Coldplay performs throughout the Glastonbury Pageant 2024 on June 29, 2024. This week, the band’s tenth album, Moon Music, grew to become its fifth to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
Joe Maher/Getty Photos
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Joe Maher/Getty Photos
One other comparatively uneventful week on the Billboard Scorching 100 sees Shaboozey’s “A Bar Music (Tipsy)” within the high spot for a 14th nonconsecutive week, whereas The Weeknd’s “Timeless” is probably not so timeless in spite of everything. The Billboard 200 albums chart gives a bit extra motion, at the very least on the high, as Coldplay enters the chart at No. 1 due to good old school gross sales.
TOP ALBUMS
In a 12 months dominated by new and newish artists — lookin’ at you, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Shaboozey et al. — breaking by means of with hit singles, it feels positively quaint to see the Billboard 200 topped this week by the earnestly anthemic British uplift of Coldplay, particularly on condition that none of its songs have taken off. However right here we’re: Moon Music, the group’s tenth studio album, is its fifth to hit No. 1. (Although all 10 Coldplay albums have hit No. 1 within the U.Okay., Moon Music is the band’s first to high the U.S. chart since Ghost Tales in 2014.)
Goosed by high-profile TV appearances on SNL and elsewhere, Moon Music’s chart success was fueled nearly solely by an old school metric: album gross sales, which accounted for almost 90 % of the band’s 120,000 “equal album items.” (That’s Billboard-speak for the cocktail of gross sales, airplay and streaming that goes into rating the efficiency of albums on any given week’s Billboard 200 chart.) However newfangled methods helped, too. The album was obtainable in no fewer than eight totally different vinyl editions, together with two signed variations and a Goal-exclusive version with three additional tracks; six totally different CD editions and 4 totally different discounted obtain editions, together with two that embody scads of bonus tracks. Decide your metaphor: They flooded the zone, they pulled out all of the stops, they left all of it on the sphere, they made fetch occur.
After all, the irony of conventional album gross sales within the streaming period is that they each require essentially the most fan dedication — folks should plunk down precise cash — and produce essentially the most ephemeral chart outcomes. As a result of streaming algorithms and radio playlists maintain feeding followers what they’ve already heard, these metrics are conducive to long-term chart success. However gross sales, for all their non-public permanence for listeners, produce extra of a sugar-high impact on the charts nowadays. Which is all a approach of claiming that within the absence of a blockbuster hit on radio and streaming (“We Pray,” with visitor performances by Little Simz, Burna Boy, Elyanna and TINI, enters this week’s Scorching 100 at No. 87), Moon Music is a major candidate for a precipitous fall subsequent week. However it’ll at all times be remembered — and marketed — as a chart-topper.
The remainder of the highest 10 has loved a considerably longer run at or close to the highest of the charts. Sabrina Carpenter’s Quick n’ Candy slides from No. 1 to No. 2, whereas Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess slips from No. 2 to No. 3. Morgan Wallen’s One Factor at a Time and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Onerous and Smooth maintain regular at No. 4 and No. 5, respectively. Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Division rises from No. 7 to No. 6, switching spots with Submit Malone’s F-1 Trillion. Future’s Mixtape Pluto tumbles from No. 3 to No. 8, Noah Kahan’s Stick Season drops from No. 8 to No. 9 and Wallen’s Harmful: The Double Album holds at No. 10.
TOP SONGS
The singles chart this week brings just a few longevity-based milestones, which we’ll get to in a second, however the huge information right here is the decline of The Weeknd’s new single with Playboi Carti, “Timeless,” which debuted at No. 3 final week (the best Scorching 100 debut of The Weeknd’s profession) earlier than sliding to No. 12. The Weeknd has had among the most sturdy hits of the twenty first century to date — together with the record-setting “Blinding Lights,” which sat on the Scorching 100 for 90 weeks that spanned 2019 to 2021 — however his forthcoming album has produced solely boomlets, at the very least to date. (“Dancing within the Flames” slides from No. 37 to No. 41 this week, after peaking at No. 14 a few month in the past.)
Elsewhere, as famous above, there are just a few milestones to notice, all rooted in endurance. Shaboozey’s “A Bar Music (Tipsy)” holds at No. 1 but once more, marking 14 nonconsecutive weeks on the high of the chart; that’s the third-longest run on the high on this decade, after Morgan Wallen’s “Final Evening” (16 weeks) and Harry Types’ “As It Was” (15 weeks). Teddy Swims’ “Lose Management,” which holds at No. 8 after topping the chart briefly again in March, has now been within the high 10 for 39 weeks — that’s tied with Submit Malone’s “Circles” for the fifth-longest high 10 run of all time. (At 57 weeks, the aforementioned “Blinding Lights” holds the document.)
Sabrina Carpenter has had three songs within the high 10 for seven consecutive weeks now, and is considered one of solely six acts ever to have pulled off that feat. All three of Carpenter’s singles are rising, too, thanks partly to The Weeknd’s decline: “Espresso” strikes from No. 5 to No. 4, “Style” climbs from No. 9 to No. 7 and “Please Please Please” ticks up a spot from No. 10 to No. 9.
Elsewhere on the highest 10, Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” holds at No. 2, Submit Malone’s “I Had Some Assist” (that includes Morgan Wallen) climbs from No. 4 to No. 3, Girl Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” rises from No. 6 to No. 5 and Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” ticks up from No. 7 to No. 6. And, with The Weeknd vacating his spot within the high 10, Benson Boone’s “Stunning Issues” climbs from No. 12 to No. 10 — its twenty fifth week within the high 10 to date.
WORTH NOTING
Final week, a trio of superstars underperformed on the Billboard 200 albums chart to a humbling diploma, as Girl Gaga’s Joker-adjacent jazz-and-standards album Harlequin (which debuted at a gentle No. 20), Luke Bryan’s Thoughts of a Nation Boy (which debuted at a softer No. 51) and Katy Perry’s 143 (which fell from No. 6 to No. 76 in its second week) all posted showings that felt fairly dismal in comparison with the blockbuster albums that preceded them.
This week, the humblings speed up, as all three information tumble off the chart solely. That has to sting notably laborious for Gaga, who’s 1) unaccustomed to her albums disappearing from the Billboard 200 after a single week; and a pair of) additionally smarting from the catastrophic box-office faceplant of Joker: Folie à Deux.
Granted, the charts have by no means felt extra crowded or aggressive, as perpetually streaming catalog titles — Taylor Swift has 9 albums on the chart by herself, whereas Drake has six and Zach Bryan has 5 — block out the vast majority of the 200 obtainable spots. However Gaga, Perry and Luke Bryan can’t be thrilled about having their brand-new information out-charted by the 2011 compilation 4 Hits: Milli Vanilli, which debuts on the Billboard 200 this week at No. 197. There’s no disgrace in being surpassed by Taylor Swift, nevertheless it’s one other matter altogether to lose out to a disgraced “singing” duo whose decades-old best hits match on an EP.
