Taylor Swift Makes History With Five of the Top 10 Albums on the Billboard 200
Taylor Swift towers over the top 10 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Dec. 9), as she holds a whopping five titles in the region. She is the first living act to have five albums concurrently in the top 10 since the Billboard 200 was combined from its previously separate mono and stereo album charts into one all-encompassing list in August of 1963.
Swift stands tall in the top 10 with her most recent release, 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (returning to the top rising 2-1), and four former chart-toppers: Midnights (6-3), Folklore (9-5), Lover (8-6) and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (17-10).
1989 (Taylor’s Version) was released in October; Midnights, in 2022; Folklore, in 2020; Lover in 2019, and Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) in July 2023.
The only other act to hold at least five of the top 10 at the same time was Prince, on the May 14, 2016-dated list, following his death. That week in the top 10, he had The Very Best of Prince (falling 1-2), the Purple Rain soundtrack (with The Revolution, 2-3), The Hits/The B-Sides (6-4), Ultimate (61-6) and 1999 (31-7).
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 Dec. 9, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Dec. 5. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Keith Caulfield
Billboard