Ed Sheeran's major smash single "Thinking Out Loud" has been playing out loud in English homes, consistently, for the past year. As his sophomore album x reaches its one-year anniversary, today (June 23), it was revealed that the album's second, heartwarming single has spent a solid year in the top 40 on the U.K. charts.
"Thinking Out Loud" has stuck around in the top 40 for 52 weeks, the British Phonographic Industry confirmed. It's the first single to consistently stay in the top 40, Billboard reports, though Frank Sinatra's "My Way" stuck around for 75 weeks non-consecutively between April 1961 and September 1971.
Congrats @edsheeran 'Thinking Out Loud' is the first single ever to spend a full year in the Official Chart Top 40! pic.twitter.com/Mwo7SqkgWU
— bpi music (@bpi_music) June 22, 2015
"Thinking Out Loud" had a slow climb to chart dominance in the U.K. Though the single eventually hit No. 1 overseas, it had the slowest rise in The Official Charts Company's history. After debuting at No. 26 in July 2014, it took 19 weeks for "Thinking Out Loud" to crown the singles chart.
After spending time at the top in November and December 2014, "Thinking Out Loud" stuck around. This week, the single sits at No. 28. Its combined sales and streams in the U.K. equal over 1.65 million units/
Stateside, "Thinking Out Loud" peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.
As "Thinking Out Loud" breaks one year in the U.K. singles chart, the album it comes from x reaches the same milestone on the album chart. X has similarly spent 52 weeks on the British charts, 12 of which were at No. 1. The album has sold over 2.2 million copies in the U.K.
