Chart Beat
Page: 192
Taylor Swift once again crowds the top 10 of Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, as the superstar has five titles lodged in the top 10 of the Dec. 23-dated tally. It’s the fifth time she’s held at least half of the top 10, with three of those weeks happening this month.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Her most recent release, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), is a non-mover at No. 2 with 65,000 copies sold (up 21%) in the tracking week ending Dec. 14, according to Luminate. Folklore rises 5-4 (24,000; up 17%), Midnights climbs 8-5 (24,000; up 29%), Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) steps 7-6 (22,000; up 15%) and Lover returns to the top 10, ascending 12-8 (20,000; up 50%). The five former No. 1s all experience gains largely due to sales of their vinyl configurations, as retailers continue to promote music on vinyl during the holiday shopping season.
Swift isn’t the only big news in the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart, as Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday 2 debuts at No. 1 with 92,000 copies sold. As earlier reported, that marks the biggest sales week for any rap album by a woman in the 2020s decade and the largest sales week for an R&B/hip-hop album by a woman in 2023. In total, Pink Friday 2 is Minaj’s third No. 1 on Top Album Sales, following Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded in 2012 and Pink Friday in 2011.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
As for the rest of the top 10 on the new Top Album Sales chart, ATEEZ’s The World EP. Fin: Will moves to No. 3 (30,000; down 79%) after debuting on top a week ago, Stray Kids’ former leader ROCK-STAR falls 4-7 (20,000; down 8%), Olivia Rodrigo’s chart-topping Guts rises 11-9 (19,000; up 40%, mostly from vinyl sales) and Dolly Parton’s former No. 1 Rockstar is a non-mover at No. 10 (18,000; down 4%).
In the week ending Dec. 14, there were 3.075 million albums sold in the U.S. (up 13.6% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 2.713 million (up 15.8%) and digital albums comprised 362,000 (up 1.1%).
There were 1.058 million CD albums sold in the week ending Dec. 14 (up 4.7% week-over-week) and 1.640 million vinyl albums sold (up 24.3%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 34.921 million (up 3.3% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 46.149 million (up 16.4%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 99.256 million (up 6.2% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 81.604 million (up 10.3%) and digital album sales total 17.652 million (down 9.2%).
Billie Eilish’s “When the Party’s Over” returns to Billboard’s charts thanks to its sample in “Are You Gone Already,” the first track on Nicki Minaj’s new album, Pink Friday 2. The 2018 track bows at No. 25 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs ranking dated Dec. 23. (Older songs are eligible for Billboard’s multi-metric […]
JID’s “Surround Sound” tops the TikTok Billboard Top 50 for a second week with Lana Del Rey and Nicki Minaj securing spots in the Top 10. Tetris Kelly:JID holds on to the top spot while Lana Del Rey and Nicki Minaj break into the Top 10. JID’s “Surround Sound” featuring 21 Savage and Baby Tate […]
JID’s “Surround Sound” remains at No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 dated Dec. 23, holding off a challenge from a pair of Christmas songs in Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and The Ronettes’ “Sleigh Ride.”
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The TikTok Billboard Top 50 is a weekly ranking of the most popular songs on TikTok in the United States based on creations, video views and user engagement. The latest chart reflects activity Dec. 11-17. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
“Surround Sound,” which features 21 Savage and Baby Tate, maintains its reign on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, leading for a second week as the viral song continues to be used in a variety of ways, chiefly its Ceiling Challenge in which creators tape a phone or camera above them and do a choreographed dance below.
The Dec. 8-14 Billboard chart tracking week saw “Surround Sound” leap another 11% to 9.8 million official U.S. streams, according to Luminate.
Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” (which concurrently returns to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, as previously reported) and the PhatCap! trap remix of The Ronettes’ “Sleigh Ride” rank at Nos. 2 and 3 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, respectively. Four of the top 10 are holiday tunes, with Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” at No. 6 and Wham!’s “Last Christmas” at No. 8 also appearing.
