First person to top the UK singles and album charts simultaneously (female)

On the UK’s Official Singles Chart dated 8 November 1980, Barbra Streisand (USA) spent the last of three weeks at No.1 with “Woman in Love”. On that week’s Official Albums Chart, Streisand’s 22nd studio album Guilty was starting a two-week run at the summit.

Although female-fronted acts had simultaneously topped the UK charts before Streisand achieved it in 1980 (ABBA in 1976 and Blondie in 1979), Streisand was the first female solo artist to occupy the No.1 spot at the same time with a single and an album. It would be more than five years before another female soloist repeated the trick, with Madonna (“Papa Don’t Preach”/True Blue in 1986; “Like a Prayer”/Like a Prayer in 1989), Whitney Houston (“I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)”/Whitney in 1987), Mariah Carey (“Without You”/Music Box in 1994) and Celine Dion (“Think Twice”/The Colour of My Love in 1995) all doing it before the end of the century.

Guilty features two duets with Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. Gibb is also featured on the album cover and had a hand in writing every track, although Guilty is still regarded as a Streisand solo album.