TAYLOR SWIFT‘S FOLKLORE RETURNS TO NO.1 ON TOP CONTEMPORARY ALBUMS!
folklore notches a seventeenth non-consecutive week at the top spot!
As folklore notches a fifty-third week on L.dK Weekly, it rises 2-1 to score a seventeenth cumulative week out in front! The record sold 41,000 units this week (up twenty-eight percent) and has sold 3.67 million copies since its release last July!
folklore is Swift’s longest-running number-one on L.dK Weekly, ahead of evermore (thirteen weeks); Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (three weeks); Lover (one week); and reputation (one week).
Swift stays at No.3 this week with evermore selling 26,000 copies (down twelve percent); and dips 5-6 with Fearless (Taylor’s Version) with 19,000 sold (down twenty-four percent).
Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club falls to No.2 after nine non-consecutive weeks at the top of the Contemporary Chart; it sold 30,000 copies this week (down nine percent).
Rounding out the Top Five: London Grammar’s No.3-peaking Californian Soil repeats at No.4, on sales of 24,000 copies (down eighteen percent); and Olivia Rodrigo’s SOUR rebounds 6-5 after three weeks at number-one, moving 21,000 units (down thirteen percent).
Three former chart-toppers follow outside the Top Five, retaining their ranks from last week: Miley Cyrus’s Plastic Hearts at No.7 (up five percent to 18,000 sold); Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia: Moonlight Edition at No.8 (down seven percent to 14,000 sold); and Birdy’s Young Heart (down eight percent to 12,000 sold).
Hayley Williams caps the Top Ten with the No.3-hit Petals for Armor, which keeps at No.10 in its sixty-fourth charting week (on par with 9,000 sold).
Onto Next Week: Billie Eilish is set to open at No.1 with her new LP Happier than Ever, which is currently tracking to sell over 60,000 units. Happier would clinch Eilish her second number-one, and third successive Top Five hit!
TOP CONTEMPORARY ALBUMS
STEVIE NICKS DOMINATES TOP CATALOGUE ALBUMS, LED BY BELLA DONNA!
Bella Donna makes history; Lana Del Rey reaches a new milestone with Norman Fucking Rockwell!; Joni Mitchell covers new ground with Blue!
Stevie Nicks’s debut solo album Bella Donna was released forty years ago in late July 1981; it first charted on L.dK Weekly when it ranked at No.4 on its inaugural list in March 2017; in April of the same year it would reach a highpoint of No.3, and would revisit that rank later in the year.
Up until last week, Bella Donna had spent fourteen weeks in the Top Five, was one of just four albums to spend at least a year in the Top Ten (fifty-six weeks), and ranked as the longest-charting album of all time, having lived on the list for 149 weeks! It also boasted sales of just over 1.7 million, making it the seventeenth bestselling album ever at the time.
Perhaps most impressively, it was the most successful album of all time never to top the charts!
Spurred on by its fortieth anniversary, Bella Donna roars up the charts to reach No.1 for the first time – it does so in its ground-breaking 150th appearance on L.dK Weekly, and earns Nicks her record-extending sixth chart-topping LP!
Artists with the most Number One Albums!
- Six – Stevie Nicks: The Other Side of the Mirror (five weeks); 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); Trouble in Shangri-La (one week); and Bella Donna (one week).
- Five – Taylor Swift: folklore (seventeen weeks); evermore (thirteen weeks); Fearless (Taylor’s Version) (three weeks); reputation (one week); and Lover (one week).
- Three – Fleetwood Mac: Rumours (five weeks); Tango in the Night (three weeks); Greatest Hits (one week).
- Three – Ariana Grande: thank u, next (four weeks); Sweetener (three weeks); and Positions (three weeks).
- Three – Lana Del Rey: Norman Fucking Rockwell! (eighteen weeks); Lust for Life (eleven weeks); and Chemtrails Over the Country Club.
Longest Charting Albums of All Time!