Six-week No. 1 “My Love Mine All Mine” by Mitski remains at No. 4, while the top five receives a new challenger for the top of the tally in Lana Del Rey’s “Let the Light In,” featuring Father John Misty, at No. 5.
“Let the Light In,” from Del Rey’s latest album Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, has vaulted in streams in recent weeks via a trend that involves tying a pink bow to various people, animals or objects for what they call a coquette aesthetic.
It’s not the only song from either artist on the latest list. Del Rey’s “Margaret,” this time featuring Bleachers, appears at No. 13, while Father John Misty’s “Real Love Baby” ranks at No. 48. “Margaret” draws closer to the top 10 after initially scoring virality in October with users (mostly women) explaining what their “Roman Empire is,” referencing the trend in which women asked men how often they thought about the Roman Empire.
“Margaret” concurrently returns to the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart at No. 45, its first time on the ranking since its debut (at No. 43) in April.
The TikTok Billboard Top 50’s highest debut of the week belongs to Nicki Minaj’s “Everybody,” featuring Lil Uzi Vert, which bows at No. 9. The new song is the 11th track on Minaj’s latest album, Pink Friday 2, which simultaneously bows at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
“Everybody” isn’t the only song from Pink Friday 2 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50; “FTCU” debuts at No. 18. But “Everybody,” which samples Junior Senior’s “Move Your Feet,” has users doing just that on TikTok, with a variety of dancing clips among the sound’s top uploads of the week.
It bows at No. 26 on the Hot 100, the top debut from Pink Friday 2, via 16 million streams and 6,000 downloads.
Finally, Timothee Chalamet makes an appearance on a Billboard chart thanks to his rendition of “Pure Imagination” from the movie Wonka, which debuts at No. 27 after the film’s Dec. 15 premiere. Usages of the song include footage of the movie, the red carpet at its premiere, reviews of Chalamet’s singing voice and more.
See the full TikTok Billboard Top 50 here, also featuring debuts from NLE Choppa, Jhene Aiko, Trippie Redd and more. You can also tune in each Friday to SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio (channel 4) to hear the premiere of the chart’s top 10 countdown at 3 p.m. ET, with reruns heard throughout the week.
On Dec. 21, 1985, George Strait’s “The Chair” hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. It became the seventh of his record 44 career leaders on the list. Strait tallied 18 Hot Country Songs No. 1s in the 1980s, 17 in the ‘90s and nine in the 2000s. He first led with “Fool […]
A song written in 1857 by an artist born in 1915 makes its first appearance in the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 in 2023. Frank Sinatra’s version of “Jingle Bells” dashes from No. 28 to No. 20 on the Hot 100 dated Dec. 23. The song drew 16.9 million official U.S. streams (up […]
With 2023 coming to a close, Billboard‘s year-end charts have finally touched down. But when were the year-end charts first put into practice, and how are they measured? The latest episode of Billboard Explains dives into the final charts of the calendar year, with some help from Billboard‘s Managing Director of Charts & Data Operations Keith Caulfield.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The annual year-end charts were launched back in the 1940s, and have become a staple of the magazine and website since. The end-of-year tallies measure metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor from charts dated Nov, 19, 2022, to Oct 21, 2023. Technological advancements have allowed this process to change throughout the years, but according Caulfield, the process can be simplified as such: “You take all of the combined performance for all of the songs, artists, albums on a particular chart throughout that chart year, add them all together and then you get a bunch of numbers, and that, generally speaking, is what the year-end version of what that chart looks like.”
While the data-collection process is both rigorous and regimented, surprises sometimes happen. Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” was crowned the top song on the 2021 year-end Billboard Hot 100 chart, despite it never hitting No. 1. Though the track never crowned the Hot 100, the song’s many weeks on the tally (77 during the tracking period) allowed it to have more “points” than a song that, say, reached No. 1, but was at the summit for only a week.
