LANA DEL REY TIES RECORD FOR MOST WEEKS AT NO.1 ON L.DK WEEKLY!
Chemtrails Over the Country Club rules for a third week; goes Platinum!
This week sees Top Contemporary Albums dominated for a third successive frame by Lana Del Rey’s newest set Chemtrails Over the Country Club. It marks the singer’s thirty-first week atop L.dk Weekly across three different records.
Del Rey first ruled with Lust for Life for eleven weeks, across 2017 and 2018, and followed with Norman Fucking Rockwell! which spent seventeen weeks at the summit between 2019 and 2020. Both albums became the longest-running number-one album ever at the time, and NFR! still holds this distinction.
Currently, Del Rey’s thirty-one week tenure atop the charts is even with that of Taylor Swift, who nabbed the record from Del Rey earlier this year.
The list of artists who have spent the most weeks at No.1 is as follows:
- 31 weeks – Taylor Swift (reputation – one week, Lover – one week, folklore – sixteen weeks, evermore – thirteen weeks)
- 31 weeks – Lana Del Rey (Lust for Life – eleven weeks, Norman Fucking Rockwell! – seventeen weeks, Chemtrails Over the Country Club – *three weeks to date)
- 19 weeks – Lady Gaga (A Star is Born, with Bradley Cooper – twelve weeks, Chromatica – six weeks)
- 18 weeks – Stevie Nicks (The Other Side of the Mirror – Five weeks, Trouble in Shangri-La – one week, Crystal Visions – the Very Best of Stevie Nicks – five weeks, 24 Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault – four weeks, Timespace: the Best of Stevie Nicks – three weeks)
- 9 weeks – Fleetwood Mac (Tango in the Night – three weeks, Rumours – five weeks, Greatest Hits – one week)
Chemtrails leads courtesy of 106,000 sales (down 6 percent) and has now been certified Platinum (denoting sales exceeding 300,000 units) after just three weeks on sale! It is Del Rey’s sixth album to be certified at least Platinum.
- 13 x Platinum – Norman Fucking Rockwell!
- 8 x Platinum – Lust for Life
- 2 x Platinum – Born to Die: Paradise Edition
- 2 x Platinum – Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass
- Platinum – Chemtrails Over the Country Club
- Platinum – Honeymoon
- Gold – Ultraviolence
- Gold – The Unreleased Collection
The two biggest-selling records of 2021 follow back to back at No.2 and No.3: Taylor Swift’s folklore on sales of 49,000 (down 6 percent) and evermore with 41,000 sold (down 17 percent).
Hayley Williams’s No.2-peaking FLOWERS for VASES / descansos strengthens its position at No.4, selling 38,000 copies (up 5 percent). The singer’s previous solo album Petals for Armor – which reached No.3 last year – improves 10-9 this week with 16,000 sold (down 5 percent).
The Weeknd’s No.3-hit The Highlights keeps at No.5 shifting 32,000 copies (down 4 percent).
Outside the Top Five: Miley Cyrus’s former two-week chart-topper Plastic Hearts rebounds 8-6 (25,000 units – up 8 percent); Celeste’s No.3-peaking Not Your Muse stays put at No.7 (24,000 units – on par with last week); Dua Lipa’s eight-week number-one Future Nostalgia: Moonlight Edition slides 6-8 (22,000 units – down 15 percent).
Finally, Zara Larsson’s Poster Girl slips 9-10 (15,000 units – down 16 percent) after debuting and peaking at No.3 a month ago.
Onto Next Week: Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift look set to go head to head for the No.1 spot, with a battle between the incumbent ruler Chemtrails Over the Country Club, and the newly released Fearless (Taylor’s Version). Both albums could sell roughly 90,000 – 100,000 copies this week: it will put one artist ahead in the race for most weeks at No.1 ever, and if Swift takes the crown, it will be her record-tying fifth No.1 album.
Notable Moves on Top Contemporary!
No.18 – Piano Sketches / Birdy’s four-track EP falls 16-18 this week, moving 6,000 copies, after peaking at No.13 earlier this year. Although it is Birdy’s first release to not to reach the Top Ten, it has now become her longest-charting effort, with twenty-two weeks on the ranking. Previously, her self-titled debut album spent twenty-one weeks on the list. Piano has sold 170,000 copies to date.
