Rick Astley has scored his first number one in 29 years

Rick Astley has achieved his first Number 1 in 29 years, after winning a closely fought chart battle against Tom Odell.

The singer achieved the top spot in the album charts with '50', his first record in 11 years - but faced stiff competition from Odell's second album 'Wrong Crowd', with the Number 1 spot changing several times over the last week.

Astley took an early lead in the first two days of sales, but Tom Odell had overtaken him by Monday.

However, his lead was reduced to just 14 chart sales by Wednesday - allowing Astley to claw back the top spot on Thursday to finish 3,700 combined chart sales ahead of his unlikely rival.

Describing the achievement, Astley told OfficialCharts.com: "It’s amazing, it’s incredible, it’s been a very very VERY long time since this happened before, I’m ecstatic, I couldn’t be happier!”

But he was full of praise for Tom Odell - and promised to buy his new record.

"I like Tom Odell, I bought his last album, and I’m gonna buy this one as well, but I’ve held off from buying it this week!”, Astley said.

“It’s amazing to be mentioned in the same breath as him, he’s one of the big breakthrough artists of the last few years so it’s amazing to be put in that kind of category.”

Astley also spoke of how he had been congratulated on the achievements by the likes of Elton John.

He said: "Elton John’s sent a few texts over the last couple of days and just called me now to celebrate and said ‘just make sure you enjoy it.'"