Sir Paul McCartney has claimed his first number one album on the US Billboard chart for 36 years.
The former Beatle’s 18th solo studio album Egypt Station powered past rapper Eminem’s Kamikaze with first week sales of 153,000 units, the majority of which came from physical album sales.
The 76-year-old musician’s eighth US chart-topping LP is his first since 1982’s Tug Of War, which held the top spot for three weeks.
Only the late country singer Johnny Cash had a longer gap between number one albums in America.
In a message on social media McCartney wrote: “Thanks to all our fabulous fans and the whole team behind this record for making it number one – yippee! Love Paul x.”
Thanks to all our fabulous fans and the whole team behind this record for making it number one – yippee! Love Paul x #EgyptStation 👍👍 pic.twitter.com/jOrMEvoUvC
— Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) September 16, 2018
Egypt Station was unable to repeat the trick in the UK, despite being last week’s best-selling record in physical formats and the highest new entry on the albums chart.
It had to settle for the number three spot behind Eminem and the soundtrack to the film The Greatest Showman.
McCartney recently spoke about his belief in a “higher” entity and claimed he once came face to face with God.
He told The Sunday Times newspaper the experience, which came after he had taken drugs, had given him the “sense” that there was “something higher”.