Charts analysis: Rolling Stones extend span of No.1 albums to more than 62 years

The Rolling Stones have the opposition licked, as they stroll to a No.1 debut with 25th studio album, Foreign Tongues, as the UK albums chart celebrates its 70th anniversary. Racking up first week consumption of 38,016 units (20,891 CDs, 12,825 vinyl albums, 471 cassettes, 2,074 digital downloads and 1,755 sales-equivalent streams), Foreign Tongues is the legendary band’s third consecutive No.1 album, albeit on considerably lower consumption than 2016 blues covers set Blue & Lonesome, which was their first new album in more than a decade, and had first week consumption of 105,830 units; and follow-up Hackney Diamonds, which sprinted to a 72,204 opening frame in 2023. The Stones were also No.1 in September 2020, when the reissued and expanded 1973 album Goats Head Soup topped on sales of 13,107 units. Already the oldest band to have a No.1 album, and the one with the longest span of chart-toppers, they lengthen their lead in both categories. Comprising lead vocalist Sir Mick Jagger, who will be 83 a week on Sunday (July 26), fellow founder member Keith Richards (82) and ‘new boy’ Ronnie Wood (79), who didn’t join until 1975, they are the first group to have a No.1 album with an average age of more than 80. Paul McCartney – who plays bass on Foreign Tongues track Covered In You – and Tom Jones are the only solo acts to have an album of new material top the chart as octogenarians. Twelve of Foreign Tongues’ 14 songs are Jagger/Richard originals, two of which were co-written by producer Andrew Watt, and two more by session musician Matt Clifford, who plays keyboards in their tour band. There’s also a cover of 2007 Amy Winehouse hit, You Know I’m No Good, and Beautiful Delilah, a 1958 song by Chuck Berry, whose Carol, from the same year, was on their first album 62 years ago. Foreign Tongues extends The Rolling Stones’ span of No.1 albums to more than 62 years, and is arguably their 13th No.1 album, following their eponymous debut (1964), The Rolling Stones No.2 (1965), Aftermath (1966), Let It Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1971), Exile On Main Street (1972), Goats Head Soup (1973), Emotional Rescue (1980), Voodoo Lounge (1994), Blue & Lonesome (2016) and Foreign Tongues (2023). If chart-topping reissues of Exile On Main Street and Goat’s Head Soup are included alongside their similarly high-achieving originals – Exile On Main Street and Goats Head Soup returned to the summit in 2010 and 2020 respectively, with extra content – their tally of No.1s to 15. However, those same sources don’t credit the only group with more No.1 albums – The Beatles – with a 16th chart-topper for the 2017 return to No.1 of their 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, even though it too had masses of new material in some of its 50th anniversary editions. To muddy the waters still further, when BMRB became the UK’s first official chart compilers in 1969, the chart was carried by both Record Retailer and Record Mirror – the former being renamed Music Week in 1972, the latter consumer magazine being folded into Music Week in 1991. With earlier deadlines, Music Week initially ran the album chart a week in arrears of Record Mirror. They caught up in October 1969, which meant missing a week’s chart. The missing chart was the one in which supergroup Blind Faith’s eponymous only album was dethroned by The Rolling Stones’ compilation Through The Past Darkly (Big Hits Volume 2). It was published in Record Mirror, but Music Week simply skipped that week and showed positions which were really from two weeks prior as ‘last week’ for continuity purposes. The only group to have new No.1 albums in six different decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2010s, 2020s), The Rolling Stones have indisputably had 12 No.1 studio albums, the most by any group, surpassing The Beatles’ tally of 11. Ahead of them are solo star Taylor Swift (13). Robbie Williams also has 12 (excluding his Better Man soundtrack, on which multiple other singers take lead, and XXV, which includes re-recordings and re-ocrhestrations). With The Rolling Stones replacing 67-year-old Madonna’s Confessions II (1-9, 7,758 sales) at the top, we have the oldest pair of consecutive No.1 artists in the chart’s history. New Jersey rock veterans My Chemical Romance’s fourth and last studio set, Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, racked up impressive first week sales of 32,766 on debut in 2010 – but in those halcyon days that only sufficed for a No.14 placing. Now reissued in an expanded (and slightly late) 15th anniversary deluxe edition, it returns for the first time since, and carves out a new peak of No.2 (16,380 sales), becoming their third Top 10 entry. The band broke up in 2014 and reunited five years later, but have yet to release a new album. Their ongoing tour celebrating the 20th anniversary of their magnum opus, The Black Parade, help that album to levitate 25-21 (4,855 sales) – a 1,005-week