Taylor Swift’s Folklore reigns at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for a third week – marking the first album by a woman to spend its first three weeks at No. 1 since 2018. Aided by the arrival of its CD version in stores, Folklore earned 136,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 13 (up 1%), according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Aug. 22-dated chart (where Folklore is steady at No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Aug. 18.
Of Folklore’s units earned in the latest tracking week, SEA units comprise 68,000 (down 33%, equaling 89.77 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs), album sales total 67,000 (up 119%) and TEA units equal 1,000 (down 45%).
Folklore’s album sales grew dramatically courtesy of the set’s CD edition reaching brick-and-mortar stores and such online retailers as Amazon on Aug. 7. The album was previously only available via Swift’s official webstore and digital retailers such as iTunes.
Folklore is the fourth album to spend at least three weeks at No. 1 in 2020, following Lil Baby’s My Turn(five weeks), The Weeknd’s After Hours (four) and Roddy Ricch’s Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial (three in 2020; four in total, as the album had one week at No. 1 in 2019). Folklore is the first non-R&B/hip-hop album, or album of any genre by a woman, to tally three weeks in total at No. 1 since Billie Eilish’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? scored its third (and so far) final nonconsecutive week at No. 1 on the June 18, 2019-dated chart.
Notably, Folklore is the first album by a woman to spend its first three weeks at No. 1 since Lady Gagaand Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born soundtrack tallied its first three frames atop the list (Oct. 20-Nov. 3, 2018). Star clocked one more week at No. 1, on the March 9, 2019 chart.
The last album by a woman, unaccompanied by another act, to spend its first three weeks at No. 1 was Swift’s own Reputation. It bowed atop the Dec. 2, 2017-dated chart, and ruled for the next two frames. It returned for a fourth nonconsecutive week in charge on the Jan. 6, 2018 chart.
At No. 2 on the new Billboard 200, Juice WRLD’s Legends Never Die rises one spot with 117,000 equivalent album units earned (up 33%). The former No. 1 surges following the release of the new song “Smile,” with The Weeknd, which was added to the album’s track list during the tracking week. The album also gets a boost from an array of new merchandise/album bundles sold via Juice WRLD’s webstore.
Read the rest of story via Billboard
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