Fastest-selling album in the UK

Be Here Now, the third studio album by Oasis (UK), sold 663,389 copies in just three days when it was unconventionally released on a Thursday, 21 August 1997. This figure includes the unrivalled 424,000 copies it shifted on the first day alone. Featuring the singles “D’You Know What I Mean?”, “Stand by Me” and “All Around the World”, Be Here Now comfortably debuted at No.1 on the Official Albums Chart published on Sunday, 24 August 1997 (the chart week dated 30 August), without needing a full week’s sales to surge ahead of albums from the likes of Texas (White on Blonde), The Prodigy (The Fat of the Land) and Radiohead (OK Computer).

The Official Charts Company has reported three-day sales of 695,761 for Be Here Now on 21–23 August 1997, but DUS (Defined Universe Sales) were definitively 663,389, as explained by Guillaume Vieira in an undated chartmasters.org article.

The biggest first-week sales for an album in the UK in a traditional seven-day tracking week (formerly Sunday–Saturday, now Friday–Thursday) was Adele’s 25, which shifted 800,307 copies in the week commencing Friday, 20 November 2015, including 313,000 first-day sales. By comparison, Be Here Now registered 813,000 copies – some 13,000 more than 25 – in the first seven days, but across two tracking weeks (21–27 August 1997).

Critically derided as “self-indulgent”, a “career killer” and a “by-word in bloated excess”, Be Here Now nevertheless sold its millionth copy 17 days after its release, and went on to register 8 million copies worldwide.