high – while their 2014 compilation, May Death Never Stop You: The Greatest Hits, rises 41-33 (3,916 sales), to achieve its highest placing since it debuted at No.15, 642 weeks ago. No.2 in 2006, The Black Parade is their biggest seller (1,211,392 units), followed by second album, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, a 2004 release that peaked at No.9 on reissue last year (644,299 units) with the aforementioned 2014 May Death… compilation, which debuted and peaked at No.15, third (476,156 sales). Boy band December 10, whose formation was documented in 2025 Netflix series Simon Cowell: The Next Act, reached No.68 in February with first single Run My Way. Two further singles have failed to chart but they have been busy drumming up support, with a selection of live shows, including at the O2 Bristol Academy yesterday (July 16), instore photo opportunities at half a dozen HMV shops and more, including multiple formats and lowball pricing, their EP, On Your Side makes a very respectable debut at No.5 (13,035 sales). Bring Me The Horizon score their sixth Top 10 and ninth Top 75 entry with Count Your Blessings: Repented (No.6, 11,327 sales), a completely re-recorded version of their seminal first album, Count Your Blessings, which debuted and peaked at No.93 in 2006. The Sheffield rockers, still comprising 2004 founder members – 39-year-old vocalist and keyboards player Oli Sykes, 40-year-old bassist Matt Kean, 40-year-old drummer Matt Nicholls and 42-year-old lead guitarist Lee Malia – topped the chart with 2019 album Amo and 2021 follow-up Post Human. Their biggest seller, however, is fifth album, That’s The Spirit, which reached No.2 in 2015, and has to-date consumption of 442,686 units. The original Count Your Blessing was certified silver in May, and has to-date consumption of 62,204 units, ranking ninth in their canon. In the top five for 40 weeks in a row since debut last October, Olivia Dean’s The Art Of Loving finally loses its grip, subsiding to No.7 (8,345 sales). The rest of the Top 10: You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love (3-3, 16,350 sales) by Olivia Rodrigo, The Essential (4-4, 16,090 sales) by Michael Jackson, Visitor (2-8, 8,318 sales) by Sienna Spiro and 50 Years: Don’t Stop (8-10, 7,257 sales) by Fleetwood Mac. The Great Divide (7-11, 6,805 sales) by Noah Kahan, The Ones That Got The Plays (10-13, 6,340 sales) by Katy Perry, Thriller (9-16, 5,595 sales) by Michael Jackson and Kiss All The Time: Disco, Occasionally (6-17, 5,269 sales) by Harry Styles all vacate the Top 10. Rapper Future is set for his 12th No.1 album in his native USA this weekend with new studio set, The Real Me. He has yet to top the chart here but The Real Me debuts at No.27 (4,636 sales), becoming his 16th charted album on this side of the Atlantic, and his 13th to breach the Top 40. Frozen Charlotte (No.29, 4,458 sales) is the seventh solo album by Jack White, the first five of which made the top five for the 51-year-old singer/songwriter. A chart regular since 1999 when he was 50% of The White Stripes – alongside former wife Meg – White has also charted as a member of The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather. In all his guises, Frozen Charlotte is his 20th Top 75 album. Two concerts at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this week by veteran heavy metal band System Of A Down helped lift their eponymous 1998 debut into the Top 75 for the first time. Jumping 108-58 (2,560 sales), it becomes the fifth charted album for the act. That is their entire studio oeuvre, which they have not added to since 2005, although after a 2006 break-up they have been back together since 2010. Overall sales of the set, which previously peaked at No.92, stand at 649,144, making it their second most-consumed album behind sophomore release, Toxicity, a 2001 album that peaked at No.13 and has to-date consumption of 782,722 units. Also new to the Top 75: Live From The Cathedral (No.30, 4,001 sales), the 10th chart entry, and last album by The Specials, following the 2022 death of lead singer Terry Hall, recorded at the cathedral in their home city of Coventry. The KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack set is No.1 for the seventh week in a row and 50th time in total on the compilation chart, on consumption of 3,583 units (253 Yoto cards, 24 digital downloads and 3,306 sales-equivalent streams), the lowest for a No.1 compilation for 56 weeks. Overall album sales are down 0.72% week-on-week to 2,403,439 units, 2.95% below same week 2025 sales of 2,476,610. Physical product accounts for 287,802? sales, 11.97% of the total. PHOTO: Mark Seliger

