Billboard 200: Taylor Swift (‘Midnights’) rules for 5th week, but ‘Christmas’ time is here
Taylor Swift is showing impressive staying power on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Her “Midnights” spent its fifth week at number-one for the tracking week that ended on December 1, and it hasn’t lost that much ground from week to week. Read more about this week’s chart here at Billboard.com.
“Midnights” achieved another 151,000 equivalent album units based on its combined album sales, individual track sales, and online streams. That’s down only 15% from last week’s total of 177,000 album units. How much longer will she remain in the lead? Her last album to top the chart for five weeks or more was 2020’s “Folklore,” which ruled for eight weeks.
Ranked second yet again was Drake and 21 Savage‘s collaborative album “Her Loss” with 93,000 units, followed by the indefatigable “Un Verano Sin Ti” by Bad Bunny with 52,000 units. Michael Buble‘s “Christmas” jumped up six spots to number-four with 47,000 units. And Lil Baby‘s “It’s Only Me” rounds out the top five with 43,000 units.
Christmas music is coming on strong overall. Not only is Buble’s holiday album back in the top five, Nat King Cole‘s “The Christmas Song” rises 10 spots to number-eight while the Vince Guaraldi Trio‘s “A Charlie Brown Christmas” moves up seven spots to number-10. Can any of those albums ascend all the way to number-one? Buble would be the likeliest given his current position, but since Swift is still more than 100,000 album units ahead of him, that might be unlikely, at leasdt not until the holiday season reaches its peak.
In our predictions contest to bet on this week’s top five, most of our users correctly bet on the top three albums “Midnights,” “Her Loss,” and “Un Verano Sin Ti.” Since “Christmas” was not yet back in our predictions center for this tracking week, “None of these” was the correct answer for number-four, and only one of our users saw that coming. For number-five, only two users predicted “It’s Only Me” would snag that spot; most were betting on Morgan Wallen‘s “Dangerous,” which actually ended up at number-six.
Be sure to make your predictions so that artists can see how they’re faring in our racetrack odds. You can keep changing your predictions until just before the next tracking week begins every Friday. You’ll compete to win a spot on our leaderboard and eternal bragging rights. See our contest rules and sound off with other fans in our music forum. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.