This week’s look at the pop charts finds Taylor Swift back at the top of the Billboard 200 for a 13th nonconsecutive week — a sign of both her staying power and a dearth of major new releases. Elsewhere, country music rises and K-pop falls, while the songs chart has great news for you if you’re a fan of either Shaboozey or stasis.
TOP ALBUMS
Last week, the Billboard 200’s two top spots were held by K-pop titans: Stray Kids’ ATE and Jimin’s MUSE made their chart debuts at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. It was a major milestone for K-pop, which had never locked down the top two until that moment. The milestone, it turns out, was short-lived: This week, Stray Kids fell from No. 1 to a still-strong No. 6, while Jimin dropped from No. 2 to No. 17.
With last week’s debuts fading, the summer doldrums underway and no juggernauts entering this week’s chart — the loftiest debut belongs to Ice Spice’s Y2K!, at No. 18 — the perennial powerhouses have settled back into their usual spots at or near the top of the chart.
Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, which topped the Billboard 200 for 12 weeks earlier in the spring and summer, jumps back to No. 1 after two weeks at No. 4, extending several of Swift’s all-time records: It’s posted the most weeks at No. 1 of any Swift album, and it extends Swift’s record of most overall weeks at No. 1 for any solo artist, with 82. (Elvis Presley, at No. 2, is a relative pauper among solo acts, with 67; though not a solo act, The Beatles top them both, holding the overall record with 132.)
Given that Swift’s lucky number is famously 13, it’s a big week for her, even if, overall, it feels mildly anticlimactic for those of us who make a sport of watching the charts. But the metrics that go into determining chart position — a mix of airplay, streaming, sales, social media and more — suggest that this was just a slow week all around.
One upside of a week without fireworks is that the chart does provide a sense of the summer’s most durable hits. Fueled by the slide of Stray Kids and Jimin, among others, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time leaps from No. 6 to No. 2, Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene climbs from No. 5 to No. 3, Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess hits a new chart peak as it zooms up from No. 8 to No. 4, and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft rounds out the Top 5 with a climb from No. 9.
Rounding out the Top 10 after Stray Kids at No. 6, Eminem’s The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) sinks from No. 3 to No. 7, the Twisters soundtrack dips from No. 7 to No. 8, Charli XCX’s Brat climbs five spots to reenter the Top 10 at No. 9, and Noah Kahan’s Stick Season remains immovable at No. 10.
TOP SONGS
Speaking of immovable…
Last week, the Top 5 was an exact replica of the week before; this week, only the Top 3 remains the same. That counts as progress, right?
For the third week in a row (and fourth overall), Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” sits atop the Billboard Hot 100, followed by Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help” — which features Morgan Wallen — and Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” Notably, for what’s otherwise been a slow week on the charts, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is still experiencing growth on the Billboard charts that monitor radio airplay, which suggests that the song won’t be easy to dislodge in the weeks to come.
With a whopping six entries that have previously topped the chart this year — and three of the remaining four still rising — the entire Top 10 is essentially a rundown of “song of the summer” finalists: Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” climbs from No. 5 to No. 4, switching spots with Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby,” while Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” climbs from No. 8 to No. 6 and Hozier’s “Too Sweet” dips from No. 6 to No. 7. Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” hits a new peak, climbing from No. 10 to No. 8, Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” drops from No. 7 to No. 9, and Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” jumps up a spot to reenter the Top 10.
WORTH NOTING
It might be easy to miss, amid Swift’s dominance, but country music is having another massive summer — especially if your name is Morgan Wallen, Shaboozey or Zach Bryan. Just look at the Billboard 200 and the titles bubbling just under the Top 10: Wallen’s latest album is at No. 2, as noted above, but his previous record, Dangerous: The Double Album, climbs from No. 13 to No. 11 after more than three years on the chart. Shaboozey is proving to be no one-song wonder, as Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going jumps from No. 18 to No. 13 after reaching as high as No. 5 earlier in the year. And Zach Bryan actually has three albums climbing in the Top 20, as his self-titled 2023 record rises from No. 19 to No. 14 and 2022’s American Heartbreak jumps from No. 23 to No. 19.
It’s a similar story over on The Hot 100, where the only songs to debut in the Top 50 come in the form of country duets: Post Malone and Luke Combs’ “Guy For That” enters the chart at No. 17, while mgk and Jelly Roll’s “Lonely Road” makes its debut at No. 33. And songs by Wallen, Combs and Bryan are strewn all over the lower half of the Top 20.
Meanwhile, other like-minded acts are rising: The Red Clay Strays’ Made by These Moments enters the Billboard 200 at No. 29, with “Wanna Be Loved” helping the band graze The Hot 100 — at No. 100! — for only the second time. And none of this is even taking into consideration what’s virtually certain to be one of the year’s biggest country albums: Post Malone’s star-packed F-1 Trillion, which comes out Friday, Aug. 16.
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