Taylor Swift Scores Fifth Week Atop Billboard 200 with ‘The Tortured Poets Department’

Plus: Billie Eilish’s ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’ bows at No. 2 with her largest week ever.

Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department snags a fifth straight and total week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated June 1), as the title earned 378,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending May 23 (up 45%), according to Luminate. The set posted its first weekly gain in units following the release of six new digital album download variants and a new CD variant, along with a stock replenishment of the previously available four deluxe CD editions and the signed CD edition of the album — all of which were sold exclusively in Swift’s webstore.

Poets is the first album to spend its first five weeks at No. 1 since Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time led for its first 12 weeks a year ago (March 18-June 3, 2023-dated charts).

With 378,000 units earned in Poets’ fifth week, the set scores the largest fifth-week for any album since Adele’s 25 tallied 1.193 million units in its fifth frame (chart dated Jan. 9, 2016).

Swift adds her 74th career week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, extending her record among soloists. (Elvis Presley has the second-most among soloists, with 67.) The total encompasses her 14 leaders. (She’s tied with Jay-Z for the most No. 1s among soloists.)

Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200, Billie Eilish’s new studio album Hit Me Hard and Soft debuts at No. 2 with 339,000 equivalent album units — her largest week ever by units earned. Of that sum, 191,000 are traditional album sales — her best sales week yet.

Notably, with the Nos. 1 and 2 albums both exceeding 300,000 units, it’s the first time that two albums have cleared 300,000 in the same week in eight years. (More on that later in the story.)

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, compiled by Luminate. 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 June 1, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on May 29 — one day later than usual, owed to the Memorial Day holiday in the U.S. on May 27. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.

Of The Tortured Poets Department’s fifth-week unit sum of 378,000, album sales comprise 210,000 (up 413%, making it the top-selling album of the week at No. 1 on Top Album Sales), SEA units comprise 166,500 (down 23%, equaling 216.9 million on-demand official streams of the deluxe album’s 31 songs; it’s also No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart) and TEA units comprise 1,500 (down 17%).

Source: billboard.com