Top Contemporary Albums
Certifications: Silver (60,000) Gold (100,000) Platinum (300,000) Multi-Platinum (600,000 etc.) Diamond (3,000,000).
LANA DEL REY MAKES HISTORY WITH NORMAN FUCKING ROCKWELL!
Plus: Joni Mitchell’s Blue goes Platinum, and celebrates record-tying sixth week at No.1!
Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! – ranked as the Greatest Album of All Time on L.dK Weekly – continues to break records and achieve things no other album has, even its 84th week.
With its latest haul of 33,000 copies (down 8 percent from last week’s figure), which slots it at No.2 this week on Top Catalogue Albums, NFR! has now surpassed total sales of 3.9 million units, becoming the first album in history to be certified 13 x Platinum! In the first week of January this year, the juggernaut also became the first to be certified 12 x Platinum.
With total sales of 3,913,000 copies to date, NFR! could top the 4 million mark in roughly a month’s time.
Del Rey is rather accustomed to breaking records at this point, and interestingly, her 2017 album Lust for Life was the first LP to sell 1 million copies (Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours reached the mark in the same week) and 2 million copies. NFR! was the second to sell 3 million, behind Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper’s A Star is Born.
Just to add on more records, this week marks the forty-seventh frame NFR! has been present in the Top Five, and seventy-seventh in the Top Ten – both figures are all-time records.
More Del Rey: In addition to NFR! holding steady at No.2, Lana Del Rey places a further five albums inside the Top Ten once again!
2017’s Lust for Life springs 5-3 with 17,000 sold (down 5 percent) after previously spending eleven weeks at No.1.; 2015’s Honeymoon repeats at its No.4 highpoint on sales of 16,000 copies (down 11 percent); her No.2-peaking 2012 debut set Born to Die: Paradise Edition recovers 7-6 with 15,000 units (even with last week); finally, her 2014 set Ultraviolence rises from No.9 back its No.8 high, selling 13,000 units (down 7 percent).
Joni Mitchell ties a record this week as her 1971 masterpiece Blue keeps the crown for a sixth consecutive turn. The album sold 54,000 copies this week (up 6 percent).
It draws even with Carole King’s A Beautiful Collection as the longest-running number-one on Catalogue Albums; it also becomes the eleventh album to log at least six weeks in pole position, joining the aforementioned A Beautiful Collection, in addition to Cyndi Lauper’s She’s so Unusual and Lady Gaga’s Chromatica.
Blue has now sold in excess of 300,000 copies, making it the first Catalogue album of the year to be certified Platinum!
Stevie Nicks’s five-week ruler Crystal Visions – the Very Best of Stevie Nicks steps up 6-5 shifting 16,000 units (on par with last week), capping the Top Five.
Florence + the Machine climb 8-7 with their former chart-topping LL High as Hope (13,000 units – down 7 percent).
Two records from Annie Lennox round out the Top Ten this week: her chart-topping juggernaut Diva ticks 10-9 (12,000 units – down 8 percent) while Bare plummets 3-10 in its second week (12,000 units – down 43 percent).
Onto Next Week: Joni Mitchell’s Blue could become the longest-running number-one album in Catalogue Albums history; it is gunning for a seventh week out in front with around 50,000 sold.
Notable Moves on Top Catalouge!
No.11 – The Whole Story / Kate Bush celebrates a first in her career this week as she notches her first Quadruple Platinum hit! Already her bestselling album, this week her 1986 compilation The Whole Story reaches sales of 1.2 million units. Only twenty-six other albums have sold as many copies, including three other compilation sets.
No.13 – The Collection / Alanis Morissette’s best-of set was released last year, and peaked at No.2 for a total of nine weeks, and holds the record for the most weeks in the runner-up spot without ever hitting No.1. To date, The Collection has sold 2.08 million units, and now celebrates its fifty-second appearance on L.dK Weekly, becoming the thirty-fifth album to live on the lists for a whole year!
Top Catalogue Albums
Industry Sales
Contemporary Albums generated sales of 468,000 units this week (down 4.9%) while Catalogue Albums recorded sales of 331,000 units (down 10.3%). Contemporary accounted for 58.6% of all consumption this week; versus 41.4% for Catalogue.
Total industry sales stand at 799,000 units this week, showing a 7.3% decline from last week. Compared to the same week last year (when 891,000 albums were sold), consumption is down by 10.4%.
L.dK Music 