As Taylor Swift’s Evermore returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Jan. 16) for a third nonconsecutive week (up from No. 2 a week ago), the superstar now has a cumulative 51 weeks at No. 1 across all eight of her chart-toping albums. That ties Michael Jackson for the fourth-most weeks at No. 1. The two superstars only trail The Beatles (a record 132 weeks), Elvis Presley (67) and Garth Brooks (52).
Evermore, now in its fourth week on the chart, spent its first two weeks atop the list (charts dated Dec. 26, 2020, and Jan. 2, 2021), before stepping aside to No. 2 for a week (Jan. 9 chart) when Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red bowed at No. 1.
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. 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. 16, 2021-dated chart (where Evermore returns to No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard’s website on Jan. 12. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Here’s a look at the acts with at least 40 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, since March 25, 1956, when the chart began publishing on a regular basis:
The Beatles, 132
Elvis Presley, 67
Garth Brooks, 52
Michael Jackson, 51
Taylor Swift, 51
Whitney Houston, 46
The Kingston Trio, 46
The Beatles also continue to have a record 19 No. 1 albums. The band was last No. 1 in 2000-01 with the greatest hits set 1, which spent eight weeks atop the list.
Presley, who died in 1977, has a total of 10 chart-toppers, and was last at No. 1 in 2002 with the best-of set Elv1s: 30 #1 Hits, which snared three weeks at No. 1.
Brooks has nine leaders, and was last in the pole position in 2013 for one week with the boxed set Blame It All On My Roots: Five Decades of Influences.
Jackson has six No. 1s, with the bulk of his 51 weeks at No. 1 generated by the 37-week reign of Thriller in 1983-84. Jackson was last at No. 1 with the soundtrack to Michael Jackson’s This Is It in 2009 (for one week). It was released a few months after his death earlier that year.
Seven of Swift’s eight No. 1 albums have spent more than a week at No. 1: Fearless (11, 2008-09), Speak Now (six, 2010-11), Red (seven, 2012-13), 1989 (11, 2014-15), Reputation (four, 2017-18), Folklore (eight, 2020) and Evermore (three, so far; 2020-21). Her only album to log just a solitary week in charge was 2019’s Lover.
Houston has four No. 1s, with three of them each logging at least 11 weeks in the lead (her self-titled debut, with 14 in 1986; Whitney, with 11 in 1987; The Bodyguard soundtrack, with 20 in 1992-93). She was last No. 1 in 2009 (for one week) with her final studio album released before her death in 2012, I Look To You.
The Kingston Trio logged all five of its No. 1s between 1958 and 1960. The group was last No. 1 on Dec. 26, 1960 with String Along.
