BILLIE EILISH REMAINS AT NO.1 ON TOP CONTEMPORARY ALBUMS!
As Eilish earns her first multi-week leader; Birdy flies back into the Top Five!
After scoring her second chart-topping album, Billie Eilish holds atop the Contemporary Albums Chart with Happier than Ever. The LP drops by twenty-eight percent this week, selling a further 68,000 units in its second outing.
With total sales of 162,000 to date, Happier has already been certified Gold for selling over 100,000 copies! It is Eilish’s third release to achieve this feat; her two previous discs don’t smile at me & WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? have both been certified Platinum for sales of over 300,000 units.
Two chart-topping juggernauts from Taylor Swift follow in the Top Five: folklore bullets at No.2 as it swells by six percent to 33,000 sold; and evermore ascends 4-3, improving by seven percent to 29,000 sold.
Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club slides 3-4 after spending nine weeks at No.1. The album sold 26,000 this week – a drop of fourteen percent from the previous week.
Birdy’s Young Heart makes a surprise return to the Top Five this week as it zooms 15-5, shifting 21,000 units (up 162 percent)! Young became Birdy’s first effort to reach No.1 on L.dK Weekly upon its release earlier this year, and this week it becomes the singer’s bestselling effort to date.
Young has now sold an impressive 533,000 copies, inching ahead of Beautiful Lies – 521,000 sold.
A trio of former No.1 albums follows: Miley Cyrus’s Plastic Hearts holds at No.6 (16,000 units – even with last week); Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia: Moonlight Edition bolts 16-7 (15,000 units – up eighty-seven percent); and Taylor Swift’s Fearless (Taylor’s Version) dives 5-8 (15,000 units – down twenty-two percent).
Rounding out the Top Ten: Hayley Williams pushes 10-9 with the No.3-peaking Petals for Armor (11,000 units – down eight percent); and Olivia Rodrigo sinks 7-10 with her three-week-leader SOUR (11,000 units – down twenty-seven percent).
Onto Next Week: Jade Bird will likely be in contention for the No.1 spot with her new album Different Kinds of Light; it is currently tracking to sell roughly 50,000 units in its debut frame. The closest competition will likely come from Eilish as Happier is predicted to sell over 40,000 copies.
Notable Moves on Top Contemporary Albums
No.19 – FLOWERS for VASES / descansos / Hayley Williams earned her highest-charting album to date in February when FLOWERS premiered at No.2 behind Taylor Swift’s evermore which was in its ninth week at the summit. The folky record has consistently charted on the Contemporary Albums Chart for the past six months and has now been certified Double Platinum for selling more than 600,000 copies; Williams’s debut set Petals for Armor is currently certified 4 x Platinum and has sold 1.32 million copies.
TOP CONTEMPORARY ALBUMS!
LANA DEL REY CONTINUES TO LEAD CATALOGUE ALBUMS WITH NORMAN FUCKING ROCKWELL!
NFR! ties as the longest-running number-one of all time; Alanis Morissette re-enters at No.8!
Lana Del Rey triumphs on the Catalogue Albums Chart once again with the seemingly-immortal Norman Fucking Rockwell! as the disc sells a further 22,000 units (even with last week).
NFR! has now spent a staggering twenty non-consecutive weeks at No.1 across multiple L.dK Weekly Charts: it initially topped the Weekly Top Fifty for a record seventeen weeks, and has so far spent three weeks atop Catalogue Albums!
It ties NFR! with Joni Mitchell’s Blue as the longest-running number-one album of all time!
- Twenty weeks – Blue , Joni Mitchell ; Norman Fucking Rockwell! , Lana Del Rey
- Seventeen weeks – folklore , Taylor Swift
- Thirteen weeks – evermore , Taylor Swift
- Twelve weeks – A Star is Born – OST , Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper
- Eleven weeks – Lust for Life , Lana Del Rey
Mitchell’s Blue repeats at No.2 this week selling a further 21,000 copies (down five percent).
A trio of compilation albums completes the Top Five this week, staying in their respective positions from last week: Stevie Nicks’s Crystal Visions – the Very Best of Stevie Nicks at No.3 with 19,000 copies sold (down five percent); Kate Bush’s The Whole Story at No.3 on sales of 14,000 copies (down seven percent); and Kelly Clarkson’s Greatest Hits – Chapter One at No.5 moving 14,000 units (on par with last week).
Nicks takes out another two spots in the Top Ten this week with her hits Rock a Little and Bella Donna. The former elevates 10-7 on sales of 11,000 copies (up ten percent) as the latter drops 6-10 (10,000 units – down seventeen percent) after reaching the No.1 spot for the first time two weeks ago.
Beyond the Top Five: Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits swings 9-6 (13,000 units – up thirty percent) after previously peaking at No.1.
Alanis Morissette’s The Collection – which holds the record for the most weeks at No.2 without reaching No.1 – re-enters the Top Ten at No.8 with sales of 10,000 copies (up 100 percent)!
Finally, Annie Lennox steps down 8-9 with Diva (10,000 units – on par with last week).
Onto Next Week: Jade Bird’s self-titled set could re-enter inside the Top Five alongside the release of her new album (which will impact the Contemporary Chart). Lana Del Rey & Joni Mitchell could go head to head once again in the race for the No.1 spot!
Notable Moves on Top Catalogue Albums
No.24 – 21 / Adele’s 2011 sophomore album re-appears at No.24 on this week’s edition of the Catalogue List, selling 5,000 copies. The Platinum-certified hit has now spent a whole year on L.dK Weekly! It is the forty-seventh album to achieve this feat.
TOP CATALOGUE ALBUMS!
Industry Sales
Contemporary Albums recorded sales of 349,000 units this week (down 17.3%) while Catalogue Albums generated sales of 373,000 units (up 2.1%). Contemporary accounted for 48.3% of all sales this week; versus 51.7% for Catalogue.
Total industry sales stand at 722,000 units for the week, decreasing by 8.3% from the previous week. Compared to the same week last year (when 744,000 albums were sold), consumption is down 3%!
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 