Best-selling debut album on the UK chart by a solo artist

Bat out of Hell (1977), the debut solo album by Meat Loaf (USA, b. Marvin Lee Aday, 1947-2022), has sold more than 3.5 million copies in the UK, according to the Official Charts Company (OCC). Featuring “You Took the Words Right out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)”, “Two out of Three Ain’t Bad” and the epic title track, Bat out of Hell has amassed 55 separate chart runs in the UK since its 11 March 1978 debut (some five months after it was initially released in the US on 21 October 1977). The album peaked at No.9 on 22 August 1981 (its 76th chart week) and returned to No.9 on 13–20 April 2013 (its 492nd and 493rd chart weeks). It was only after Meat Loaf’s death on 20 January 2022 that Bat out of Hell reached a new peak of No.3, on 3 February 2022 – its 523rd chart week, almost 44 years after its UK debut.

While Bat out of Hell was the first of 12 solo albums released by Meat Loaf in 1977–2016, his debut album appeared six years earlier, in October 1971. Stoney & Meatloaf (sic), released on the Motown subsidiary Rare Earth, was a self-titled album with female vocalist Shaun Murphy (aka Stoney) that charted only in the Netherlands (No.25), although lead single “What You See Is What You Get” peaked at No.71 on the US Billboard Hot 100.

James Blunt’s Back to Bedlam (2004), Spirit by Leona Lewis (2007), Lady Gaga’s The Fame (2008) and No Angel by Dido (1999), all with UK sales of at least 3 million copies, complete the Top 5 of the UK’s biggest-selling debut solo albums.

As of 3 November 2022, Bat out of Hell had spent five weeks in the Top 10; 61 weeks in the Top 20; 253 weeks in the Top 40; 462 weeks in the Top 75; and 530 weeks in the Top 100. It was the ninth-longest-running release on the UK’s Official Albums Chart and the fourth-longest-running studio album, after Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours (1977; 964 weeks), (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? by Oasis (1995; 564 weeks) and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon (1973; 545 weeks).