Paul McCartney’s Egypt Station Is His First Number One Album Since 1982

Paul McCartney’s latest album Egypt Station has debuted at the top spot on the Billboard 200 charts, his first chart-topping U.S. release in over 36 years. The album has sold the equivalent of 153,000 units since its release on Sept. 7 via Capitol Records, making it the first of McCartney’s solo albums to debut in the top spot, though it’s far from the first to reach it: He’s had eight albums in total reach number one during his solo and Wings careers. The last album of his to do so was 1982’s Tug of War.

Speaking of, it’s not hard to imagine that McCartney’s recent publicity run, group masturbation stories and all, had something to do with the unequivocal success of the record. McCartney’s stories were a radical break from the usual carefully constructed facade the world had gotten to know over the decades, and it’s entirely possible that his candor helped put the record at the forefront of the public imagination—when they weren’t thinking of McCartney skewering frogs on barbed wire, that is.