As she makes a major chart impact in the UK and US with debut album Visitor, don't miss our Music Week cover feature with British breakthrough star Sienna Spiro, alongside co-manager Miriam Maslin, Capitol Music Group CEO and chairman Tom March and the company’s president Lillia Parsa... Sienna Spiro is about to hit the big time. On the eve of her debut album Visitor, the Londoner is on a fast track to becoming the UK’s latest breakout superstar, powered by her inimitable voice, Spotify Global Chart Top 10 viral smash Die On This Hill and a growing legion of followers. Behind the numbers lurks a remarkable story, as Spiro tells Music Week. Joined by co-manager Miriam Maslin, Capitol Music Group CEO and chairman Tom March and the company’s president Lillia Parsa, she holds court for a discussion that takes in being inspired by jazz and Frank Sinatra, her painstaking quest for success, why “AI music is s**t” and more besides. The tale begins, however, with biscuits… WORDS: Ben HomewoodPHOTO: Amy Catarinozzi “I can’t touch another Custard Cream!” blurts Sienna Spiro. “You know, you say something you like, and everyone just decides that’s what you’re about. And I’m more than just a Custard Cream.” The singer, talking to Music Week on her tourbus en route to Glasgow, is setting the record straight. In September last year, she uploaded a TikTok (that now has six million views) in which she wore a skirt with a built-in purse, opening it to reveal three Custard Creams stashed side by side. A couple of months later, during an interview on Capital FM’s Breakfast Show, she was gifted a large Custard Cream-shaped tin, packed full of the biscuits. “Thank you so much!” Spiro said, amazed. “I love Custard Creams! I’m passionate about two things: music and English biscuits – I could talk about them all day.” She would go on to praise Jammie Dodgers and dismiss Bourbons but, seemingly, her desire to discuss biscuits has dimmed. And when we venture to ask which revelation of a preferred Spiro delectation might be next, her answer is firm. “Nothing!” she says. “I’m never saying I like anything again!” For what it’s worth, we add, we’re in total agreement with the opinions she expressed in the Capital interview. “Good,” she smiles. “You know what you’re talking about.” Her choice of phrase is appropriate, because, increasingly, it feels like everyone knows what Spiro is talking about. The 20-year-old, whose debut album Visitor is due via Capitol Records on July 3, has a huge fanbase (even if she concedes that, “I’m not very good at tech, my mum tells me when it goes up and down”). She has 117 million likes and 3.8m followers on TikTok and 1.2m on Instagram. Even her blankets are viral: she points lovingly to her throw, made by influencer-favourite Lola Blankets. On Spotify, she has over 28m monthly listeners, while her biggest song is Die On This Hill, with more than 450m plays. That track, released last year, hit No.9, her highest UK chart position to date, and has 620,249 sales according to the Official Charts Company. In January, it hit the Top 10 of Spotify’s Global Chart. “This is in-credible, what’s happening in my life and in my career,” Spiro says, matter of factly. “I’m 20. This is not normal for a 20-year-old.” “We knew that Die On This Hill was a record that was going to take over the world,” says Tom March, CEO and chairman of Capitol Music Group. “And it did…” Yet Die On This Hill is far from the only of Spiro’s songs – all instantly identifiable thanks to her husky, acrobatic tone, the result of nodes on her vocal cords – to have racked up formidable numbers. Maybe, released in 2024, has 458,403 UK sales, You Stole The Show has 292,045 and The Visitor has 146,985. New single Material Lover features in The Devil Wears Prada 2 and debuted at No.23. Also, in March, Die On This Hill, The Visitor and You Stole The Show were in the Hot 100 in the US at the same time. “And she’s about to have a fourth song in that chart with Material Lover,” says March. “We think it could be a first for a British artist before they’ve had an album out. We’re trying to get verification on that, but regardless of whether it’s a record or not, Sienna is breaking around the world. She’s been No.1 in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and she’s just been to South East Asia, and the scenes were unbelievable. She’s a superstar there already.” Former co-president of Polydor in the UK, March moved to LA to become president of Geffen Records in 2022, before promotion to his current role in February 2024. As part of the same Universal Music Group reshuffle, Lillia Parsa, former SVP of A&R at Universal Music Publishing Group, was appointed president of Capitol Music Group. Today, the pair are practically giddy as they join us to discuss the rise of Spiro, who was their first signing. “It was our first week at the office and we both had just heard Sienna,” says Parsa. “We had actually both met her separately, Tom when he was at Geffen, and me when I was at UMPG. I’d been setting her up in sessions with my roster super early on, trying to find her crew. Then, Tom and I were getting to know each other, and he called me, and said, ‘Do you know this girl, Sienna?’ And I was like, ‘That’s so funny, yes!’ It was instant for both of us. We signed her in our first week.” March recalls seeing Spiro for coffee on her very first writing trip to LA, at a meeting arranged by Jack Street, co-founder of Method Music, Spiro’s management company (also home to Capitol acts Sam Smith and Disclosure). “I had absolute faith that if Jack was this excited about somebody, I should probably meet them, and then I just heard her voice,” March recalls. “I always think, if you’ve got an incredible voice and you write great songs, a good team can help do the rest. You could tell Sienna had the magic there.” March and Parsa put paid to any notion of a “label scrum”. “We identified her really early, she had no music out,” March says. “We were looking for new artists that we were excited about, that we would take the time to develop. If you’re going to do that, they have to write great songs and have a great voice, but they have to have a great team around them, and we knew she did.” March takes care to credit Street and Miriam Maslin, who also manages Spiro, for “taking a leap of faith” with Capitol. “We’d just come into our roles and there were a lot of people that didn’t give us the time of day because of the job that it was perceived we had to do and how long people thought it might take to do it,” he says. “But Lillia’s resume spoke for itself and I’ve known Jack a long time and he knows I can develop artists.” “Miriam has since told me that she wanted to go with the people who are focused on the mission, which is to break Sienna,” Parsa says. “We were just so bullish on Sienna, no matter what else was going on.” March returns to the idea of the team around an artist being the key factor behind any success. “The best deals that you do come down to that,” he reasons. “Anyone can throw money down, but it’s more about asking, ‘What is the right team for an artist and who’s going to put the time in to develop them?’ At Capitol, our whole team is focused on artist development, so I think they saw that early, which was smart on their part and it paid off.” Maslin is delighted with the partnership so far. “There’s a real respect at Capitol for long-term artist development and for allowing things to unfold organically, rather than forcing commercial decisions that may work in the moment but not age well long term,” she notes. Even if it’s because of how early Capitol firmed up their interest in Spiro, a new UK act being signed out of America is notable. “The US made sense for us as it changes the scale,” says Maslin. “The reach is obviously huge, but more importantly it opens doors creatively and culturally. You’re suddenly operating in a much broader landscape in terms of collaborations, media, touring and discovery. But equally, we’ve been very conscious about keeping the campaign intimate.” Spiro, too, is happy with the partnership. “I mean, all my favourites were signed to Capitol – The Beatles, Frank Sinatra... I love all that,” she says, before laughingly adding, “And I really wanted [their logo] on my vinyl, you know?” The singer says her team at the major is “amazing”. “I love that one of the heads is a woman in Lillia, that was a really big reason for me,” she says. “I was very upfront about who I am and what I want to do, and they’ve allowed me to do what I want, and keep my vision. I’m very grateful for that.” Parsa says that Spiro and Maslin “run a tight ship” and hints that the singer means business in meetings, too. “Whatever you say to her, you have to really believe in it, you cannot waver, and you have to be willing to go at it with her,” she says. “If I’m not being honest with her, she’ll be like, ‘I can’t speak to you, you’re not being honest.’” Parsa sums this idea up with a memorable phrase. “Sienna doesn’t want fluff,” she says. “I mean, she wrote a song called Die On This Hill about believing in something. She doesn’t need to hear, ‘Oh, you’re so great…’ She’s just like, ‘I want to be the best, I want to work as hard as I can.’ Because there’s no plan B for her.” Sienna Spiro started writing songs aged 10 and one of her first, Lady In The Mirror, channelled her emotions after being bullied. She performed it in assembly in front of the whole school, including the person who had inspired it. The strength of her resolve shines through in many stories about her past, including the one about the weekend she spent at Reading Festival, frantically emailing East London Arts And Music (ELAM), where she was applying for a place. “I’ve known this is what I wanted to do my whole life, and that I would do anything to make it work,” she says. “After my GCSEs, I found ELAM, didn’t get in, then emailed them as many times as it took for me to be allowed in. Also, I had no other choice. I left my other school and I didn’t apply anywhere else, so I had to get in!” When she did, things began to snowball soon enough. Maslin got in touch after seeing Spiro’s TikTok video of her covering Finneas’ Break My Heart Again in 2022. “I did a bunch of meetings the week she reached out, and I was chatting so much shit because I had no idea what I was talking about,” Spiro recalls. “I’d just never met anyone like her. I knew I wanted to work with women, and she was so inspiring