Taylor Swift Spends Two Months at No. 1 on Billboard 200 With ‘The Tortured Poets Department’

Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department holds atop the Billboard 200 chart (dated June 22) for an eighth consecutive and total week. The set earned 128,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending June 13 (down 14%), according to Luminate.

Poets is the first album to spend its first eight weeks at No. 1 since Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time led for its first 12 weeks a year ago (March 18-June 3, 2023-dated charts). Of Swift’s 14 No. 1s on the Billboard 200, Poets ties Folklore with eight weeks on top; only 1989 and Fearless, with 11 each, have more weeks at No. 1 among Swift’s leaders.

Meanwhile, Swift adds her 77th career week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, extending her record among soloists. (Elvis Presley has the second-most among soloists, with 67.) The total encompasses her 14 leaders. (She’s tied with Jay-Z for the most No. 1s among soloists.)

Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200, Charli XCX scores her highest-charting album ever as Brat bows at No. 3; Bon Jovi secures its 14th top 10 with the No. 5 arrival of Forever; and Chappell Roan reaches the top 10 for the first time, as The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess climbs 12-10.

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 June 22, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on June 18. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.

Of The Tortured Poets Department’s 128,000 equivalent album units earned, SEA units comprise 104,000 (down 14% — it’s No. 1 on Top Streaming Albums for an eighth week; its SEA units equal 135.53 million on-demand official streams of the deluxe edition’s 31 songs), album sales comprise 23,000 (down 13%) and TEA units comprise 1,000 (down 11%).

Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft rises 3-2 on the Billboard 200 in its fourth week, matching its debut and peak position, with 106,000 equivalent album units earned (down 9%).

Charli XCX achieves her second top 10 on the Billboard 200, and her highest-charting album yet, as Brat debuts at No. 3 with 82,000 equivalent album units earned (also her best week by units). Of that sum, album sales comprise 45,000 (her largest sales week ever), SEA units comprise 37,000 (equaling 46.72 million on-demand official streams of its deluxe edition’s 18 songs; her biggest streaming week yet) and TEA units comprise less than 1,000.

Charli XCX previously visited the top 10 with Crash, which debuted and peaked at No. 7 in 2022.

Brat was led by the single “Von Dutch,” which debuted and peaked at No. 7 on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart.

The album’s first-week sales were supported by its availability across 14 vinyl variants (mostly color variants, two were issued in deluxe editions containing collectible paper ephemera, one of which also housed a bonus 7-inch vinyl), which added up to 34,000 copies sold on vinyl — Charli XCX’s biggest week on vinyl. The set was also issued as a standard CD, a signed CD and as a deluxe boxed set containing a branded T-shirt and a CD. On June 10, the album was reissued as a deluxe digital download and streaming album with three bonus tracks.

Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time is a non-mover at No. 4 on the new Billboard 200 with 72,000 equivalent album units earned (up 2%).

Bon Jovi collects its 14th top 10-charting effort on the Billboard 200 as Forever starts at No. 5. The set earned 52,000 equivalent album units, of which album sales comprise 50,000 (it’s the top-selling album of the week and debuts at No. 1 on Top Album Sales), SEA units comprise 2,000 (equaling 2.31 million on-demand official streams of the 12 songs on the streaming edition of the set) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum.  

The new album was led by the single “Legendary,” which reached the top 10 on the Adult Contemporary airplay chart (the band’s seventh top 10 and highest-charting song on the tally since 2011) and the top 15 on the Adult Pop Airplay ranking.

Forever’s first-week sales were supported by its availability across 11 vinyl variants (mostly color variants; three had collectible paper ephemera contained inside, one of which was a signed edition), four CD editions (a standard set, two with alternative cover art, and one that was signed), a cassette tape, a standard digital download album, and a deluxe digital download edition with two bonus tracks that was sold via the band’s official webstore starting June 8.

Bon Jovi made its Billboard chart debut just over 40 years ago, when the single “Runaway” debuted on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart dated Feb. 11, 1984. Two weeks later, the band made its Billboard 200 debut with its self-titled album entering the Feb. 25, 1984-dated list at No. 178, on its way to a No. 43 peak that April.

In total, Forever marks the 22nd charting album on the Billboard 200 for Bon Jovi. The band first reached the top 10 in 1986 with Slippery When Wet, their first of six No. 1s. They have notched new top 10s in the 1980s, ‘90s, 2000s, ‘10s (adding their latest leader with This House Is Not for Sale in 2016) and now the ‘20s. Bon Jovi is the fifth group to achieve a newly-charting top 10 album on the Billboard chart in each of the last five decades, joining AC/DC, Def Leppard, Metallica and U2.

ATEEZ’s Golden Hour: Part.1 falls 2-6 in its second week on the Billboard 200 (45,000 equivalent album units earned, down 66%); Wallen’s former leader Dangerous: The Double Album slips 6-7 (44,000; up 1%); Noah Kahan’s Stick Season dips 7-8 (42,000; down 1%); and Shaboozey’s Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going falls 5-9 in its second week (41,000; down 17%).

Closing out the top 10 is a new arrival to the region, as Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess pounces 12-10 with 40,000 equivalent album units earned (up 26%). The set posted double-digital percentage gains in album sales (8,000; up 87%), streaming equivalent album units (32,000; up 16%) and track equivalent album units (a negligible sum, though up 23%).

The album and artist has been basking in the glow of recent press coverage stemming from the singer-songwriter’s buzzy performance at the 2024 Governor’s Ball on June 9 (the third day of the chart’s tracking week), which prompted a shout-out from Ariana Grande.

Princess reaches the top 10 in its 12th week on the chart. It’s atypical for an album would climb into the top 10 for the first time, as most albums that peak in the top 10 debut in the region. The last current (non-catalog) album to climb to the top 10 for the first time after 12 or more chart weeks was Noah Kahan’s Stick Season, which bolted 100-3 on the June 24, 2023-dated list, in the set’s 29th chart week, after it was reissued in a deluxe edition and pressed on vinyl for the first time. Before that, the last non-catalog set to reach the top 10 after at least 12 chart weeks was Doja Cat’s Hot Pink, which rallied 19-9 on the May 16, 2020-dated chart — during the album’s 27th chart week. The set zoomed up the list following the release of a remix of the album’s “Say So” featuring Nicki Minaj.

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.

Keith Caulfield

Billboard