Two Pink Floyd masterpieces — Wish You Were Here and The Dark Side of the Moon — both return to the U.K.’s Album Downloads chart. UNITED KINGDOM – JANUARY 01: Photo of PINK FLOYD; L-R: Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Syd Barrett, Rick Wright – posed, group shot, standing behind mixing desk in recording studio control room (Photo by Andrew Whittuck/Redferns)
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It is unusual to see Pink Floyd appear on the charts in the United Kingdom with only one or two albums at a time. The group remains one of the most successful and beloved acts in rock history, as well as a commercial juggernaut in its home country decades after many of its most famous compositions were first released.
Pink Floyd often occupies multiple rankings with several collections — and sometimes hit songs — at the same time. This week, a handful of the band’s classic blockbusters continue to sell well enough to appear across a variety of rosters. Two of its most celebrated projects even manage to return to the same ranking together, where they land only a few spaces apart from one another.
Pink Floyd Sends Two Albums Back to the Same Chart
The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here both reenter the Official Album Downloads chart this week. The Dark Side of the Moon comes back in at No. 41, missing the top 40 by just one space. Wish You Were Here returns at No. 52, settling slightly underneath the upper half of the 100-position roster.
The Official Album Downloads chart ranks the top-selling downloads – looking only at albums and EPs – in the U.K. It does not include streaming activity or purchases of physical formats, focusing only on those sets bought digitally on sites like iTunes.
Pink Floyd Returns After a Short Absence
Neither Pink Floyd classic had been absent from the Official Album Downloads tally for very long. Wish You Were Here slipped away after the first week of July, while The Dark Side of the Moon was last seen in the middle of the month.
The two albums have managed nearly identical runs on the list, when looking at time spent on the tally. The version of The Dark Side of the Moon that is currently a bestseller has spent 66 weeks on the Official Album Downloads chart, while Wish You Were Here has scored only two additional frames.
English bassist and singer Roger Waters performing with Pink Floyd at the Knebworth Festival, Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, 5th July 1975. (Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images)
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Four Versions of The Dark Side of the Moon Have Charted
Only one version of Wish You Were Here has reached the Official Album Downloads chart. It arrived in April 2006, at the same time as the first edition of The Dark Side of the Moon to land on the ranking.
Throughout the two decades since then, multiple versions of The Dark Side of the Moon have appeared on the tally. That sometimes happens in the U.K. when an album is reissued with additional material or altered packaging or perhaps a slightly different title that allows it to be counted separately.
Four iterations of The Dark Side of the Moon – one of the bestselling albums of all time – have reached the Official Album Downloads chart throughout the years. The version that returns at No. 41 this week first debuted in November 2024. It may be up to 66 frames on the tally, and when all four editions of the bestseller are combined, The Dark Side of the Moon has spent a total of 333 weeks on the downloads register in the U.K.
Pink Floyd Has Never Hit No. 1 on the Downloads Chart
Somewhat surprisingly, Pink Floyd has never reached No. 1 on the Official Album Downloads chart, though the band has come extremely close on multiple occasions. At Pompeii – MCMLXXII and The Endless River both missed the summit by one space. Wish You Were Here followed closely behind, topping out at No. 3.
The first version of The Dark Side of the Moon to reach the tally climbed as high as No. 8. Later editions also reached the top 40, though none of those subsequent releases managed to break into the top 10.
Here are all of Pink Floyd’s top 10s on the Official Album Downloads chart.
- Animals
- At Pompeii – MCMLXXII
- Live at Knebworth 1990
- The Dark Side of the Moon
- The Endless River
- Wish You Were Here
Wish You Were Here Recently Passed 600 Weeks
A Japan Air DC-8 jet airliner has been chartered by the British progressive music group Pink Floyd to take the group and their equipment to Japan for a 12 day tour of major cities. The group, Nicholas Mason, Roger Waters, Richard Wright and David Gilmore, together with 16 members of their company, will have the 114 seat aircraft to themselves for the 17 hour flight over the North Pole to Tokyo via Anchorage, 3rd March 1972. (Photo by Peter Stone/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
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Aside from the roster where it returns, Wish You Were Here appears on only one additional ranking in the U.K. The project slips three spaces from No. 25 to No. 28 on the Official Rock & Metal Albums tally. The genre-specific roster tracks the most-consumed rock and metal full-lengths only in the country. Wish You Were Here recently passed 600 weeks on the list.
The Dark Side of the Moon Appears on Four U.K. Charts
The Dark Side of the Moon lives on three additional rankings beyond the Official Album Downloads chart. It holds steady on two of them and declines slightly on the third.
The set remains at Nos. 15 and 86 on the Official Rock & Metal Albums and Official Albums Sales charts, respectively. It slips to No. 91 on the Official Physical Albums ranking, nearly falling off of the tally entirely.
Pink Floyd Returns With One Song
Pink Floyd appears on only one songs ranking in the U.K. this week, and the band barely manages to find space on that sole roster. “Rise Up,” the group’s collaboration with Andriy Khlyvnyuk, returns to the Official Physical Singles chart at No. 95. The song has now spent 66 weeks as one of the top-selling tunes on any physical format – CD, cassette and vinyl are all included in the roster’s methodology – and previously worked its way to No. 1.
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