Billboard 200 -- 1/21/23 --- SZA

[Gary]

The Contenders: YoungBoy Makes His ‘Case’ for the Top Spot, BTS Arrives on Vinyl
Meanwhile, SZA looks to hold down the chart's top spot for a fifth consecutive week.


BY ANDREW UNTERBERGER


WWelcome to The Contenders, a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week (for the upcoming Billboard 200 albums chart dated Jan. 14): SZA’s SOS continues to dominate, while YoungBoy Never Broke Again makes a quick return after a busy 2022 and a half-decade-old BTS album debuts on vinyl.

YoungBoy Never Broke Again, I Rest My Case (Motown/Never Broke Again): After an absurdly prolific 2022 that included seven full-length releases – two collaborative albums, four mixtapes and one official album – star rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again returns, just two weeks into 2023, with his fifth solo studio album, I Rest My Case. The 19-track set is his first release on his new Motown label, after completing his deal with Atlantic in 2022.

From the early returns, YoungBoy’s previous productivity may be working against him, since the album’s tracks have not taken over the daily DSP charts like past YoungBoy solo albums, the last three of which hit the Billboard 200’s top two. Case will also not be helped by any big-name guests, since the album has no features on its 11 tracks. It will have its work cut out for it getting YoungBoy back to the chart’s top five, let alone threatening the four-week reign of SZA’s SOS blockbuster, which shows little sign of slowing down in its fifth week.

BTS, Love Yourself: Her (Big Hit/Universal): The Love Yourself: Her EP release marked a big U.S. breakthrough for K-Pop superstars BTS back in 2017, reaching the Billboard 200’s top 10 and spawning their first two Billboard Hot 100 hits in “DNA” and “Mic Drop.” The EP is likely to return to the chart’s top tier after making its physical debut on vinyl — the septet’s first-ever release on the format — along with a package that includes seven photo cards (one for each member), two posters, a sticker and a bookmark.

French Montana & DJ Drama, Coke Boys 6 (Coke Boys): Outside of YoungBoy, few hip-hop artists were as prolific on the 2022 charts as DJ Drama, who notched hit albums alongside Jeezy, Snoop Dogg and several other big-name rappers. He’s back this week with veteran New York hitmaker French Montana, for the latest installment in the latter’s signature Coke Boys series. CB6 boasts 20 tracks and a wide variety of big-name guests, including fellow rap stars Kodak Black, Nav and A$AP Rocky, and the set already has its own Money Heist Edition deluxe reissue, adding an extra nine tracks to the total.

[Gary]

SZA’s ‘SOS’ Spends Fifth Straight Week at No. 1 on Billboard 200
Plus: YoungBoy Never Broke Again clocks his 13th top 10-charting album with the debut of 'I Rest My Case.'


By Keith Caulfield
www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/sza-sos-fifth-week-number-one-billboard-200-chart-1235199592/
01/15/2023


SZA’s SOS spends a fifth consecutive, and total, week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Jan. 21). It earned 125,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Jan. 12 (down less than 1%), according to Luminate.

Only four albums have spent at least five weeks at No. 1 since the start of 2022: in order from most recent, SOS, Taylor Swift’s Midnights (five), Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti (13) and the Encanto soundtrack (nine).

SOS is the first album to spend its first five weeks at No. 1 since Adele’s 30 ruled the list for its first six weeks (its total run at No. 1) from Dec. 4, 2021-Jan. 8, 2022.

The last R&B album by a solo woman with five weeks at No. 1 was Mariah Carey’s Daydream, which notched six nonconsecutive weeks from Oct. 21, 1995, to Jan. 13, 1996 (although, the last R&B album by an all-female act to have five weeks at No. 1 was FanMail by the trio TLC, with five nonconsecutive weeks in charge in 1999 [March 13-May 8]).

And, the last R&B album by a woman to spend its first five weeks at No. 1 was Janet Jackson’s janet., which topped the list for its first six frames (June 5-July 10, 1993). (R&B albums are defined as those that have hit or are eligible for Billboard’s Top R&B Albums chart.)