“It’s not always about where you peaked at on the chart during the chart year, it’s your continued performance throughout the entire year that ultimately tells the story of where you end up on the year end chart,” Caulfield adds.
Visit Billboard‘s 2023 year-end charts here and watch the full episode above.
After the video, catch up on more Billboard Explains videos and learn about how Beyoncé arrived at Renaissance, the evolution of girl groups, BBMAs, NFTs, SXSW, the magic of boy bands, American Music Awards, the Billboard Latin Music Awards, the Hot 100 chart, how R&B/hip-hop became the biggest genre in the U.S., how festivals book their lineups, Billie Eilish’s formula for success, the history of rap battles, nonbinary awareness in music, the Billboard Music Awards, the Free Britney movement, rise of K-pop in the U.S., why Taylor Swift is re-recording her first six albums, the boom of hit all-female collaborations, how Grammy nominees and winners are chosen, why songwriters are selling their publishing catalogs, how the Super Bowl halftime show is booked and why Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” was able to shoot to No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Bad Bunny picks up his 28th top 10 on Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart as “Mónaco” pushes 16-4 on the list dated Dec. 23. “Mónaco” takes the Greatest Gainer honor of the week with a 46% gain in audience impressions, to 7.42 million, earned in the U.S. during the Dec. 8-14 tracking week, according to Luminate. […]
Doja Cat’s “Agora Hills” grabs the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Rhythmic Airplay chart on the list dated Dec. 23. The new champ jumps from No. 3 after a 12% gain in plays that made it the most-played song on U.S. monitored rhythmic radio stations in the tracking week of Dec. 8 – 14, according […]
The huge week for Nicki Minaj and her Pink Friday 2 album includes a milestone achievement on Billboard’s Hot Rap Songs chart, where she captures her 50th top 10 on the genre list, tying for the third-most among all acts. The superstar hits the mark thanks to three new tracks from Pink Friday 2, which debuts at No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 and Top Rap Albums charts.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Minaj concurrently nabs her 48th, 49th and 50th top 10 visits on the multimetric Hot Rap Songs chart, which blends streaming, radio airplay and sales into its rankings with the debuts of “Everybody,” featuring Lil Uzi Vert (No. 3), “FTCU” (No. 5) and “Barbie Dangerous” (No. 10). With the trio’s showing in the top tier, Minaj ties Kanye West for the third-most top 10s on Hot Rap Songs, which launched in 1989. A pair of familiar names are the only acts with more than 50 appearances in the upper region – Minaj’s frequent collaborators, Drake (133) and Lil Wayne (54).
As Minaj moves to take a share of the bronze, here’s an updated recap of the acts with the most top 10 hits on Hot Rap Songs:
133, Drake54, Lil Wayne50, Nicki Minaj50, Kanye West44, Lil Baby42, Jay-Z40, Future
[embedded content]
In addition to the three top 10 hits, Minaj lands nine more Pink Friday 2 debuts on the 25-position Hot Rap Songs chart:
No. 11, “Let Me Calm Down,” featuring J. Cole No. 12, “Beep Beep” No. 16, “Big Difference”No. 17, “Fallin 4 U” No. 18, “RNB,” featuring Lil Wayne & Tate Kobang No. 20, “Pink Friday Girls” No. 23, “Cowgirl,” featuring Lourdiz No. 24, “Pink Birthday” No. 25, “Bahm Bahm”
Plus, previous single “Red Ruby Da Sleeze,” which topped Hot Rap Songs for one week in March, returns at No. 22 following streaming and sales activity from the parent album’s release.
As mentioned above, Pink Friday 2 opens at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and Top Rap Albums charts with 228,000 equivalent album units earned in the tracking week of Dec. 8 – 14, according to Luminate. The launch, notably, became Minaj’s third champ on the Billboard 200 – a new record among female rappers.