Chart Beat
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Morgan Wallen scores a 13th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated April 29), continuing his reign as the top musical act in the United States thanks to the extended domination of his new LP, One Thing at a Time.
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The album scores a seventh week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, with 166,000 equivalent album units earned (April 14-20), according to Luminate. His previous LP, Dangerous: The Double Album, is also contributing to Wallen’s Artist 100 performance, as the set rises 6-5 on the Billboard 200. The latter has now spent 116 weeks in the top 10, the second-longest top 10 total in the chart’s history, after only the original cast recording of My Fair Lady (173 weeks, 1956-60).
Plus, Wallen places 12 songs on the current Billboard Hot 100, led by former three-week leader “Last Night” at No. 2. He charted a one-week record 36 songs on the survey dated March 18, all from One Thing at a Time. Here’s a recap of his entries on the latest list:
Rank, Title
No. 2, “Last Night”
No. 18, “You Proof”
No. 22, “Thinkin’ Bout Me”
No. 24, “One Thing at a Time”
No. 25, “Thought You Should Know”
No. 61, “Ain’t That Some”
No. 64, “Everything I Love”
No. 66, “I Wrote the Book”
No. 67, “Cowgirls,” feat. ERNEST
No. 68, “Man Made a Bar,” feat. Eric Church
No. 84, “Sunrise”
No. 98, “’98 Braves”
With 13 weeks logged at No. 1 on the Artist 100, Wallen breaks out of a tie with Billie Eilish for the 10th-most weeks totaled atop the chart, since it began in 2014. Taylor Swift leads with 64, followed by Drake (37), The Weeknd (28), BTS (21), Adele (20), Ariana Grande (15), Justin Bieber, Post Malone and Ed Sheeran (14 apiece).
Meanwhile, Metallica vaults 35-2 on the Artist 100, returning to its peak, thanks to the group’s new LP, 72 Seasons. The set starts at No. 1 on Top Rock Albums and No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 146,000 units earned. That’s the biggest week for a rock album since Tool’s Fear Inoculum in 2019 (270,000). 72 Seasons also opens at No. 1 on both Top Album Sales (134,000) and Vinyl Albums (43,000).
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.
On March 24, 1956, the legendary Harry Belafonte crowned Billboard‘s first weekly albums chart — then billed Best Selling Pop Albums in Billboard magazine’s pages — with his smash set Belafonte. The entertainer, producer and activist died on Tuesday (April 25) at 96 of congestive heart failure.
Decades later, the ranking now known as the Billboard 200 remains the chart of record for America’s most-popular albums each week, fueled by consumption tracked by Luminate.
As for Belafonte, aka the King of Calypso, 1956 was a busy year. He was already a Tony Award winner for his work in the 1953 musical revue John Murray Anderson’s Almanac and, after topping the albums chart with Belafonte, he notched a second No. 1 in September 1956 with Calypso.
Kept afloat in large part by its hit single “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),” Calypso spent a staggering 31 weeks at No. 1. It’s tied with the soundtrack to South Pacific and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours for the third-longest run on top in the chart’s history. The soundtrack to West Side Story is the all-time champ, with 54 weeks at the summit, and Michael Jackson’s career-defining Thriller is second with 37.
The Grammy and Emmy Award-winning Belafonte would continue to chart albums through 1970 and remain a cultural force, thanks, in part, to his social activism and philanthropy. Later generations would become familiar with Belafonte in striking ways: He helped organize (and sang on) the 1985 charity single “We Are the World,” a four-week Billboard Hot 100 No. 1, while “Day-O” was memorably mimed by the cast in the 1988 film Beetlejuice. In 2011, “Day-O” became a hit yet again, sampled in Lil Wayne’s top 10 Hot 100 hit “6 Foot 7 Foot.”
Belafonte told BET in 2011 that he appreciated the continued success of the iconic “Day-O”: “I’m just glad to see that the younger generations have picked it up and are carrying the song forward in their own way, just like I picked it up in my time.”
After succumbing to a fast-finishing Lewis Capaldi last week, Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding could produce another U.K. chart miracle.
The British duo’s rave-throwback number “Miracle” (via Columbia) returns to No. 1 on the midweek U.K. chart, and remains on track for a third non-consecutive week atop the Official U.K. Singles Chart.
Capaldi broke the streak last Friday when “Wish You The Best” (via Vertigo) overhauled “Miracle,” after trailing at the midweek stage.
