Morgan Wallen’s ‘One Thing at a Time’ Is Top Billboard 200 Album of 2023

Keith Caulfield
·4 min read
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Morgan Wallen claims the year-end No. 1 on 2023 Billboard 200 Albums recap with his monster hit One Thing at a Time, which spent 16 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the weekly Billboard 200. It racked up the most weeks at No. 1 for any album since Adele’s 21 tallied 24 weeks atop the list in 2011-12.

One Thing at a Time was a constant presence after its release on the Billboard 200 during the 2023 chart year (Nov. 19, 2022-Oct. 21, 2023). It debuted at No. 1 on the March 18, 2023, chart and then spent the next 31 weeks of the chart year lodged in the top five of the chart, never dipping below No. 4 in that span of time.

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Wallen has led the year-end Billboard 200 Albums tally twice. He first triumphed in 2021 with Dangerous: The Double Album, which finishes 2023 as the year’s No. 5 title. It ranked at No. 3 for the year in 2022. It’s the first title to spend three years, consecutive or otherwise, in the year-end Billboard 200 Albums top 10 since the soundtrack to The Sound of Music (1965-67).

As Wallen is No. 1 on the year-end Billboard 200 Albums recap in 2023 with One Thing at a Time, and he led the tally in 2021 with Dangerous: The Double Album, he’s the first artist since 2005 to be No. 1 with two different albums within three years. In 2005, 50 Cent led the year-end Billboard 200 Albums tally with The Massacre, coming hot on the heels of his 2003 win with Get Rich or Die Tryin’.

Further, with both One Thing at a Time and Dangerous: The Double Album categorized as country efforts, Wallen is the first artist to claim two year-end No. 1s on the all-genre Billboard 200 Albums recap with a country album. Before Dangerous won in 2021, the only country efforts to be the year’s top Billboard 200 album were Taylor Swift’s Fearless (2009), Carrie Underwood’s Some Hearts (2006) and Garth Brooks’ Ropin’ the Wind (1992). Country albums are defined as those that are eligible for, or have charted on, Billboard’s weekly Top Country Albums chart.

One Thing at a Time’s crossover hit single “Last Night” crowns the year-end Hot 100 Songs recap. It’s the first time that the same artist has led both the year-end Billboard 200 and Hot 100 tallies since Adele in 2011 (with 21 and “Rolling In the Deep,” respectively).

At No. 2 on the year-end 2023 Billboard 200 Albums ranking is Taylor Swift’s Midnights. The set debuted at No. 1 on the Nov. 5, 2022-dated Billboard 200 and had two weeks of activity (Nov. 5-12, 2022) during the 2022 chart year, which placed the album at No. 4 on the 2022 year-end Billboard 200 Albums ranking. During the 2023 chart year, the album racked up three more weeks at No. 1 (it had two weeks at No. 1 in the 2022 chart year) and never left the weekly top 10 during the 2023 chart year.

Swift has placed at least one title in the year-end top 10 of the Billboard 200 Albums recap in the last six consecutive years, and in 14 of the last 16 years.

At No. 3 on the year-end Billboard 200 Albums recap is SZA’s first Billboard 200 No. 1, SOS. The smash set ruled the weekly chart for 10 weeks – the most of any R&B/hip-hop album or R&B album by a woman since Mariah Carey’s self-titled debut notched 11 in 1991.

Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss is No. 4 on the year-end tally, while Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album is No. 5. Metro Boomin’ Heroes & Villains ranks at No. 6, Bad Bunny’s year-end 2022 winner Un Verano Sin Ti is No. 7, while Zach Bryan’s breakthrough album American Heartbreak is No. 8.

Swift’s resurgent Lover album, which was released in 2019 and debuted atop the weekly Billboard 200, closes 2023 at No. 9. (In 2019, it was No. 4 for the year.) It flourished in new popularity in 2023 following the renaissance of its single “Cruel Summer,” which was the first proper song she performed during her much buzzed-about career-spanning The Eras Tour, which played U.S. stadiums from March to August.

Travis Scott’s latest release, Utopia, rounds out the year-end 2023 Billboard 200 Albums ranking at No. 10.

Billboard’s year-end music recaps represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts from Nov. 19, 2022, through Oct. 21, 2023. Rankings for Luminate-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the titles appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology detail, and the November-October time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Luminate.

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