Staggers pronounces.

“DEEP PURPLE have reached a stage of mastership that is unprecedented in the history of rock music. No doubt, this is a legendary album and will once be counted among the classics of rock music…” KNAC Rock Radio website review. While back in the UK: “How depressing that in their seventies Deep Purple are much, much better at arena rawk than, say, Kasabian…” Yes, even the sad old Spectator Magazine gets all grudging in their praise. So, without wishing to sideline TMS statistician Andy_Zaltzman, here is the current state of play.

Whoosh is now Deep Purple’s highest charting studio album in 46 years… since “Burn” in 1974.

Number 1 Physical Artist Album sales / no: 4 Main Chart
Number 1 Top 100 albums (excepting streaming sales)
Number 1 Independent Album
Number 1 Rock and Metal
Number 1 Scottish Albums (don’t let Nicola know!)

And “Whoosh!” has reached the Top 10 in a 12 countries worldwide – with more apparently to come.

1 Germany

1 Finland

1 Belgium (Wallonia)

1 Scotland

2 Czech Republic

3 Sweden

3 Norway

4 UK (highest chart entry in 46 years)

4 Japan (International)

6 Italy

7 Belgium (Flanders)

7 Netherlands

8 France

Thanks to Adrian Tredinnick their UK publicist for the info, he had this thank-you message off the band:
“Your energy, professionalism and devotion to the cause has been building throughout the ‘Now What’ and ‘Infinite’ campaigns and all that has paid off with this explosion of effort that we have been watching and admiring whilst doing our phoners for the latest album. Who would have thought that – this late in our career – we would have been having such an experience? It is quite incredible.“

These large billboards have been turning up on the transit systems across Germany, thanks to Pericle for the snap. Find room in your den for that!

Thanks also to David Browne for his help who tells me the album has just tipped up in the Billboard chart at 161. “Whoosh! is at #20 in the Billboard US Rock charts, behind no less than 13 compilation albums…. The Beatles, Elton John, Queen, The Eagles, Journey etc, and 4 re-releases: including, of course, Rumours.” Reminds me of those far off days when Led Zeppelin were kept off the number one album spot by the Top Of The Pops covers collections!

Factoid time • Amazingly it will be FIFTY YEARS since Deep Purple first got to number one in Germany in October 1970 with you know what. I can’t see sales in this day and age holding out for another eight weeks there but that is still quite a close anniversary.
One album listener has asked “have any other DP devotees experienced an audio ‘glitch’ at 2′ 22″ in ‘Dancing In My Sleep’ on the audiobook version?” I’ve only heard the digital wav files and didn’t notice anything, but do let us know.

Tags: 2020, chart placing, deep purple, Whoosh