Emeli Sandé Breaks Beatles Record
The Beatles fended off all contenders for half a century, but the Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé has toppled one of the band’s longest-standing chart records. Ms. Sandé’s debut album, “Our Version of Events,†has spent the last 63 weeks in the British top 10, surpassing the 62 consecutive weeks that the Beatles’ debut, “Please Please Me,†spent in the top 10 in 1963 and 1964. Ms. Sandé’s status as the new record-holder for the most tenacious debut album was announced on Sunday by the Official Charts Company, a British organization that has been overseeing these records for the last 60 years, and whose charts are broadcast weekly by the BBC, and published in Music Week. Ms. Sandé, 26, has been writing music inspired by Nina Simone and Lauryn Hill, often with a social or political undercurrent, since she was 11.
