TAYLOR SWIFT BREAKS RECORD FOR MOST WEEKS AT NO.1!
Fearless (Taylor’s Version) wins third week at No.1; Doja Cat’s Planet Her debut at No.6!
For a third non-consecutive week, Taylor Swift’s Fearless (Taylor’s Version) ranks as the biggest album out right now. Selling 39,000 copies this week, it dips just five percent from the previous week.
With this most-recent week in charge, Taylor Swift’s total command of L.dK Weekly extends to a record-breaking thirty-five weeks!
Artists with the most weeks atop L.dK Weekly are as follows:
- Thirty-five weeks – Taylor Swift
- Thirty-four weeks – Lana Del Rey
- Nineteen weeks – Lady Gaga
- Eighteen weeks – Stevie Nicks
- Eighteen weeks – Joni Mitchell
Swift previously reached No.1 on L.dK Weekly with 2017’s reputation (one week); 2019’s Lover (one week); 2020’s folklore (sixteen weeks) and 2020’s evermore (thirteen weeks).
Further down the Top Ten: Swift’s evermore is unmoved at No.5 with 31,000 sold (down seven percent) while her chart-topping folklore bullets at No.7 selling 27,000 units (up twelve percent).
Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club remains at No.2 on sales of 38,000 copies (down five percent) after a total of six weeks at No.1.
Olivia Rodrigo’s SOUR holds steady at No.3 following its three-week reign, selling 36,000 copies (down seven percent); London Grammar’s No.3-peaking Californian Soil improves 5-4 as it moves 32,000 copies (up eighteen percent).
Doja Cat pays her first visit to the Top Ten as Planet Her premieres at No.6 on Top Contemporary Albums, selling 29,000 copies in its first week.
Rounding out the Top Ten: Birdy’s former two-week-leader Young Heart falls 6-8 (23,000 units – down eighteen percent); Miley Cyrus’s two-week-ruler Plastic Hearts lifts 10-9 (15,000 units – down six percent); and Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia: Moonlight Edition ascends 11-10 (14,000 units – even with last week).
Onto Next Week: Taylor Swift & Lana Del Rey are both in tight contention for the No.1 spot: both Fearless & Chemtrails should sell around 40,000 units, and are contending for a fourth and seventh week at the top spot.
Notable Moves on Top Contemporary Albums!
No.11 – Women in Music Pt. III / HAIM’s third studio album roars 20-11 – surging by one-hundred percent to 12,000 sold – to reach its highest rank since it debuted at No.8 last July! The rock-pop record has sold just under 150,000 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).
JONI MITCHELL’S BLUE BECOMES LONGEST-RUNNING NUMBER-ONE ALBUM OF ALL TIME!
Mitchell also starts at No.2 with Song to a Seagull; Kate Bush’s The Whole Story celebrates two full years on L.dK Weekly!
Joni Mitchell rules Top Catalogue Albums for an record-breaking eighteenth consecutive week with her 1971 album Blue. The smash hit breaks its tie with Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! (seventeen weeks) to become the longest-running number-one album in L.dK Weekly history!
- Eighteen weeks – Blue , Joni Mitchell
- Seventeen weeks – Norman Fucking Rockwell! , Lana Del Rey
- Sixteen weeks – folklore , Taylor Swift
- Thirteen weeks – evermore , Taylor Swift
- Twelve weeks – A Star is Born – OST , Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper
Mitchell also takes the No.2 spot this week with her 1968 debut album Song to a Seagull. The album debuts with first week sales of 26,000 copies.
Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! surges 6-3 selling 20,000 copies (up eleven percent), logging a record-furthering fifty-eighth week in the Top Five, and record-padding eighty-ninth week in the Top Ten!
Stevie Nicks’s Crystal Visions – the Very Best of Stevie Nicks retreats 3-4 selling 18,000 units (down fifteen percent) after five weeks in pole position; and Lorde’s Pure Heroine falls from its No.2 highpoint to No.5, moving 16,000 copies (down twenty-eight percent).
Kate Bush’s The Whole Story elevates 7-6 (15,000 units – on par with last week) in its 104th appearance on L.dK Weekly: the compilation disc has now spent a whole two years on the tally!
Among all albums, Story – which peaked at No.3 earlier this year – is the sixth-longest-charting hit of all time, and boasts the greatest longevity among all best-of sets:
- 146 weeks – Bella Donna , Stevie Nicks
- 126 weeks – Diva , Annie Lennox
- 125 weeks – Sweetener , Ariana Grande
- 116 weeks – Rumours , Fleetwood Mac
- 111 weeks – 25 , Adele
- 111 weeks – Glasshouse , Jessie Ware
- 104 weeks – The Whole Story , Kate Bush
- 103 weeks – A Star is Born – OST , Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper
- 98 weeks – She’s so Unusual , Cyndi Lauper
- 96 weeks – Norman Fucking Rockwell! , Lana Del Rey
Four juggernaut chart-topping albums round out the Top Ten: Lorde’s Melodrama slides 5-7 (15,000 units – down seven percent); Carole King’s A Beautiful Collection keeps at No.8 (13,000 units – down fourteen percent); Annie Lennox’s Diva holds at No.9 (12,000 units – down eight percent); Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits tumbles 4-10 (12,000 units – down forty-three percent).
Onto Next Week: Joni Mitchell could be bound for a record-extending nineteenth week at the summit with Blue.
Top Catalogue Albums
Industry Sales
Contemporary Albums generated sales of 404,000 units this week (up 3.3%) while Catalogue Albums recorded sales of 361,000 units (down 10.5%). Contemporary accounted for 52.8% of all sales this week; versus 47.2% for Catalogue.
Total industry sales stand at 765,000 units for the week, dipping by 3.7% from the previous week. Compared to the same week last year (when 1.011 million albums were sold), consumption is down by 24.4%!
Note
This chart reflects my own personal music consumption; 1 song = 1,000 units. Top Contemporary Albums measures the performance of albums released within the past 18 months; Top Catalogue Albums ranks the performance of albums released prior to the past 18 months.
L.dK Music 