- 150 weeks – Bella Donna , Stevie Nicks
- 130 weeks – Diva , Annie Lennox
- 125 weeks – Sweetener , Ariana Grande
- 116 weeks – Rumours , Fleetwood Mac
- 115 weeks – Glasshouse , Jessie Ware
- 112 weeks – 25 , Adele
- 108 weeks – The Whole Story , Kate Bush
- 106 weeks – A Star is Born – OST , Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper
- 101 weeks – She’s so Unusual , Cyndi Lauper
- 100 weeks – Norman Fucking Rockwell! , Lana Del Rey
Bella sold 26,000 units this week – surging by 160 percent from the previous week’s sales haul of 10,000 copies.
As Bella tops L.dK Weekly for the first time in history, Adele’s 25 becomes the biggest album ever which has never hit number-one!
Nicks places four more records inside the Top Ten this week: her best-of set Crystal Visions – the Very Best of Stevie Nicks falls 3-4 as it slips by six percent to 16,000 copies sold, after spending a total of six weeks at the summit. The compilation has now been certified 6 x Platinum for selling over 1.8 million copies – it is Nicks’s first album to reach this milestone, and just the fifteenth in history to do so!
Her 2001 album Trouble in Shangri-La re-enters the Top Ten for the first time in four years; it peaked at No.1 in the Summer of 2017. Trouble rockets 23-6 as it gains by 180 percent to 14,000 copies sold.
Rock a Little – which peaked at No.2 – vaults 17-9 with sales of 13,000 copies (up eighty-five percent); while Street Angel – which hit No.3 – flies back onto the tally at No.9 selling 12,000 units (up 300 percent)!
Two of Nicks’s other studio album also appear further down the Catalogue Chart: The Wild Heart returns at No.17 with 8,000 units sold while The Other Side of the Mirror jumps back onto the list at No.23 with 7,000 sold.
Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! marks a milestone 100th week on L.dK Weekly: it makes the cut at No.2 this week, down from No.1 last week, selling 24,000 copies (down four percent).
Currently, NFR! is the tenth longest-charting album in history!
Del Rey’s Born to Die: the Paradise Edition also makes the Top Ten as it drops 6-10 with 11,000 sold (down sixteen percent).
Joni Mitchell’s Blue descends 2-3 following its twenty-one week command of Top Catalogue Albums, selling 22,000 copies this week (down five percent).
Blue has sold 1.009 million copies since its release just over five months ago, and is the first album of the year to sell one million copies on the Catalogue format! Overall, Blue is the thirty-ninth album to sell one million units.
Rounding out the Top Five: Kate Bush moves 4-5 with the No.3-peaking The Whole Story. It sold 15,000 copies this week (up seven percent).
Finally in the Top Ten: Kelly Clarkson’s Greatest Hits – Chapter One bullets at No.7 this week after reaching No.2 (up eight percent to 13,000 sold).
Onto Next Week: Lana Del Rey could reclaim the No.1 spot with Norman Fucking Rockwell! as it is currently the only album tracking to sell over 20,000 copies!
Notable Moves On Top Catalogue Albums!
No.21 – The Red Shoes / Kate Bush’s most successful studio release re-enters the Catalogue Chart at No.21 this week. Now in its sixty-first appearance, Red has sold just over 900,000 copies to date, become Bush’s second release overall to be certified at least Triple Platinum. Her list of certifications are as follows: The Whole Story (4 x Platinum); The Red Shoes (3 x Platinum); The Sensual World (2 x Platinum); Never for Ever (Platinum); and The Hounds of Love (Platinum).
TOP CATALOGUE ALBUMS
Industry Sales
Contemporary Albums recorded sales of 321,000 units this week (up 1.9%) while Catalogue Albums generated sales of 469,000 units (up 68.7%). Contemporary accounted for 40.6% of all sales this week; versus 59.4% for Catalogue.
This week marks the greatest sales figure of the year on the Contemporary Format, surpassing the week dated 28 June when 403,000 albums were sold.
Total industry sales stand at 790,000 units for the week, increasing by 33.2% from the previous week. Compared to the same week last year (when 969,000 albums were sold), consumption is down 18.5%!
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.
Certifications: Silver (60,000); Gold (100,000); Platinum (300,000); Multi-Platinum (600,000 etc.); Diamond (3,000,000).
L.dK Music 
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