Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ No. 1 on Billboard 200 for Fifth Week, Holiday Albums Jingle Into Top 10
Written by djfrosty on December 4, 2022
Taylor Swift’s Midnights logs a fifth week atop the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Dec. 10), while a flurry of holiday albums jingles in the top 10. Midnights earned 151,000 equivalent album units in the tracking week ending Dec. 1 in the U.S. (down 15%), according to Luminate. The last Swift album with more weeks at No. 1 is Folklore, which notched eight nonconsecutive weeks atop the list in 2020. Since then, she’s claimed four more chart-topping albums: Evermore (four weeks at No. 1 in 2020-21), Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (two weeks, 2021), Red (Taylor’s Version) (one week in 2021) and Midnights (five weeks so far).
Also in the top 10, catalog holiday albums powered by streaming activity make waves as Michael Bublé’s former No. 1 Christmas rises 10-4, Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song vaults 18-8 and Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack jumps 17-10.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Dec. 10, 2022-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (Dec. 6). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Midnights’ 151,000 equivalent album units earned, SEA units comprise 89,000 (down 24%, equaling 117.93 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks), album sales comprise 60,000 (up 5%) and SEA units comprise 2,000 (down 6%).
Five former No. 1s are Nos. 2-6 on the latest Billboard 200 chart. Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss holds at No. 2 (93,000 equivalent album units earned; down 22%), Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti is stationary at No. 3 (52,000 units; down 7%), Bublé’s Christmas climbs 10-4 (47,000 units; up 55%), Lil Baby’s It’s Only Me falls 4-5 (43,000 units; down 10%) and Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album dips 5-6 (40,000 units; down 3%). The Weeknd’s compilation The Highlights descends 6-7 with 40,000 units (up 2%).
Cole’s The Christmas Song rises 18-8 with 36,000 equivalent album units (up 58%). The album, which includes such seasonal favorites like the title track and “O Holy Night,” peaked at No. 6 two holiday seasons ago, on the Jan. 2, 2021-dated chart. Harry Styles’ chart-topping Harry’s House falls 8-9 with 35,000 units (up 5%). Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack jumps 17-10 with 33,000 units (up 45%). The seasonal set peaked at No. 6 nearly a year ago on the Jan. 1, 2022-dated list.
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.