Taylor Swift Returns to No. 1 on Artist 100, Thanks to Exclusive Record Store Day Release

Taylor Swift returns to No. 1 (up from No. 3) on the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated May 6), reigning as the top musical act in the United States for a record-extending 65th week. She boasts 10 albums on the latest Billboard 200, including her new Record Store Day-exclusive vinyl release, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions.

The live acoustic album, which was issued on vinyl (its first physical release of any kind) for Record Store Day (April 22) at participating independent record stores, debuts at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 75,000 equivalent album units earned, all from vinyl sales, in the April 21-27 tracking week, according to Luminate.

Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions is the companion album to the Disney+ documentary film of the same name, released in 2020.

Swift charts 10 total albums on the Billboard 200, including three in the top 10. The last act to land at least three albums in the top 10 at the same time was Prince in 2016, following his death. Here’s a look at all of Swift’s albums on the latest list:

Rank, Title
No. 3, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions
No. 4, Midnights
No. 10, Lover
No. 12, Folklore
No. 21, 1989
No. 22, reputation
No. 27, Red (Taylor’s Version)
No. 29, Evermore
No. 41, Fearless (Taylor’s Version)
No. 66, Speak Now

Since the Billboard 200 combined separate stereo and mono rankings in August 1963, Prince is the only other artist to chart at least 10 albums in the top 100 in a single week, as he posthumously totaled 15 in the region on the May 14, 2016, survey.

Among other Artist 100 chart moves, Agust D, aka Suga of BTS, re-enters at No. 3, a new high (following a week at No. 4 in 2020), as his new solo LP D-Day arrives at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 (140,000 units). It becomes his first solo top 10 album; BTS has notched seven.

Five BTS members have hit the Artist 100’s top 10: Jimin (No. 1, one week), Agust D (No. 3), RM (No. 6), j-hope (No. 9) and JIN (No. 10). BTS has ruled for 21 weeks, the most among groups since the chart began in 2014.

The Artist 100 measures artist activity across key metrics of music consumption, blending album and track sales, radio airplay and streaming to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.

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