Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time clocks an eighth consecutive and total week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated May 6). The set earned 149,000 equivalent album units in the week ending April 27 (down 10%) in the United States, according to Luminate. The album opened at No. 1 on the chart dated March 18 and has yet to cede the summit.
The last album to notch eight consecutive weeks at No. 1 was the Encanto soundtrack. It logged eight weeks in a row, of its total nine nonconsecutive frames at No. 1, between the Jan. 29-March 19, 2022-dated charts. Meanwhile, the last album to spend its first eight weeks at No. 1, like One Thing at a Time, was Wallen’s last release, Dangerous: The Double Album, which spent its first 10 weeks at No. 1 (its total run atop the list), from the Jan. 23-March 27, 2021-dated charts.
Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200, Agust D (an alias of BTS’ Suga), Taylor Swift and YoungBoy Never Broke Again all arrive with new releases.
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 May 6, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on May 2. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of One Thing at a Time’s 166,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending April 20, SEA units comprise 151,000 (down 5%, equaling 201.71 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 36 songs), album sales comprise 12,000 (up 102% following the release of a new vinyl edition of the set) and TEA units comprise 3,000 (up 7%).
If One Thing at a Time can spend 10 weeks at No. 1 – matching Dangerous’ No. 1 run – Wallen will become the only act with at least two country albums to have spent 10 or more weeks at No. 1. (Country albums are those that have charted on, or are eligible for, Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart.)
Further, if One Thing at a Time nets a 10th week at No. 1, Wallen would become only the third solo male artist overall to have at least two albums spend 10 or more weeks at No. 1 each, since the Billboard 200 began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March of 1956. He would join Elvis Presley and Henry Mancini. The former did it four times (his self-titled album [10 weeks in 1956] and the soundtracks for Loving You [10, 1957], G.I. Blues [10, 1960-61] and Blue Hawaii [20, 1961-62]) and the latter did so twice (the soundtracks The Music From Peter Gunn [10, 1959] and Breakfast at Tiffany’s [12, 1962]).
Suga’s solo debut studio effort D-Day, under the alias Agust D, debuts at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, with 140,000 equivalent album units earned. It’s the first top 10 for the artist, thus making him the third member of BTS to score a solo top 10 on the Billboard 200. Earlier this year, Jimin also bowed at No. 2 with his solo debut, FACE (April 8-dated chart), while in December, RM peaked at No. 3 with Indigo (Dec. 31). BTS itself has clocked seven top 10s, of which six hit No. 1.
Of D-Day’s 140,000 units, album sales comprise 122,000 (it’s the top-selling album of the week and claims the fourth-largest sales week of 2023), SEA units comprise 12,500 (equaling 17.9 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks) and TEA units comprise 5,500.
Like many K-pop releases, the CD edition of D-Day was issued in collectible CD packages (seven total, including exclusives for Target, Walmart and the Weverse webstore) each containing a standard set of items and randomized elements (in this case, photo cards). It was also available as a standard digital download album, as well as three alternative cover digital download variants that were sold exclusively through the artist’s official webstore. Of D-Day’s first-week sales, 90% were CDs, while the remaining 10% were digital album downloads. The set was not available in any other retail format (such as vinyl or cassette).
Taylor Swift makes a splash in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, as her buzzy new Record Store Day-exclusive vinyl release Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions launches at No. 3 with 75,000 equivalent album units earned – all from sales of its vinyl LP. (It’s the single-largest sales week for an album on vinyl in 2023.)
The live acoustic album, which was previously available only as bonus tracks on a deluxe digital and streaming edition of her Folklore studio album (released in 2020), was issued on vinyl LP (its first physical release of any kind) for Record Store Day (April 22) at participating independent record stores. It was previously announced that Long Pond’s production run for Record Store Day would be 75,000 copies in the United States, and the set sold out instantly. (It’s typical for many albums and singles to garner unique and limited edition runs exclusively for the annual independent record store day celebration.)
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions is the companion album to the Disney+ documentary film of the same name, released in November 2020 about the making of the Folklore album.
Typically, high-profile Record Store Day-exclusive titles might have a production run of 10,000 to 20,000 in the United States. For Record Store Day 2022, there were 10 titles that had pressings ranging from 10,000 to 18,000, but nothing larger. For Record Store Day 2023, Swift’s Long Pond title had by far the largest production run of any RSD title. Pearl Jam’s live concert album Give Way had the second-biggest production run, with 15,500 vinyl LPs pressed.
Swift is no stranger to Record Store Day festivities, as she was the Global Ambassador for Record Store Day in 2022 and has released titles exclusively for Record Store Day in previous years.
Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions marks Swift’s 14th top 10-charting album on the Billboard 200.
Plus, with the Long Pond debut, Swift has three albums in the top 10 concurrently for the first time, as former No. 1s Midnights and Lover are Nos. 4 and 10, respectively. The last act to have at least three albums in the top 10 at the same time was Prince in 2016, following his death. That year, there were two weeks when Prince placed at least three weeks in the top 10: the chart dated May 14 (with five titles at Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7) and the May 7 chart (three titles at Nos. 1, 2 and 6). Before Prince, Led Zeppelin had three albums in the top 10 on the June 21, 2014-dated chart, when reissues of its self-titled album, Led Zeppelin II and Led Zeppelin III re-entered the chart at Nos. 7, 9 and 10, respectively, following the release of expanded deluxe editions of the albums.
Swift’s Midnights is a non-mover at No. 4 on the new Billboard 200 with 62,000 equivalent album units earned (though up 3% in activity).
YoungBoy Never Broke Again notches his 14th top 10-charting album on the Billboard 200 (and second of 2023) as his 33-track Don’t Try This at Home bows at No. 5 with 60,000 equivalent album units earned. Streaming activity powers the bulk of the album’s debut, as SEA units comprise 59,000 of that sum (equaling 87.71 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks). Album sales comprise 1,000 units while TEA units comprise a negligible sum.
SZA’s former No. 1 SOS falls 3-6 on the Billboard 200 with 59,000 equivalent album units earned (down 10%), while Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album drops 5-7 with 48,000 (down 2%). Luke Combs’ Gettin’ Old falls 6-8 with 39,000 units (down 9%), Metro Boomin’s former leader Heroes & Villains dips 7-9 with 37,000 units (down less than 1%) and Swift’s Lover descends 9-10 with 36,000 units (though up 8%).
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.
