Every One Direction album returns to UK Top 40 as fans grieve Liam Payne

The whole of One Direction’s five-album back catalogue has charted in this week’s Top 40, as fans revisit their songs in the wake of Liam Payne’s death.

Midnight Memories from 2013 charted the highest at No 13, with Four at 22, Take Me Home at 25 and debut album Up All Night at 38.

The band also have three songs in the singles chart: Night Changes at No 6, in a new chart high, plus Story of My Life at 9, and What Makes You Beautiful at 23. Three of Payne’s solo hits also re-charted, outside the Top 40.

Payne, 31, died last week in a fall from a Buenos Aires hotel balcony. Evidence of drug taking was found in his hotel room, and anonymous sources familiar with toxicology reports claim he had taken “pink cocaine” – a blend of methamphetamine, ketamine and MDMA – as well as crack cocaine and benzodiazepine.

Payne’s body is expected to be released by authorities early next week, and repatriated to the UK.

Formed in 2010 in the somewhat inauspicious environment of The X Factor, where they came third to Matt Cardle and Rebecca Ferguson, One Direction went on to become one of the UK’s most successful pop acts ever, selling an estimated 70m records worldwide in six years.

In the UK, they reached the top of both the albums and singles charts four times, notching up 329 weeks in the Top 75 of the singles chart overall.

Elsewhere in this week’s chart, Kylie Minogue earns her 10th No 1 album, with Tension II, the sequel to 2023’s similarly chart-topping Tension. Rag’n’Bone Man and Confidence Man also score new entries in the Top 10, at No 5 and No 9 respectively.

Sabrina Carpenter enjoys a ninth consecutive week at No 1 in the singles chart, with Taste, while US singer-songwriter Gigi Perez rises to No 2 with her viral acoustic hit Sailor Song.