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The next-best chart performer is David Kushner’s viral hit “Daylight” (Miserable Music), which lifts 3-2 on the Official Chart Update and is set for a new peak position.
Libianca’s TikTok-fueled Afrobeats hit “People” (5K) completes the midweek podium, up 4-3, while Capaldi’s latest recording looks likely to slip 1-4.
Another dance track is shaping for a top 10 finish. Switch Disco and Ella Henderson’s “React” (Relentless) rises 14-9, for what would be a new peak position in its 12th week on the chart. “React” samples from the late DJ and producer Robert Miles’ classic mid-‘90s house track “Children.”
Based on midweek sales and streaming data captured by the Official Charts Company, three singles are poised for top 20 debuts on the next weekly survey. Nines’ “Tony Soprano 2” (Warner Records) is set to start at No. 11 for the week’s top new entry; The Weeknd and Future’s collaborative number from HBO series The Idol, “Double Fantasy” (Republic Records), is close behind at No. 12; and social media star HStikkytokky and General G are poised to bow at No. 16 with Twust (Hstikkytokky & General G).
All will be revealed when the Official U.K. Singles Chart is published Friday (April 28).
SZA slices her way to her first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1, as “Kill Bill” jumps from No. 4 to the top spot, following eight weeks at its prior No. 2 high. The song reigns following the release of its remix adding Doja Cat.
Plus, Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj’s “Princess Diana” launches at No. 4 on the Hot 100, marking the second top 10 for the former rapper and the 22nd for the latter.
Also in the Hot 100’s top tier, Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma log the first regional Mexican top five hit in the chart’s history, as “Ella Baila Sola” soars 10-5. A week earlier, the song became the chart’s first-ever regional Mexican top 10.
The Hot 100 blends all-genre U.S. streaming (official audio and official video), radio airplay and sales data. All charts (dated April 29, 2023) will update on Billboard.com tomorrow (April 25). For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Here’s a rundown of the Hot 100 coronation for “Kill Bill.” The song is the 1,149th No. 1 since the chart originated in August 1958. It was released on her Top Dawg/RCA Records album SOS, which ranks at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, after 10 weeks at the summit.
Airplay, streams & sales: “Kill Bill” drew 86.5 million radio airplay audience impressions (down 1%) and 28.3 million streams – up 32% – and sold 5,000 downloads – up 228% – in the April 14-20 tracking week, according to Luminate, as it claims both the Hot 100’s top Streaming Gainer and Sales Gainer awards.
Sparking the song’s surge, its remix with Doja Cat arrived April 14. (All versions of the song roll up into one chart listing; Doja Cat is not listed on “Kill Bill” on the Hot 100, as the remix did not account for the majority of the song’s overall consumption during the tracking week.)
The track rises 3-2 for a new high on the Radio Songs chart; ascends 4-3 on Streaming Songs, following four weeks at No. 1; and bounds 36-8, returning to its best rank, on Digital Song Sales.
SZA’s first No. 1: SZA claims her first Hot 100 No. 1 with “Kill Bill.”
Here’s a look at her seven career Hot 100 top 10s, ranked by peak position. She scored her prior best peak also thanks to collaborating with Doja Cat, as featured on 2021’s “Kiss Me More.”
