
Blank Space falls a spot to two, while Hozier's Take Me to Church
remains at three. Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud returns to the top
five at four, and Meghan Trainor's Lips Are Movin rounds out the
countdown's top flight.