The Beatles Challenge Taylor Swift For U.K. Chart Crown

Taylor Swift has another titanic battle on her hands, as the U.K. albums chart race enters the final straight.

Last week, Swift’s Midnights (via EMI) saw off the challenge of Arctic Monkeys and their seventh studio album The Car (Domino Recordings). This time, it’s the Beatles with Revolver (EMI).

A special deluxe rerelease of the Fab Four’s 1966 album blasts to No. 2 on the midweek chart, behind Midnights.

Swift last week landed her ninth U.K. chart crown – and snapped several records — as Midnights surged to No. 1 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart with more than 200,000 chart sales, easily a career-best week for the U.S. pop superstar.

With that effort, Swift sailed past Kylie Minogue for outright second place in the list of female artists with the most U.K. No. 1 albums, with nine, all consecutive.  Madonna leads that particular ranking, with 12. And the leader among all acts? The Beatles, with 15 U.K. No. 1s, a tally that includes Revolver, which led the survey following its original release.  

Behind Swift and the Beatles on the midweek chart is Michael Ball and Alfie Boe’s Together In Vegas (Decca), which is set to become their fourth consecutive top 3 as a duo. It’s new at No. 3 on the Official Chart Update, while the top 5 is completed by DJ Fred Again’s Actual Life 3 (Atlantic), and Massive Wagons’ Triggered (Earache), respectively.

Also eyeing top 10 starts are Foo Fighters’ new hits retrospective The Essential (No. 6 via Sony Music CG), Tom Odell’s Best Day Of My Life (No. 7 via Urok Mtheory), Paul Weller’s triple-album Will Of The People (No. 8 via Universal Music Recordings) and Blue’s Heart & Soul (No. 10 via TAG8).

Over on the singles chart blast, Swift maintains her lead with “Anti-Hero.” If it holds its position, and its parent album does the same, Swift will make it a second chart double in as many weeks.

At the halfway point in the chart cycle, “Anti-Hero” leads Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy” (EMI) and Rihanna’s new release, “Lift Me Up” (Def Jam), respectively. Rihanna’s comeback track, which will appear in Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, had trailed just “Anti-Hero” earlier in the week.

All will be revealed when the U.K. singles and albums charts are published Friday (Nov. 4).