No. 1, one week, to-date, April 29, 2023, “Kill Bill”
No. 3, July 10, 2021, “Kiss Me More” (Doja Cat feat. SZA)
No. 7, Dec. 18, 2021, “I Hate U”
No. 7, March 3, 2018, “All the Stars” (with Kendrick Lamar)
No. 9, Feb. 6, 2021, “Good Days”
No. 9, Nov. 25, 2017, “What Lovers Do” (Maroon 5 feat. SZA)
No. 10, Dec. 24, 2022, “Nobody Gets Me”
Eight’s not too late: “Kill Bill” tops the Hot 100 after eight nonconsecutive weeks at No. 2. It debuted at No. 3 on the Dec. 24, 2022, chart – as SOS premiered at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
The song ties for the second-most weeks spent at No. 2 on the Hot 100 before rising to No. 1 at last:
9 weeks at No. 2 on Hot 100 before hitting No. 1, “Bad Guy,” Billie Eilish, hit No. 1 Aug. 24, 2019
8, “Kill Bill,” SZA, April 29, 2023
8, “Starboy,” The Weeknd feat. Daft Punk, Jan. 7, 2017
8, “Sorry,” Justin Bieber, Jan. 23, 2016
8, “The Way You Move,” OutKast feat. Sleepy Brown, Feb. 14, 2004
7, “Havana,” Camila Cabello feat. Young Thug, Jan. 27, 2018
7, “Sexy and I Know It,” LMFAO, Jan. 7, 2012
6, “Girls Like You,” Maroon 5 feat. Cardi B, Sept. 29, 2018
6, “All of Me,” John Legend, May 17, 2014
‘Kill’-er hits: As SZA takes out all chart competition in her way, she notches the fourth Hot 100 No. 1 with “kill” (or any form of the word) in its title:
“Kill Bill,” one week at No. 1, to-date, April 29, 2023
“Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You),” Kelly Clarkson, three weeks, beginning Feb. 18, 2012
“A View to a Kill,” Duran Duran, two, July 13, 1985
“Killing Me Softly With His Song” Roberta Flack, five, Feb. 24, 1973
Meanwhile, “Kill Bill” is the second Hot 100 No. 1 of the four above that doubles as a movie title, as it’s an ode to the 2003 Quentin Tarantino-directed, and likewise revenge-focused, martial arts favorite (subtitled Volume 1) starring Uma Thurman, among others (including David Carradine in the role of Bill). Duran Duran’s “A View to a Kill” is the theme from the same-named 1985 James Bond movie, and the only one from the franchise to have topped the Hot 100.
Record-extending R&B/hip-hop reign: “Kill Bill” concurrently rules the multi-metric Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot R&B Songs charts for a 17th and 18th week, respectively. On Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, it boasts the longest command for a song by a woman in a lead role since the survey became an all-encompassing genre chart in 1958, having passed Mary J. Blige’s “Be Without You” (15 weeks at No. 1 in 2006).
Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” dips to No. 2 on the Hot 100 after three nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1. It adds a sixth frame at No. 1 on Streaming Songs (35.1 million, down 4%), while winning top Airplay Gainer honors on the Hot 100 for a third week in a row (39.9 million, up 16%). The single from Wallen’s album One Thing at a Time, which spends a seventh week atop the Billboard 200, leads the multi-metric Hot Country Songs chart for an 11th week.
Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” holds at No. 3 on the Hot 100, after eight weeks at No. 1, beginning upon its debut in January. It posts a 10th week atop Radio Songs (92.7 million in audience, down 1%) – where, since the survey began in December 1990, only 15% of all No. 1s have dominated for double-digit weeks. Notably, the song spends a third week topping the Pop Airplay, Adult Pop Airplay and Adult Contemporary charts simultaneously, becoming just the fourth hit with that many weeks leading all three lists at the same time; it joins Adele’s “Easy on Me” (three, 2022) and “Hello” (four, 2015) and Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me” (five, 1996).
Ice Spice and Nicki Minaj’s “Princess Diana” debuts at No. 4 on the Hot 100, with 21.8 million streams, 2.4 million in radio audience and 77,000 downloads sold, following the April 14 arrival of its remix with Minaj; the original version of the track was released by Ice Spice solo in January.
The song starts as Ice Spice’s second Hot 100 top 10 – her first, “Boy’s a Liar, Pt. 2,” with PinkPantheress, drops 8-10, after reaching No. 3. Minaj achieves her 22nd top 10, extending her record for the most among women rappers.
“Princess Diana” opens at No. 1 on Digital Song Sales, where it’s Minaj’s 13th leader, and Ice Spice’s first, and No. 6 on Streaming Songs. (Helping the song’s sales, along with Ice Spice’s solo version and the main [billed as “edited”] version of the duet remix, clean, explicit, extended, sped-up, slowed-down and instrumental versions of the Minaj remix were available for purchase in the tracking week.)
The single also begins atop the multi-metric Hot Rap Songs chart, where Minaj earns her 10th No. 1 and Ice Spice, her first.
Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma’s “Ella Baila Sola” vaults 10-5 on the Hot 100, led by 31.8 million streams, up 31%. It becomes the first regional Mexican top five hit in the chart’s archives, a week after it became the list’s initial top 10 for the genre. The collaboration tallies a third week at No. 1 on the multi-metric Hot Latin Songs chart.
