Taylor Swift’s ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ & ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ Are Top Two Billboard 200 Albums of 2024

Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department and 1989 (Taylor’s Version) finish as the Nos. 1 and 2 titles on the 2024 year-end Billboard 200 Albums recap. It’s the only time that the year’s top two albums are by the same act since 1967, when The Monkees’ More of the Monkees and its self-titled set were Nos. 1 and 2. (The Billboard 200 began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in 1956.)

Swift becomes the first act to have the year’s top album in four different years, following her year-end wins with reputation (2018), 1989 (2015) and Fearless (2009).

During the 2024 chart year (Oct. 28, 2023-Oct. 19, 2024-dated charts), The Tortured Poets Department racked up 15 nonconsecutive weeks atop the weekly Billboard 200 list. (It returned to No. 1 on the Dec. 14, 2024-dated chart for a 16th frame at the top.) When it claimed a 15th week at No. 1, it tied Carole King’s 1971 release Tapestry for the third-most weeks at No. 1 among albums by women. Only Adele’s 21 (24 weeks in 2011-12) and the Whitney Houston-led soundtrack to The Bodyguard (20 weeks in 1992-93) have earned more weeks at No. 1 among women.

1989 (Taylor’s Version), the fourth of Swift’s re-recorded studio albums, places at No. 2 on the year-end Billboard 200 albums chart. The set premiered at No. 1 on the weekly Billboard 200 chart dated Nov. 11, 2023, and spent a total of six nonconsecutive weeks in the lead on the list during the eligibility period. It remained in the weekly top 40 of the chart through the rest of the 2024 chart year, save for two weeks.

Swift goes even further in the top 10 on the the 2024 year-end Billboard 200 Albums recap, with Lover and Midnights at Nos. 9 and 10, marking the first time that an act has finished with four of the year’s top 10 albums. (Lover and Midnights were Nos. 9 and 2, respectively, on the 2023 year-end ranking.)

Half of 2024’s top 10 albums are holdovers from 2023’s year-end top 10, including one that’s been among the year-end top 10 for four years straight: Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album, which was released in 2021. It’s No. 8, after being No. 5 in 2023, No. 3 in 2022 and No. 1 in 2021. It’s the first title to spend four years, consecutively or otherwise, in the year-end Billboard 200 Albums top 10 since the original Broadway cast recording of My Fair Lady (1956-59). In recent years, albums tend to stay longer on the weekly chart, and appear on the year-end ranking repeatedly, thanks to sustained streaming activity.

Three songs from The Tortured Poets Department dot the year-end Hot 100 Songs ranking: “Fortnight,” featuring Post Malone (No. 22); “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” (No. 35); and “Down Bad” (No. 99). “Fortnight” debuted atop the weekly Billboard Hot 100 in May and spent two weeks in the lead. The same week it opened at No. 1, “Down Bad” and “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” debuted and peaked at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively.

As for the non-Swift albums in the year-end Billboard 200 albums roundup: No. 3 is Wallen’s One Thing at a Time (it was tops in 2023), Noah Kahan’s Stick Season is No. 4 (his first appearance in the year-end top 10), Drake’s For All the Dogs is No. 5, SZA’s SOS is No. 6 (it was No. 3 a year ago), Zach Bryan’s self-titled album is No. 7 and Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album is No. 8.

Billboard’s year-end music recaps represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts from Oct. 28, 2023, through Oct. 19, 2024. Rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the titles appears on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology detail, and the October-October time period, account for some of the different between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate.

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