Kylie Minogue has become the first female artist to have number one albums in the UK across five decades.

Her 15th studio album, Disco, was released this week and notched up the best opening week for any UK release this year with 55,000 chart sales, the Official Charts Company said.

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"I don't know what to say, I'm lost for words," she told fans in a video with the Official Charts Company.

"Thank you to everyone who supported this album and this campaign, it means the world to me and I'm so glad that it's found its way to your hearts."

Minogue is the second solo artist to reach the five-consecutive-decade milestone, an accolade she shares with Bruce Springsteen.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon (The Beatles), David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) and Paul Weller (Jam, Style Council) have also had number one albums across five consecutive decades, either solo or with their bands.

The Beatles, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan have also had chart-topping albums released across five decades, though not consecutively.

Before Minogue's 2020 album was released, she told Reuters the idea of hitting that record "sounds crazy to me — I'm 52 years old".

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Disco also marks Minogue's eighth UK number one album, taking her one ahead of Cliff Richard, Elton John and George Michael.

Her first chart-topping album was Kylie in 1988, followed by Enjoy Yourself (1989), Greatest Hits (1992), Fever (2001), Aphrodite (2010), Golden (2018) and Step Back In Time: The Definitive Collection (2019).

Disco (2020) was recorded mostly at her London home during lockdown, a process Minogue described as "very different" to the rest of her career.

"None of us knew what we were walking into," she told 7.30 last month.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.

Stuck inside for the most part, Minogue wanted to continue working, so found a microphone and a recording interface in an old cupboard and kept writing with her collaborators via Zoom.

"I was juggling a lot, though, because I was on my own, basically," she said.

"I felt like I was producing the whole thing.

"So it was initially very different, but we settled in."

Minogue said the album was filled with 70s disco lyrical references, sounds and melodies with some 80s flavours and call-backs to her own albums of the 2000s.

"Mostly, it's escapism," she said, with some elements of "melancholy and longing".

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ABC/wires