Metro Boomin, The Weeknd and 21 Savage’s “Creepin’ ” slips 5-6 on the Hot 100, after hitting No. 3, and Rema and Selena Gomez’s “Calm Down” descends to No. 7 from its No. 6 high. The latter tops the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart for a 34th week, extending the longest rule since the ranking began a year ago (in partnership with music festival and global brand Afro Nation).
The Weeknd and Ariana Grande’s “Die for You” backtracks 7-8 on the Hot 100, following a week at No. 1 in March, and Drake’s “Search & Rescue” falls to No. 9, a week after it roared in at No. 2.
Again, for all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram and all charts (dated April 29), including the Hot 100 in its entirety, will refresh on Billboard.com tomorrow (April 25).
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.
Forever No. 1 is a Billboard series that pays special tribute to the recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — by taking an extended look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of this exclusive club. Here, we honor the late April Stevens (birth name: Caroline LoTempio) with a look back at her and younger brother Nino Tempo’s (Antonino LoTempio) lone No. 1 together or apart: their slightly offbeat and altogether winning rendition of pop standard “Deep Purple.”
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If you were trying to guess the lone Grammy taken home by Nino Tempo & April Stevens’ “Deep Purple” at the 1964 awards six decades later, best rock and roll recording would probably not be the first category to come to mind. After all, the song — a No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit for the brother-sister duo in November 1963 — was a cover of a 25-year-old pop standard recorded by the likes of Bing Crosby and Guy Lombardo, based around sweet harmonies and jazzy piano and not a ton of guitar. More importantly, the song hit its commercial peak two months before the British Invasion, heralded by The Beatles’ January ’64 arrival on the Hot 100, forever transformed the sound and role of rock music in pop culture.
But while rock and roll might not have been the best-fitting box for Tempo’s and Stevens’ version of “Deep Purple,” it’s not immediately clear 60 years later where the song really does belong. It’s an off-kilter arrangement of a truly curious performance, one that so confounded Ahmet Ertegun — the storied co-founder and president of the duo’s Atlantic parent label, as well as the “Purple” producer — that he resisted releasing it as a single until Tempo and Stevens demanded that they be released from the label if it continued to lay on the shelf. But it’s that gentle inscrutability that makes the 100th No. 1 in Hot 100 history (and the final before President John F. Kennedy’s assassination) one of the most rewarding pop records of its era — an era that would already seem worlds away just six months later.
The sibling duo began their careers as separate solo artists, with Tempo a musical prodigy and successful child actor (and later an in-demand session musician) and Stevens — who died on April 17 at age 93 — a star pop vocalist, scoring most of her solo hits in the pre-Hot 100 era. (Their shared family name was actually LoTempio.) Ertegun signed the pair to Atlantic’s Atco imprint as a duo vocal act, but their first few singles failed to make a major impact. Stevens had the idea to do “Deep Purple,” and Tempo came up with an arrangement for it, but the duo were already scheduled to record the pop standard “Paradise,” and had to tuck their “Purple” version into the very end of their allotted studio time. But the duo and their session backing band (including eventual country and pop icon Glen Campbell on guitar) were on their game: “In 14 minutes, we got two takes,” Tempo told Fred Bronson in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits.
That off-the-cuff, slightly rushed quality gives “Deep Purple” a good deal of its charm. The mix feels a little off — the bass disruptively high in the mix, the vocals a tad unpolished — and Tempo admits that some of the arrangement’s chords were straight-up incorrect in terms of replicating the standard’s melody. If there is anything particularly rock and roll about the recording, it’s in this breezy looseness — there’s a real energy to it, helped by its slightly amped-up pacing. And while calling the production “raw” would probably be a bit of an exaggeration, it feels messy enough for 1963 to at least not sound like something made to pander to young folks’ parents.
But the real joy of the recording is found in the siblings’ dueting, their harmonies entwining both satisfyingly and unpredictably. The way their respective voices glide up and down the octave, never totally settling into a traceable melody but never sounding out of place either within the arrangement or alongside one another, is somewhat stunning. And the real masterstroke comes with their second run-through the refrain, where a foregrounded Stevens intones the lyrics in deeply felt spoken-word as a backgrounded Tempo casually sings along — a striking and sticky creative choice, inspired by Stevens recording her “narration” simply to help Tempo remember the song’s words, and a friend noting that it sounded cool. Not easy to make a standard that had been around so long that Babe Ruth considered it a personal favorite sound fresh, but Stevens and Tempo managed it.
