It’s a mighty week for Taylor Swift on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated July 22). Not only does the superstar collect her 12th No. 1 with Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), surpassing Barbra Streisand for the most among women, while she also becomes the first living artist in nearly 60 years with four concurrent albums in the top 10, but she also places 11 albums on the entire 200-position chart for the first time.
In turn, Swift is the first woman – and first living soloist – to have 11 concurrently charting albums on the Billboard 200 since the list was combined from its previously separate mono and stereo album charts into one all-encompassing list in August of 1963.
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 July 22, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on July 18. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Previously, Swift tallied 10 simultaneous albums on the chart, over four different weeks, all in 2023.
On the Billboard 200 dated July 22, Swift charts the following titles:
- No. 1 – Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)
- No. 5 – Midnights
- No. 7 – Lover
- No. 10 – Folklore
- No. 18 – Red (Taylor’s Version)
- No. 19 – 1989
- No. 21 – reputation
- No. 23 – Fearless (Taylor’s Version)
- No. 38 – Evermore
- No. 67 – Speak Now
- No. 138 – Taylor Swift
As shown above, Swift has six of the top 20, nine of the top 40 and 10 of the top 100 – all feats she has achieved previously, in 2023.
Since August of 1963, Swift is:
- the only living act with six of the top 20 (Prince also had six of the top 20, after his death in 2016, on the May 14-dated chart that year)
- the only act to have placed nine simultaneous albums in the top 40
- the only living act with 10 of the top 100 (Prince had 15 in the top 100 on the May 14, 2016 chart)
Swift has effectively been promoting her entire catalog of music throughout this spring and summer, since her career-spanning The Eras Tour launched on March 17. She performs dozens of songs from most of her albums each night on the tour. The blockbuster sold-out stadium trek has played more than 40 dates thus far, and is scheduled to conclude its U.S. run on Aug. 9. It will then extend to international venues through August 2024.
While Swift’s most recent new studio album is 2022’s Midnights, her 2019 studio set Lover has seen a resurgence on the Billboard 200 as of late. The latter album’s songs are prominently featured in The Eras Tour, with the track “Cruel Summer” one of the first two songs she plays each evening. The song is currently being officially promoted to radio, alongside her other current radio single, “Karma,” from Midnights. The Eras Tour is Swift’s first in which she’s been able to spotlight songs from Lover, which was released the year before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, which scuttled all touring for a substantial time.
Here are the acts who have placed at least 11 albums on the Billboard 200 simultaneously (since August 1963):
- Taylor Swift – July 22, 2023 (11 albums)
- Prince – May 28, 2016 (13)
- Prince – May 14, 2016 (a record 19)
- The Beatles – March 1, 2014 (13)
- The Beatles – Dec. 4, 2010 (14)
- The Beatles – Jan. 9, 2010 (11)
Prince’s achievements came shortly after he died, following a surge of interest in his catalog from music fans. The Beatles surged onto the list with 13 titles in 2014 largely to gains owed to promotion around the CBS-TV concert special The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles, which celebrated 50 years of The Beatles’ success in the U.S. timed to the 50th anniversary of the band’s first live American TV performance on The Ed Sullivan Show (Feb. 9, 1964). Both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the living members of The Beatles, performed on the TV special, in solo sets and together. In December 2010, The Beatles were heavy on the chart after its catalog finally arrived in the iTunes Store for download purchase. In January 2010, The Beatles were popping on the list not long after the group’s catalog was digitally remastered for CD reissues in September 2009 – and shortly after the Billboard 200 began allowing older albums (referred to as catalog titles) to chart after many years of exclusion.
While the Billboard 200 has ranked the country’s most popular albums each week for decades, dating back to March of 1956 when the list began regularly publishing on a weekly basis, the chart’s rules have changed dramatically over the years – making it easier for some albums to linger on the list in recent years than in decades past. For example, catalog albums (generally those 18 months or older) were mostly barred from charting from mid-1991 through the end of 2009. Then, at the end of 2014, the chart transitioned from a pure-album sales formula to a multimetric methodology – and adding streaming activity. Because of the changes in the chart’s methodology (primarily the inclusion of streaming data) and the ability for catalog albums to chart, many albums now continue to rank on the list (including Swift’s gaggle of titles) for a much longer time than albums in previous decades, when the chart was effectively a sales-only ranking for current and/or new releases.