Also in the new Billboard 200’s top 10, YoungBoy Never Broke Again collects his 13th top 10-charting effort, as his first release for Motown, I Rest My Case, debuts at No. 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 Jan. 21, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Jan. 18 – one day later than usual, due to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday in the U.S. on Jan. 16. For all chart news, follow billboard and billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

Five former No. 1s rank at Nos. 2-6 on the new Billboard 200 – and all are non-movers as compared to a week ago. Taylor Swift’s Midnights is No. 2 (81,000 equivalent album units earned; down 31%), followed by Metro Boomin’s Heroes & Villains (57,000; up 1%), Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss (51,000; down 3%), Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti (45,000; down 10%) and Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album (43,000; up 2%).

Zach Bryan’s American Heartbreak climbs 8-7 with 33,000 equivalent album units earned (down less than 1%), and Lil Baby’s chart-topping It’s Only Me rises 9-8 with 31,000 (down 1%).

YoungBoy Never Broke Again notches his 13th top 10-charting album on the Billboard 200, as I Rest My Case starts at No. 9 with 29,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, SEA units comprise 27,000 (equaling 39.59 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 19 tracks) and album sales and TEA units comprise 1,000 each.

I Rest My Case is the rapper’s first release for Motown after a prolific run with Atlantic, including a dozen top 10 efforts (five of which were in 2022). In total, I Rest My Case is the artist’s 28th charting title on the Billboard 200 since his debut on the list in August of 2017.

Rounding out the new top 10 is Harry Styles’ former No. 1 Harry’s House, which is stationary at No. 10 with 26,000 equivalent album units earned (down 10%).

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.

[Gary]

1. SZA 125,000
2. Taylr Swift 81,000
3. Metro Boomin 57,000
4. Drake/21 51,000
5. Bad Bunny 45,000
6. Morgan Wallen 43,000
7. Zach Bryan 33,000
8. Lil Baby 31,000
9. Youngboy 29,000 (sales 1000)
10. Harry Styles 26,000

[Gary]

Albums With Most Weeks in Top 10 on Billboard 200 Chart (March 24, 1956-onwards)
Weeks in Top 10, Artist, Title, Year First Reached Top 10
173, Original Cast, My Fair Lady, 1956
109, Soundtrack, The Sound of Music, 1965
106, Soundtrack, West Side Story, 1962
105, Original Cast, The Sound of Music, 1960
102, Morgan Wallen, Dangerous: The Double Album, 2021
90, Soundtrack, South Pacific, 1958
87, Original Cast, Camelot, 1961
87, Soundtrack, Oklahoma!, 1956
85, Peter, Paul and Mary, Peter Paul and Mary, 1962
84, Adele, 21, 2011
84, Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A., 1984

[Gary]

Album chart top 10 - 2 years ago - flashback
January 23, 2021

This Week Last Week Two Weeks Ago Weeks Title, Artist Peak


1 - - 1 Dangerous: The Double Album, Morgan Wallen 1
2 1 2 5 Evermore, Taylor Swift 1
3 3 4 28 Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon, Pop Smoke 1
4 - - 1 Heaux Tales, Jazmine Sullivan 4
5 2 3 4 The Voice, Lil Durk 2
6 14 25 43 After Hours, The Weeknd 1
7 4 5 11 Positions, Ariana Grande 1
8 7 8 62 What You See Is What You Get, Luke Combs 1
9 9 11 27 Legends Never Die, Juice WRLD 1
10 6 7 8 Good News, Megan Thee Stallion 2

[Gary]

Weeks in the top 10

top 10 ARTIST
102 MORGAN WALLEN
36 BAD BUNNY
31 HARRY STYLES
12 TAYLOR SWIFT
10 DRAKE & 21 SAVAGE
10 ZACH BRYAN
9 LIL BABY
6 METRO BOOMIN
5 SZA

[iHype.]

Came close to 9/10 of the top 10 being static. The albums chart is getting more and more slow churning (not necessarily a bad thing imo).

[jenglisbe]

SZA killing more than Bill, but it's crazy it has been since the 1990s...