However, Eretgun didn’t see the commercial potential in the duo’s quirky rendition. He called it the most embarrassing thing that the duo had recorded, and released “Paradise” as their next single instead. But that single flopped, and Tempo asked out of the duo’s Atco contract so he and Stevens could sign with a friend of his who did believe in the song: legendary producer Phil Spector, of Philles Records. Ertegun agreed to meet them halfway — “I’ll release one more record, and if it flops, you’ve got your contract back,” Tempo quotes the Atlantic titan as saying in Number One Hits — but released “Deep Purple” with a B-side of the duo’s “I’ve Been Carrying a Torch for You So Long That I Burned a Great Big Hole in My Heart,” a zippy country-rock hybrid which he believed would become their actual breakout hit.
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The public proved him wrong: “Deep Purple” debuted at No. 94 on the Hot 100 on the chart dated Sept. 14, 1963, and quickly bound its way into the top 40. On the Nov. 16 chart, it replaced Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs’ “Sugar Shack” at the apex — staying there for a single week before being replaced by another duo, Dale and Grace, with the much more conventionally arranged and produced maybe-breakup ballad “I’m Leaving It All Up to You.” (Coincidentally, Donny & Marie Osmond would score top 20 hits on the Hot 100 in the 1970s with remakes of both of these songs, with their version of “I’m Leaving It All Up to You” hitting No. 4 in 1974 and their version of “Deep Purple” hitting No. 14 in 1976.) Tempo and Stevens would have more hits the following year with renditions of standards like “Whispering” (No. 11) and “Stardust” (No. 32), and eventually did go the Spector route with 1966’s All Strung Out — albeit not with Spector himself — and scored a final top 40 hit with the album’s Wall of Sound-aping title track (No. 26). But the British Invasion quickly made relics of the duo, as it also did Dale and Grace, Jimmy Gilmer, and countless other acts on top of the pop world in 1963.
While the rock and roll world might’ve ultimately left Nino Tempo and April Stevens far behind, the most enduring legacy of “Deep Purple” 60 years later is, ironically, a quintessentially rock one. The band Deep Purple, who took their name from guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s grandmother’s love of the song, would become one of the biggest hard rock acts of the ’70s, earning induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016. But the highest that band ever got on the Hot 100 was the No. 4 peak of both “Hush” (1968) and “Smoke on the Water” (1973) — still three spots lower than Tempo’s and Stevens’ forever delightful pop oddity.
Both country labels and broadcasters want to speed the advance of singles on the Country Airplay chart, though figuring out how to do that is a slow process.
A volunteer panel, spurred by a 2022 Country Radio Seminar session, reported on its progress during an April 20 CRS 360 webinar, concluding that stations need to generate 150 spins on most singles to gain reliable research about the song’s connectivity. Stations that limit a new single to overnights and play it only six times a week require 25 weeks to hit that plateau, one of several factors that slow the hit-development process.
Songs ranked No. 11-20 on the chart have the toughest time advancing, according to the panel’s research, in part because of the plethora of approaches by programmers. Reporting stations that commit early to a new single are sometimes ready to move on from particular titles just as slower-evolving stations are beginning to boost rotations.
One partial suggestion, sure to meet pushback, was to use a smaller playlist, expose new singles more quickly in daytime rotations and make a decision at that 150-spin mark.
The issue is more intense in country than any other format, in part because artists and their representatives have a stronger personal relationship with broadcasters and are more invested in succeeding on that platform — and in controlling the outcome.
“It’s the only format I’ve ever been in,” said McVay Media president Mike McVay, “where people call and yell at me for playing a song or beg me not to drop a song.”
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Metallica surges to the U.K. chart title with 72 Seasons (via Vertigo), for the U.S. metal giants’ fourth leader.
Debuting at the summit of the Official U.K. Albums Chart, 72 Seasons is the band’s first U.K. No. 1 in 15 years, and their ninth top 10.
Previously, James Hetfield and Co. led the weekly survey with 1991’s Metallica (aka The Black Album), 1996’s Load, and 2008’s Death Magnetic.
According to the Official Charts Company, 72 Seasons outsells the rest of the top 5 combined, and it’s the market-leader on vinyl. 72 Seasons led at the midweek stage, and finished its first chart week at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, and at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart.
Fans in the U.K. can feel the noise when Metallica’s M72 World Tour 2023/4 stops by Download Festival at Donington Park, with performances on June 8 and June 10.