and hardworking, and our visions were so aligned.” Spiro is frank in her assessment of the make-up of the music industry landscape. “Women are absolutely not treated equally behind the scenes, in management, labels, studios, everywhere…” she says. “The term ‘boys club’ is very, very, true. It’s really alarming to see, and the further I’ve gone in my journey, the more I’ve noticed it. I really hope [things will improve], and they have changed for women who are front-facing and in the public eye. But I think the way women get treated behind the scenes is just awful.” Parsa emphasises the importance of the “almost 90% female” team they have built around Spiro, including senior director of A&R Aria McKnight, director of digital marketing Miya Ugursoy, SVP of publicity Lisa DiAngelo and more. “Sometimes I look around when we’re in a room and think, ‘It’s all women in here,’” Parsa says. “It’s also a young team, and we capitalise on that. It’s definitely unique and leads to direct conversations.” Maslin says her bond with Spiro is “much deeper than a traditional working relationship”. “I’ve managed Sienna since she was 16, so there’s an enormous amount of trust there,” Maslin says. “I think the role of a manager is ultimately to help create the conditions for an artist to thrive. That can mean pushing them, protecting them, or helping them navigate pressure or difficult decisions. It’s also about seeing the bigger picture, not just reacting to moments, but helping shape a career and identity.” Maslin also highlights the importance of “being the most honest person in the room”. “I know Sienna would say the same,” she adds. “My role is never to be a yes person or to allow the environment around an artist to become an echo chamber that feeds ego instead of potential. The job is to give honest feedback, even when it’s uncomfortable, because ultimately that is what helps an artist grow. There has to be somebody they can turn to who will tell them the truth without an agenda.” Right on cue, Spiro offers her thoughts. “I think a lot of people sometimes get distracted by new, shiny things, and Miriam doesn’t,” she says. “She’s completely my teammate and my equal. Maybe you just see my face in this, but it’s us two completely. Having someone there who protects and supports you, who is aligned with your vision and cares about you, the things around you and your artistry, is so important.” The latest example of the latter is the most emphatic yet. At a concise 10 songs, Spiro’s debut album Visitor excels most in the immediacy of its impact. As arrangements and choruses swell, Spiro’s vocal shines, while her lyrics often land with a satisfying thwack, like arrows from a bow. A line from Great Expectation serves to sum up the Sienna Spiro experience entirely, as she utters the words, ‘I sing just to know that I’m alive’. “I have struggled for a lot of my life to feel things, not in a victimised way, but it’s just, you know, the truth,” Spiro states. “I’ve grown up with a lot of depression. It’s a thing in my family, a chemical thing, and that comes with numbness. The way I’ve dealt with that is music, because it’s the thing that makes me feel the most. That was the last song I wrote for the album and that line is very self-explanatory and truthful.” Made in New York’s Electric Lady Studios, Abbey Road in London and Valentine Recording Studios in LA, Visitor was recorded with executive producer Omer Fedi, Blake Slatkin (SZA, Charli XCX), Emile Haynie (Lana Del Rey, Florence + The Machine), Yakob (Banks, Kali Uchis) and Michael Pollack (Rosalía, Lady Gaga). Composers Larry Gold (Al Green, Silk Sonic) and Peter Rotter contribute orchestral arrangements to a record that started life as an EP, only for the concept to grow to the extent that it needed more songs to do it justice. “It’s about the temporary nature of life, and what comes with being a visitor, which is the way I’ve viewed myself my whole life,” says Spiro, who ruminated on the idea while taking in a show at Smalls Jazz Club in New York in 2024, when the band introduced a piece about impermanence. “I’m just so aware of the feeling,” she posits. “I even find flowers sad because I just hate it when they die. I don’t really get involved in friendships or relationships that I feel are going to end, because it’s happened so much during my life.” Reflecting on the finished record, Spiro says, is “a weird feeling”, and when she explains why, her words offer a peek at the precision behind her craft. “I very much knew exactly what I wanted to make, and I guess it’s hard when you know that and you then need to figure out how you are going to get there,” she explains. Visitor, an album that sounds so assured you’re inclined to check it wasn’t released decades ago, shows the value of Spiro’s perfectionist streak. “The album is incredible, you can see the musicianship in her, and that it’s very focused,” smiles Lillia Parsa. “The key to her process is letting her find it and get there on her own.” “I think the emotional intelligence sets