Ed Sheeran named UK artist of the decade by Official Charts Company
Singer-songwriter spent more time in the Top 40 singles chart than any other artist this decade
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Your support makes all the difference.Ed Sheeran has claimed the title of "artist of the decade" by the Official Charts Company, following his success across the albums and singles charts in the 2010s.
The singer-songwriter had the most number ones in both categories, with 12; his albums spent a total of 41 weeks at the top plus 38 combined weeks with his singles, including "Shape of You", "Thinking Out Loud", and "Sing".
He was also the artist who spent the most time in the Top 40 singles chart, at 572 weeks.
Sheeran said: "This is nuts – I didn't really expect to have a career past five years, so to be able to have done it for a decade... thank you for your support."
Martin Talbot, chief executive of the Official Charts Company, said Sheeran's achievements were "truly remarkable".
Sheeran has claimed a number of records in the past few years. In 2019, he shattered the world record for highest-grossing tour, after his Divide concerts earnt £558 million – overtaking the previous recording set by U2 in 2011.
His song "Shape of You" was named biggest song of the decade, with 4.3m combined "sales" that were tallied from a mix of streams, downloads and physical sales.
Adele, however, managed to scoop the biggest albums of the decade – her studio records 21 and 25 topped the list, while Sheeran's X and Divide were at numbers three and four, respectively. Michael Buble's Christmas album came in at number five.
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