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Meanwhile, The Weeknd’s hits compilation The Highlights (Republic Records/XO) lifts 3-2, for its equal high, doing so in its 115th week on the survey.
Taylor Swift isn’t in the U.K. – yet – with her The Eras Tour. Swifties in this part of the world, however, are ready and waiting for their hero, and they’re absorbing her records in the meantime. Five of Swift’s LPs moves up the latest tally: 2022’s Midnights (up 5-3), 2014’s 1989 (17-13), 2019’s Lover (20-15), 2020’s Folklore (25-20), and 2017’s Reputation (27-29) – all via EMI. The Eras Tour is currently working its way around the United States, with dates slated to wrap Aug. 9 at Sofi Stadium in Los Angeles. International shows, including the U.K., have not yet been announced.
Finally, Houston, TX rock act Waterparks slide to a debut U.K. top 10 appearance and a career high with Intellectual Property (Parlophone), their fifth studio album. It’s new at No. 10.
Lewis Capaldi delivered a second-half knockout as “Wish You The Best” (via Vertigo) debuts at No. 1 on the U.K. singles chart.
With his latest feat, the Scottish singer and songwriter bags his fifth U.K. leader after “Someone You Loved” (from 2019), “Before You Go” (2019), “Forget Me” (2022) and “Pointless” (2023).
According to the Official Charts Company, Capaldi now sits alongside David Bowie, Beyoncé, Cheryl, All Saints and the Bee Gees among artists with five U.K. chart-topping singles to his name.
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“With The Best” pulled off something of a miracle. The single, lifted from Capaldi’s forthcoming sophomore album Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent, had trailed previous leader “Miracle” by Calvin Harris, and “Daylight,” by David Kushner, on the midweek survey before storming home in first place.
A special CD single and Capaldi’s Netflix documentary How I’m Feeling Now provide the punch. Almost 16,800 units of the single were shifted, the OCC reports, while two of his former leaders, “Forget Me” (up 8-7) and “Pointless” (up 17-16) are lifted by his emotional doc.
Desire to Be Heavenly Sent is scheduled for release May 19.
Meanwhile, “Miracle” (Columbia) dips 1-2 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart and remains the most-streamed track in the country with 5.6 million plays. U.S. viral star David Kushner makes his top 10 debut on the latest chart, published Friday, April 21, with “Daylight” new at No. 3. Kushner’s only other appearance in the top 40 was 2022’s “Miserable Man,” which got over the line at No. 39.
Post Malone earns his 15th top 20 hit, and just misses out on a ninth top ten, as his new pop-leaning single “Chemical” (Republic Records) blasts to No. 11. It’s his best-positioned single since 2019’s “Hollywood’s Bleeding,” which also reached No. 11.
Finally, rising U.S. rapper Ice Spice enjoys her first U.K. top 40 appearance with “Princess Diana” (10K Projects/Capitol), which has found new life thanks to a remix featuring Nicki Minaj. It’s at No. 22 on the latest tally.
Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time spends a seventh consecutive and total week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated April 29). The set earned 166,000 equivalent album units in the week ending April 20 (down 1%) in the United States, according to Luminate.
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In the last 10 years, only two acts – Wallen and Taylor Swift – have had multiple albums with at least seven weeks at No. 1 each. Wallen has done so with One Thing at a Time and his previous release, Dangerous: The Double Album, which spent 10 weeks at No. 1 in 2021. Swift did it with Folklore (eight weeks in 2020) and 1989 (11 weeks in 2014-15).
Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200, Metallica blasts in at No. 2 with its new studio album, 72 Seasons. The set debuts with 146,000 units earned – achieving the largest week, by units, for any rock or hard rock album in over three-and-a-half years. It also marks the band’s 12th top 10 charting album – of which eight have reached the top two. 72 Seasons marks the band’s first original album in seven years.
Plus, Taylor Swift’s 2019 album Lover ranks in the Billboard 200’s top 10 for the first time in over three years, climbing 12-9.
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 April 29, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on April 25. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of One Thing at a Time’s 166,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending April 20, SEA units comprise 151,000 (down 5%, equaling 201.71 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 36 songs), album sales comprise 12,000 (up 102% following the release of a new vinyl edition of the set) and TEA units comprise 3,000 (up 7%).
