This week there is a main shakeup on the Billboard 200, which ranks the week’s prime albums: Not solely has Taylor Swift’s 12-week reign on the prime of the chart come to finish, however a whopping 4 new data make their debut within the Prime 10. The Scorching 100 songs chart gives a bit extra stability, although Shaboozey does return to the highest spot, displacing Kendrick Lamar.
TOP SONGS
Final week, Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss observe “Not Like Us” returned to No. 1 after a very long time away: The track entered the chart on the prime spot greater than two months in the past, solely to settle in for a long term decrease down inside the Prime 10. It is current increase was thanks partially to the discharge of an official video (and likewise the continued undeniable fact that a lot of folks dislike Drake).
This week, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Tune (Tipsy)” additional makes its case for “track of the summer season” standing by returning to No. 1 after that week away — a quick pause within the chart dominance of a observe that’s resided within the Prime 5 for months. Publish Malone’s “I Had Some Assist,” which enjoys an help from final 12 months’s song-of-the-summer champ Morgan Wallen, got here in at No. 2, adopted by “Not Like Us,” Tommy Richman’s “Million Greenback Child” and Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.”
The underside half of the Prime 10 feels awfully acquainted — Carpenter’s different summer season smash (“Please Please Please”), plus sturdy staples by Hozier, Teddy Swims and Benson Boone — however there’s one new/outdated entry. Eminem’s “Houdini,” to not be confused with Dua Lipa’s “Houdini,” made a chart climb from No. 18 to No. 10 because the rapper’s new album, The Dying of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace), entered the world.
TOP ALBUMS
Say, bear in mind the earlier sentence — the one which mentions the discharge of Eminem’s new album? Seems that’s related to this week’s Billboard 200. The Dying of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace) has achieved what many current albums couldn’t: It unseated Taylor Swift’s seemingly untouchable The Tortured Poets Division from the highest of the chart after a record-setting 12-week run at No. 1. (As my colleague Anastasia Tsioulcas famous on this column final week, Poets now holds the document for longest run on the prime by a Swift album, in addition to the longest run on the prime by a feminine artist who’s made her debut at No. 1 and stayed there.)
As an idea album during which Eminem does lyrical battle together with his long-running id/alter-ego Slim Shady, The Dying of Slim Shady was maybe destined to dislodge Swift’s three-month-old opus — particularly on condition that it’s his eleventh consecutive album to prime the chart. However there are three different new entries on the Prime 10 by artists who aren’t fairly so commemorated. With Romance: Untold bowing at No. 2, the South Korean boy band Enhypen immediately scored its highest-ever Billboard 200 place — 2021’s Dimension: Dilemma peaked at No. 11 and its EPs have charted as excessive as No. 4 — whereas two enormously promising (and really totally different) singer-songwriters additionally made their first-ever go to to the Prime 10.
Like Enhypen, Clairo hit the Prime 20 along with her earlier album — 2021’s Sling hit No. 17 — solely to see its follow-up exceed that efficiency in week 1. Attraction entered this week’s chart at No. 8. And nation singer Megan Moroney has loved an much more precipitous rise: Her 2023 debut, Fortunate, peaked at No. 38 final 12 months. Am I Okay? simply bowed at No. 9.
As for the rest of the Prime 10, everybody’s slipping to make room for the brand new faces: Zach Bryan’s The Nice American Bar Scene (from No. 2 to No. 3), The Tortured Poets Division (from No. 1 to No. 4), Morgan Wallen’s One Factor at a Time (from No. 3 to No. 5), Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Arduous and Mushy (from No. 4 to No. 6), Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (from No. 5 to No. 7) and Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (from No. 7 to No. 10).
WORTH NOTING
It’s enjoyable to tug aside the assorted metrics that go into gauging the recognition of a given artist, album or track: radio airplay, gross sales, streaming audio, streaming video, TikTok and so forth. However different elements might be essential to a sort of sustainable success that does not dent the best reaches of the charts, together with reside performances and depth of fan engagement. Should you had been to scan the Billboard 200, you would possibly discover comparatively modest chart debuts for Cigarettes After Intercourse’s new album X’s (No. 32) and Phish’s Evolve (No. 69). However when these bands head out on tour, they’ll carry out in arenas, first-week streaming and airplay numbers be damned.
Nonetheless, some disappointing numbers are unattainable to position in a optimistic mild: Simply three weeks into its existence, Camila Cabello’s new album (C,XOXO) plunged from its debut at No. 13 to No. 82, and now all the way in which all the way down to No. 191. It’s tempting to recommend that the letters X, C and X are cursed, however Charli XCX’s Brat remains to be holding sturdy at No. 13.