[rnb]

it’s sza szn!

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

[Gary]

Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ Has Most Weeks at No. 1 on Top Album Sales Chart Since ‘Frozen’
Plus: BTS makes its U.S. vinyl album debut as 'Love Yourself: Her' surges back onto the chart.


By Keith Caulfield
www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/taylor-swift-midnights-most-weeks-top-album-sales-chart-frozen-1235203109/
01/20/2023

Taylor Swift arrives at 2022 MTV VMAs at Prudential Center on August 28, 2022 in Newark, NJ.
Gotham/WireImage

Taylor Swift’s Midnights continues its hot streak atop Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, as the set spends its 12th consecutive, and total, week at No. 1 on the list dated Jan. 21. The album sold 25,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending Jan. 12 (down 58%) according to Luminate.


Midnights now has the most weeks at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart since the Frozen soundtrack ruled for 13 nonconsecutive weeks in 2014. Midnights has the most weeks in a row at No. 1 since the Titanic soundtrack logged all 16 of its No. 1 weeks consecutively in 1998.


Midnights’ total U.S. album sales now stand at 1.140 million.

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.

BTS’ Love Yourself: Her re-enters Top Album Sales at No. 2 following the set’s Jan. 6 release on vinyl. The effort, initially released in 2017, bounds back onto the chart with 20,000 sold (up 2,130%), with most of that sum from vinyl sales (18,000). It’s the first time BTS has released an album on vinyl in the U.S., though the group has issued singles on vinyl.

Love Yourself: Her also debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Vinyl Albums chart, the first time a K-pop title has led list. It also halts Swift’s stranglehold of the top spot with Midnights, pushing the album down to No. 2 after 11 straight weeks at No. 1.

Back on Top Album Sales, ATEEZ’s Spin Off: From the Witness falls one spot to No. 3 (14,000; down 66%) while French Montana’s Coke Boys 6: Gangsta Grillz, hosted by DJ Drama, debuts at No. 4 (11,000).

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours dips 4-5 (just over 7,000; down 17%), RM’s Indigo descends 3-6 (7,000; down 22%) and Michael Jackson’s Thriller falls 6-7 (nearly 7,000; down 16%). Stray Kids’ former No. 1 MAXIDENT re-enters the chart at No. 8 with nearly 6,000 sold (up 378%) after a new Target-exclusive CD edition of the album was released on Jan. 6.

Rounding out the top 10 are two former No. 1s: Harry Styles’ Harry’s House (5-9 with nearly 6,000; down 32%) and Tyler, the Creator’s Igor (7-10 with 5,000; down 23%).

In the week ending Jan. 12, there were 1.837 million albums sold in the U.S. (down 13.5% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.512 million (down 14.7%) and digital albums comprised 325,000 (down 7.5%).

There were 589,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Jan. 12 (down 13.6% week-over-week) and 915,000 vinyl albums sold (down 15.4%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 1.27 (up 3.4% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 1.996 million (up 33.2%).

Overall year-to-date album sales total 3.961 million (up 11.8% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 3.285 million (up 19.8%) and digital album sales total 676,000 (down 15.4%).

[Gary]

12 week total is actually 1.9 million

The 1.14 million listed in the article is the week 1 total

[J. Rob]

Jan 16, 2023 9:56:47 GMT -5 jenglisbe said:

SZA killing more than Bill, but it's crazy it has been since the 1990s...

I knew it had been a while but not THAT long. I'm a little surprised Beyonce didn't do it in the late '00/early '10.


I've haven't been this happy for an artist since Kendrick Lamar's "Good Kid, m.A.A.d City"

[areyoureadytojump]

Jan 20, 2023 20:55:04 GMT -5 Gary said:

12 week total is actually 1.9 million

The 1.14 million listed in the article is the week 1 total

Yes. I emailed Keith and he edited the article:

"Midnights’ total U.S. album sales now stand at 1.901 million."

[pnobelysk]

After 30 failed to do so, I never thought another album would sell 2 million. Never count taylor out is the lesson here. Folklore will be pretty close to 2 million by the end of the year as well