Coldplay's Moon Music album outsells the rest of the Top 40 combined

Coldplay's tenth album, Moon Music, debuted at number one in the UK and sold more copies than the rest of the Top 40 combined.

According to the Official Charts Company, 237,000 UK chart units were moved in the last seven days – a metric that includes streams, downloads and physical sales.

It's the biggest opening week for a British album since the release of Adele's 30 in 2021.

Coldplay is now tied with ABBA, Michael Jackson and Queen on the list of acts with the most number ones on the Official Album Charts (10 each). The all-time record is held by The Beatles, who topped the charts 16 times.

“Thank you to everyone who supported the release of Moon Music,” the band posted on social media when the charts were announced.

“It really means the world.”

The majority of Moon Music's sales – around 209,000 – were on CD and vinyl, suggesting it is not being streamed in exceptional quantities.

However, the songs “Feels Like I'm Falling In Love” and “We Pray” were played enough times to narrowly land in the top 20 of this week's singles chart.

25 years after their debut, the band is having fun promoting their latest album.

Last week the quartet hosted one half-hour segment on the shopping channel QVCand frontman Chris Martin appeared on Jimmy Fallon's US talk show as “Nigel”, an inept busker whose songs bore no resemblance to the originals.

During an appearance at a record store in New York, Martin serenaded a 70-year-old fan who had shown up to see her on her birthday.

A day before, He improvised a completely new song in Brooklynafter a fan tried to request the song Fix You but actually shouted, “Play 'Fix It'.”

All of this promotional activity, combined with appearances on Saturday Night Live and the morning TV show Today (where they were accompanied by puppets), means Coldplay are expected to top the US Billboard charts again this week.

If they achieve it, it will be the first time a British band has reached number one on both sides of the Atlantic since The 1975 achieved the feat with their 2016 album I Like It When You Sleep for You Are So Beautiful Yet I'm not aware of it.

However, not even Coldplay could challenge Taylor Swift's British chart throne.

The band fell just short of the 270,000 first week sales they achieved for The Tortured Poets Department in April – meaning they still hold the record for the biggest first week sales of the year.

Over on the singles charts, breakout pop star Sabrina Carpenter has made history as a woman with the most weeks at number one in a year.

Thanks to three hit singles: Espresso (seven weeks), Please Please Please (five weeks) and Taste (seven weeks and counting).

She overtakes Olivia Newton-John, who spent 16 weeks at number one in 1978, and draws level with Ed Sheeran, who has had the most weeks at number one in a calendar year this century.

Meanwhile, Netflix's controversial true-crime drama “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” sent two vintage hits back into the Top 40.

Crowded House's 1987 single Don't Dream It's Over appears again at number 37, followed by Milli Vanilli's I'm Gonna Miss You at number 40.

Viewers of the show will know that the latter track was, somewhat bizarrely, played by the Menendez Brothers at their parents' funeral in 1989.

The choice seemed so inappropriate that the Netflix show's creator, Ryan Murphy, had to confirm that it had happened in real life, commenting that the choice was something “you really can't make up.”