Republic Records has a banner week on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Jan. 23), as the company owns the top 10, with five of the top 10 albums and all five in the top seven — including the entire top three.
It’s the first time a distributing label has nabbed half of the top 10 in nearly a year (since the Feb. 1, 2020-dated chart when the label group Interscope Geffen A&M achieved the distinction). Republic also holds the top three for the third time in less than three months, and remains the only label to monopolize the top three since 2003, when Interscope pulled off the feat.
Most impressively, it’s just the third time since 1996 that one label holds five of the top seven albums.
On the latest chart, Republic is represented in the top 10 by Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album (No. 1, released via Big Loud/Republic), Taylor Swift’s Evermore (No. 2, Republic), Pop Smoke’s Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon (No. 3, Victor Victor Worldwide/Republic), The Weeknd’s After Hours (No. 6, XO/Republic) and Ariana Grande’s Positions (No. 7, Republic).
The last time five of the top seven albums on the Billboard 200 were from the same distributing label was in 2016, when Rhino held court following the death of Prince on April 21 of that year, with albums from NPG/Warner Bros. (now Warner Records). On the May 14, 2016-dated chart, Prince was at Nos. 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 with The Very Best of Prince (NPG/Warner Bros./Rhino), the Purple Rain soundtrack (with The Revolution; NPG/Warner Bros./Rhino), The Hits/The B-Sides (NPG/Paisley Park/Warner Bros./Rhino), Ultimate (NPG/Warner Bros./Rhino) and 1999 (NPG/Warner Bros./Rhino), respectively.
Before 2016, the last time a distributing label had five of the top seven albums in the same week was in 1996, when Interscope crowded the top of the chart. On the Dec. 14, 1996-dated tally, the label was at Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7 with Bush’s Razorblade Suitcase (released via Trauma/Interscope), No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom (Trauma/Interscope), Snoop Dogg’s Tha Doggfather (Death Row/Interscope), the various artists compilation Dr. Dre Presents… The Aftermath (Aftermath/Interscope) and 2Pac’s first posthumous album The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (Death Row/Interscope), released under the pseudonym Makaveli, respectively.