it apart,” Maslin opines. “Sienna has an ability to articulate very complicated feelings in a way that feels timeless rather than trend-led. There’s a maturity to her writing that people don’t necessarily expect from someone her age.” Maslin also makes it known that recording a Bond theme is “a combined dream” for her and Spiro. On this evidence, it’s by no means a far-fetched ambition. Parsa highlights Spiro’s “deep knowledge of music” and goes as far as to say she hasn’t witnessed an artist’s writing develop as Spiro’s has. Instead of pursuing promo opportunities early on, Parsa focused on studio time, honing Spiro’s sound. “Now, she’s bringing in great musicians and telling them how she wants the song to sound,” the president says. “She’s really in the weeds on it all, which is really interesting. It takes us maybe a little longer to make a song, but it’s because she’ll work on the same one for a really long time!” One such example is The Visitor, which took nine tries. “That song is so important,” says Spiro. “I’ve just felt like a visitor in so many different ways that I just wanted to do justice to every one. Every time I’d write it, I was like, ‘Oh, I missed out this bit…’ I really wanted to have everything covered, and I think I did that.” In January, in her first Music Week interview, Spiro, who is diagnosed with ADHD, said “being neurodivergent is like having a superpower” and we return to the subject today. “Where being neurodivergent comes in with the way I write is my perspective,” she says. “I’m very self-aware, like, too much. Sometimes I can’t enjoy things because I have to analyse them and hold myself to things, which means I have this overwhelming feeling of guilt a lot of the time.” Deciding to hang her debut album on the idea of feeling like a visitor brought about some difficult times. “It took a lot of self-awareness, and asking why I felt like that and when I had felt like that – like knowing I wasn’t permanent to people around me as a kid,” she says. “Time, You & Me is a song about using time wisely. Another example is He’s Not My Baby, I’m His. That’s about this situation with an older man that I was in, and I went way deeper into it as to why it happened, and [realised] it was probably because of having a child complex – of wanting to feel young, taken care of or understood, because I didn’t as a kid. You know?” Perhaps the most important line on the album arrives in The Visitor, when Spiro sings, ‘I want to be remembered’. “I’m so scared of being forgotten and being left behind,” she says, offering a concise explanation for a hard-hitting message. “I just want to last, and I want the things I do to last. It’s a thing that looms over my head all the time.” Right now, in the era of streaming, social media and tech, building artists that will stand the test of time may be the biggest challenge facing record labels. Sienna Spiro herself suggests as much when we put it to her that her aim of “making things exist for longer and mean something, rather than pumping out loads of small things that don’t last” might seem at odds with the industry climate. “Yeah… literally!” she laughs. “It’s just this generation, to be honest – my generation. Everything’s so quick. But I don’t think that way; if you do, then you are fuelling the fire. It’s unhealthy for any musician to think that way.” Spiro – who says she “will always do my own personal social media just ’cause I’m a control freak” – spells out a simple solution. “Make what you want, what you think will last, what you love, what you feel like you’ll never grow out of,” she offers. “I think when you do that, people gravitate towards authenticity – they just do. We’re humans. It’s nature.” Given this stance, it’s no shock to hear her views on AI, which she makes clear has no place in her music. “I love real instruments, real music, doing things that feel human,” she says. “In the music that I love, you can hear the mistakes, the human fuck-ups that AI would never be able to replicate, and that is what real music and musicianship is. I think AI music is shit. Like, it’s just never going to be good. I’m not really sure why someone would use it, rather than just using their brain. Why would anyone want to listen to an AI song?” All of which makes the way Spiro – a 20-year-old obsessed with jazz clubs and vintage style who adorns her Instagram posts with tracks by the likes of Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald – is cutting through all the more fascinating. “What Sienna connects to in older music culture is intimacy and timelessness,” says Miriam Maslin. “She translates it into a modern context rather than trying to recreate the past literally. There’s something really refreshing about younger audiences discovering references outside of hyper-digital culture. Her world feels nostalgic but modern, and jazz plays a huge part in that. The live shows, especially, play a huge role in making those influences feel immersive and accessible rather than intimidating.” As for who Spiro’s fans