Metallica’s new studio album 72 Seasons starts at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, scoring the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band its 12th top 10-charting effort. The set opens with 146,000 equivalent album units earned – the biggest week for any rock or hard rock album since Tool’s Fear Inoculum arrived with 270,000 equivalent album units at No. 1 (Sept. 14, 2019-dated chart). (Rock and hard rock albums are defined as those that have hit or are eligible to chart on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums and Top Hard Rock Albums chart.)
Of 72 Seasons’ 146,000 units earned, album sales comprise 134,000 — it’s the top-selling album of the week, and it bows with the biggest sales week for any rock or hard rock album since Fear Inoculum’s debut with 248,000 sold, SEA units comprise 11,500 (equaling 15.91 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 12 songs) and TEA units comprise 500.
72 Seasons was led by the single “Lux Æterna,” which racked up 11 weeks at No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart – tying the band’s cover of “Turn the Page” (1998-99) for its longest ruler atop the list. The album’s title track rose 8-6 on the most recently published Mainstream Rock Airplay chart (dated April 29), and marks the group’s 26th top 10-charting song on the tally.
SZA’s chart-topping SOS rises 4-3 on the Billboard 200 with 66,000 equivalent album units (up 9%), Taylor Swift’s former No. 1 Midnights falls 3-4 (60,000; up 1%) and Wallen’s former leader Dangerous: The Double Album rises 6-5 (49,000; up 3%). Luke Combs’ Gettin’ Old bumps 7-6 (43,000; down 7%), Metro Boomin’ chart-topping Heroes & Villains goes up 9-7 (37,000; up 1%) and Bad Bunny’s former No. 1 Un Verano Sin Ti steps 10-8 (36,000; up 5%).
Taylor Swift’s chart-topping Lover rises 12-9 (34,000; up 4%) – marking the first week in the top 10 for the set, which debuted at No. 1 in September 2019, in over three years – since the chart dated Feb. 22, 2020. The album has been bumping around the top 20 of the Billboard 200 in the last month, since Swift’s The Eras Tour launched on March 17. It’s moved 35-13-16-15-12-9 in the last six weeks.
Melanie Martinez’s Portals rounds out the top 10 of the Billboard 200, falling 5-10 with 33,000 (down 31%).
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.
Morgan Wallen places three titles inside the top 10 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart (dated April 29) – becoming the first artist to achieve the feat since the survey began in January 1990.
The 29-year-old Sneedville, Tenn., native earns his 10th Country Airplay top 10 as “Last Night,” on Mercury/Republic/Big Loud Records, jumps from No. 13 to No. 8. It rose by 21% to 19.4 million audience impressions in the week ending April 20, according to Luminate.
The song leapfrogs Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time,” up 10-9 for a new high (17.9 million, up 3%), while “Thought You Should Know” dips 5-7 (21.7 million, down 5%). The latter gave Wallen his eighth Country Airplay leader when it began a three-week reign in February.
Concurrently, “Last Night,” which is being promoted to pop and adult radio, climbs to No. 16 on Pop Airplay, No. 19 on Adult Pop Airplay and No. 26 on Adult Contemporary. It claimed a third week atop the all-genre, streaming, airplay and sales-based Billboard Hot 100 dated April 22.
All three Wallen hits are on his 36-track LP One Thing at a Time, which has led Top Country Albums and the all-genre Billboard 200 for its first six weeks.
Wallen’s triple in the Country Airplay top 10 follows pop radio’s increasing willingness to play multiple hits by a single artist simultaneously. In May 2021, Ariana Grande became the first act to log three top 10s at once on Pop Airplay; Doja Cat and Harry Styles have since earned the honor, while Miley Cyrus currently has three songs on the latest list from her new album, Endless Summer Vacation: “Jaded” debuts at No. 39, as “Flowers” tallies a ninth week at No. 1 and “River” ranks at No. 25.
“I’m excited to see radio continuing to invest in [country’s] core artists,” Big Loud vp of promotion Ali Matkosky recently told Billboard. “In a time where listeners are pointing out daily what they want to hear [via streaming services], it makes more and more sense to lean into that data.”
‘Rock’ on a Roll
Bailey Zimmerman notches a fifth week atop Country Airplay, as “Rock and a Hard Place” holds at the apex (32 million, down 6%). The song first led the list dated April 1, giving Zimmerman his second straight career-opening chart-topper, following “Fall in Love,” which ruled for one week in December.
Meanwhile, Zimmerman’s latest single, “Religiously,” pushes 56-50 (1.3 million, up 33%).
Additional research by Gary Trust