Mariah breaks Elvis chart record

Mariah Carey arrived in London this week to promote her single.

Singer Mariah Carey has beaten Elvis Presley's US chart record by scoring the 18th number one of her career.

Touch My Body, from her new album E=MC2, is the new number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and has also topped its download chart.

The achievement means she has now surpassed Elvis Presley's 17 number ones. The Beatles are in front on 20.

"I'm just feeling really happy and grateful," the 38-year-old performer told the Associated Press.

But she played down comparisons with Presley and The Beatles.

"I really can never put myself in the category of people who have not only revolutionised music but also changed the world, that's a completely different era and time," she said.

"In terms of my ethnicity, always feeling like an outsider, always feeling different... for me it's about saying, 'Thank you Lord, for giving me the faith to believe in myself when other people had written me off."

But she added that she was now at the most enjoyable point of her career, and trying to set sales records was not a priority for her.

"I've gone through enough of my life worrying about that kind of thing," she said.

Despite her US chart success, Carey has only reached the UK's top spot on two occasions - both times with cover versions.

The first was Without You, originally recorded by Badfinger and made popular by Harry Nilsson, which hit number one in 1994.

Six years later, she topped the chart with Phil Collins's Against All Odds, which she sang with Irish balladeers Westlife.

Madonna also made US chart history this week, when her track 4 Minutes, featuring Justin Timberlake, became her 37th top 10 hit, breaking another record set by Elvis Presley.