are, Maslin says the net is cast wide. “What’s really beautiful is how varied her audience already is,” she says. “We have younger fans discovering her on TikTok, but we also have older listeners connecting. When we did the show at the Royal Albert Hall [for David Attenborough’s 100 Years On Planet Earth], she gained a lot of new fans.” When considering the question of how Spiro’s audience is blooming in such a way, Tom March leans back in his chair. “Wow, it’s a big question,” he breathes. “If you have an incredible artist with an incredible voice and great songs, then that happens. Right from the beginning, it’s just been about putting Sienna’s voice in front of people.” March says knowing that her appeal was so instant for the team meant they knew it would be for the wider world, too. “It can start with your strategy across social media,” he says. “And with every performance, whether it was a cover or an original, we just saw the numbers growing and growing, and people were talking about her. It really is about Sienna and her talent; then it’s our job to come with the right strategy and global release plan, and shine a light on her voice through live performance, promo, content, interviews… We led with her voice, and then started to weave in her personality.” Parsa points to a performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (“a full body shiver”) in the US and a slot on The Jonathan Ross Show (“she crushed it!”), while March confides that his mother texted her approval after the Royal Albert Hall gig. “My mum has now discovered Sienna Spiro!” he chuckles. “Now it’s about how we keep finding these incredible opportunities and moments.” March also pays tribute to the UMG operation. “It really does show the power of what happens when the whole global company comes together when we have a great artist like this,” he adds. Spiro’s debut album looms as the next staging post, with her team united on the message that it will be one of many more milestones to come. “I think success looks very different now,” says Maslin. “Of course everyone wants commercial success, but longevity is ultimately the goal. The industry moves so quickly these days that I think building an artist with a lasting connection to people matters far more than a first-week statistic. I want the album to perform well, but I want Sienna to become one of those artists who leaves a lasting imprint on people and evolves for decades.” “She is the voice of a generation,” says Parsa, simply. “So we’re very excited.” “We are not aiming to peak in week one,” adds March. “We are aiming to have a great showing in the charts and then build. It will be borne out by how we’ve developed through the campaign, but this is about where we are in Q1 next year, much more than when the album comes out. Sometimes I know the album coming out is going to be the peak; this is not going to be the peak for Sienna.” Growth, it emerges, is the axis around which the campaign revolves. “‘Breaking’ is a subjective word,” March says. “I’m not looking at, ‘Can we try every trick in the book to put an album at No.1?’ It’s all about sustaining. And if we do that well, by the end of Q1 next year, I think we’ll be in a place where, hopefully, millions more people around the world know who she is.” With that in mind, amidst the wave of UK acts including Olivia Dean, Sam Fender, PinkPantheress, Lola Young, EsDeeKid and more enjoying global success, Spiro is an exciting prospect. “The UK keeps producing unbelievable artists,” grins March. “It has never felt hotter, and what Sienna’s achieved in such a short space of time is pretty exceptional. I can’t think of too many artists that have exploded on the global stage from the UK and with so many songs [in a similar timeframe]. So it is very unique, but she is very unique.” Spiro highlights a “rise of amazing musicians who use real instrumentation and are very honest, a lot of whom are British”. “It is refreshing to hear,” she says. “And British music is so important. Some of the greatest artists in the world have been British: The Beatles, Adele, Amy Winehouse… There’s an honesty and integrity to British music that is important. I really love when the world discovers a new British artist, and I feel very honoured to be British and be part of people recognising British music.” On the subject of Britishness, we circle back to where we began. It turns out that Parsa and March have enjoyed tea and biscuits with Spiro on multiple occasions, although not enough for Parsa to be familiar with one of the giants of the market. “A Digestive? I don’t know what that is!” she admits, prompting a closing promise from March, amidst much laughter. “You know what?” he says. “I’ve got some at home, I’m going to bring you some Digestives, Lillia. Milk chocolate, dark chocolate… All day long. I do love a Digestive!” It’s tempting to wonder what Spiro might make of this exchange but, as she told us at the outset, she is about much more than just biscuits…

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