Donald Traill/Invision, via Associated Press Emeli Sandé performing in New York.The Beatles fended off all contenders for half a century, but the Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé has toppled one of the band’s most tenacious 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, and had a songwriting contract with EMI Music Publishing before she was signed by Virgin Records as a performer. But she prudently also prepared for a potentially lucrative fallback career, in case making music did not work out: she was a fourth-year medical student at the University of Glasgow in 2009, when one of her songs, “Diamond Rings,†became a hit for the rapper Chipmunk, emboldening her to pursue her musical career.
“I’m completely lost for words and this is something I could only have dreamed of,†Ms. Sandé said in an interview on the chart company’s web page. “The Beatles are the greatest band of all time and their legacy lives on and continues to inspire all of us that make music. I’m so happy that so many people have connected with the stories and the songs on the record, this really is our version of events now.â€
