Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher and The Stone Roses guitarist John Squire land number one album with collaboration
Liam Gallagher and John Squire have achieved their first number one album with their eponymous debut collaboration, Liam Gallagher & John Squire.
The former Oasis frontman and The Stone Roses guitarist – both Manchester rock royalty – outsold their closest competition three-to-one, according to the Official Charts.
They also topped the Official Vinyl Albums Chart, which made up 45% of their sales.
Their record was the most-purchased album of the week in the UK’s independent record shops, claiming number one on the Official Record Store Chart, too.
Gallagher and Squire told the Official Charts: “Thanks to everybody that went out and bought this, it means a lot!”
Gallagher now has a total of 14 official number one albums, across a career spanning three decades.
As a member of Oasis, he achieved eight chart-toppers: Definitely Maybe (1994), (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? (1995), Be Here Now (1997), Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants (2000), Heathen Chemistry (2002), Don’t Believe The Truth (2005), Dig Out Your Soul (2008) and hits compilation Time Flies… 1994-2009 (2010).
Oasis famously split up in 2009, minutes before a headline show in Paris, with rumours of a physical altercation involving a guitar.
While brothers Liam and Noel have been feuding ever since, rumours of them getting back together are never far from the headlines.
Liam and Noel at Knebworth in 1996. Pic: Times Newspapers/Shutterstock
Gallagher achieved a further five number one albums after leaving Oasis: As You Were (2017), Why Me? Why Not. (2019), live recording MTV Unplugged (2020), C’mon You Know and Knebworth 22 (both in 2022).
His band Beady Eye, which disbanded in 2014, earned two top five LPs: 2011’s Different Gear, Still Speeding and 2013 release BE.
Meanwhile, Noel went his own way with the band High Flying Birds, achieving four number one albums to date: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (2011), Chasing Yesterday (2015), Who Built The Moon (2017) and Back The Way We Came: Vol 1 (2021).
Noel’s last LP Council Skies peaked at number two on the Official Albums Chart.
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For Squire, his collaboration with Gallagher marks his first-ever UK number one album.
Squire’s previous UK chart best came courtesy of Do It Yourself, the sole album from his 1996-1999 project The Seahorses, which peaked at number two on its release in 1997, and went on to spend 49 weeks in the chart.
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Om Fahad: Iraqi social media influencer shot dead by gunman on motorbike who posed as food delivery rider – report
A well-known Iraqi social media influencer has reportedly been shot dead in her car by a gunman on a motorbike.
Om Fahad, whose real name is Ghufran Sawadi, was killed outside her home in Baghdad’s Zayouna district on Friday, according to the AFP news agency, citing security officials.
It appears the unidentified attacker pretended to be delivering food to the victim, one security source said.
Om Fahad, who has nearly half a million TikTok followers, became famous for posting light-hearted videos where she dances to Iraqi music.
Six days ago, she shared footage of herself driving in a car and also posing in front of a mirror. They have each been watched hundreds of thousands of times.
The influencer was sentenced to six months in prison in February last year for sharing videos that a court ruled contained “indecent speech that undermines modesty and public morality”.
A campaign was launched in 2023 by the Iraqi government to clamp down on social media content which broke the country’s “morals and traditions”.
The interior ministry set up a committee to look for “offensive” clips on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, with several influencers being arrested.
“This type of content is no less dangerous than organised crime,” the ministry declared in a promotional video which asked the public to help by reporting such content.
“It is one of the causes of the destruction of the Iraqi family and society.”
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Speaking last year, interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan argued the morality campaign has “nothing to do with freedom of expression”.
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In 2018, gunmen in Baghdad shot dead Tara Fares, who was a model and influencer.
After years of war and sectarian conflict following the 2003 US invasion that overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq has returned to some semblance of normality despite sporadic violence, political instability and corruption.
But civil liberties, particularly among women and sexual minorities, are still constrained in a conservative and male-dominated society.
R Kelly’s challenge against a 20-year sentence for child sex convictions has been quashed by an appeals court.
The singer was correctly sentenced to 20 years in prison, a Chicago court ruled on Friday.
He was convicted in 2022 on three charges of producing child sexual abuse images and three charges of enticement of minors for sex.
In his appeal, Kelly, 57, argued Illinois’ old statute of limitations – which required prosecution of child sex crime charges within 10 years – should have applied, rather than the current law permitting charges while an accuser is still alive.
The appeals court rejected this, labelling it an attempt by Kelly to elude the charges entirely after “employing a complex scheme to keep victims quiet”.
He also argued that charges involving one accuser should have been tried separately from the charges tied to three other accusers due to video evidence that became a focal point of the Chicago trial.
Prosecutors have said the video showed Kelly abusing a girl. The accuser, only identified as Jane, testified for the first time that she was 14 when the video was taken.
The three-judge panel from the appeals court noted jurors acquitted Kelly on seven of the 13 counts against him “even after viewing those abhorrent tapes”.
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In a written statement, Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean said they plan to seek a US Supreme Court review of the decision and “pursue all of his appellate remedies until we free R Kelly”.
“We are disappointed in the ruling, but our fight is far from over,” she said.
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