Cliff Richard albums discography information

Cliff Richard albums discography
Richard performing at the Royal Albert Hall in 2021
Studio albums	49 (47 UK + 2 Germany)
Live albums	11 (9 UK + 2 Japan)
Compilation albums	17 (UK)
EPs	47 (UK)
Soundtrack albums	7
Cast recording albums	3 (UK)
Remix albums	1
Budget compilations	19 (UK)
Gospel compilations	8 (7 UK + 1 US)
Foreign compilations	22
Box sets	12

The albums discography of English singer Cliff Richard consists of 49 studio albums (47 English and 2 German), seven soundtrack albums, 11 live albums, three cast recording albums, 17 mainstream compilation albums, one remix album, 12 box sets, eight gospel compilation albums and 47 EPs. It also includes numerous budget/mid-price compilation albums, repackaged albums, and foreign compilation albums (i.e. albums that were not released in the UK).

It is claimed Cliff Richard's worldwide sales are 260 million, which makes him the second highest selling British male solo artist worldwide of all time, after Elton John. Richard, together with his backing band The Shadows, were particularly dominant in the UK from 1958 to 1963 during the pre-Beatles era.

Richard's debut album, Cliff, was released in April 1959. It was recorded live at Abbey Road Studios before a small invited audience. It reached number four in the UK Albums Chart, spending over 30 non-consecutive weeks in the chart (then a top ten). His first studio album Cliff Sings was released in November 1959, with backing evenly split between the Shadows and the Norrie Paramor orchestra. Released in October 1960, Me and My Shadows was his first studio album in which he was backed by the Shadows fully throughout and without any cover songs.

After a string of three studio albums that peaked at number two, Richard achieved his first number-one with 21 Today in October 1961. The Young Ones soundtrack followed soon after in December 1961, spending six weeks at number one in the UK and becoming the first UK soundtrack to sell more than one million copies including international sales.^[1] In January 1963, the Summer Holiday soundtrack was released and became the peak of Richard's album success in the early 1960's, spending 14 weeks at number one in the UK with major success internationally (outside the US).^[2] As the Beatles popularity took off, Richard's album chart success dropped off progressively, although his Wonderful Life soundtrack of 1964 reached number two, and most of his other studio albums continued to reach the top 10 through to 1966's Kinda Latin and Finders Keepers soundtrack.

Towards the end of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, Richard's album sales progressively waned and it was not until his 1976 album I'm Nearly Famous that Richard changed the focus of his recording career from singles to albums, leading to his first top-ten album of the 1970s. This led Richard to have a resurgence in popularity through the rest of the 1970s and 1980s in a period that saw his albums I'm Nearly Famous, Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile and I'm No Hero break the top 100 of the Billboard 200. Since 1987, Richard has reached the top 20 with all his studio albums and achieved his most recent number one with The Album in 1993.

In 2018, it was Cliff's 60th year in the music industry and he released his first studio album of new recordings in 14 years, titled Rise Up, which was recorded after a battle with the BBC. In 2020, Richard released his 105th album, Music... The Air That I Breathe. The album entered the UK Albums Chart at number three, which saw Richard become the first artist to make the top five of the albums chart for eight consecutive decades.^[3] Richard's album, Christmas with Cliff, was released in November 2022 and is his third album consisting of Christmas music. Richard has achieved seven number-one albums on the UK Albums Chart in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and has amassed 30 top-five albums and 47 top-ten albums.

Alongside his main 46 studio albums, Richard has also recorded two albums solely recorded in German which were only released in Germany (and German-speaking countries). Richard has also released innumerable compilation albums. In the discography below, the more significant of these have been split into sections. Under the 'Main compilation albums' section are the compilation albums that were released in the UK and charted. The second, 'Budget compilation albums', are the albums released on dedicated budget album labels or released at prices less than full price product (such as mid-price releases). Also included in this section are notable albums released by specialist re-issue record labels, which usually contain previously unreleased material or material previously unreleased on CD. The third section, 'Gospel compilation albums', consists of albums dedicated to gospel tracks only, or released by Christian music labels for the Contemporary Christian music market. The final section, 'Foreign compilation albums' consists of albums that were not released in the UK, but were released elsewhere and charted. The discography below also lists repackaged albums which are previously released albums, typically retitled, given a new cover and released with the same or predominantly the same track listing.

In 2023, marking his 65th anniversary, he released the album Cliff with Strings: My Kinda Life, a reworking of his classic hits reimagined in an orchestral arrangement.^[4]