Taylor Swift’s ‘Midnights’ Spends Fourth Week at No. 1 on Billboard 200

Keith Caulfield
·4 min read
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Taylor Swift’s Midnights spends a fourth nonconsecutive week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Dec. 3) as it holds atop the list with 177,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Nov. 24 (down 13%), according to Luminate.

Also in the new Billboard 200’s top 10: Michael Jackson’s former No. 1 Thriller returns to the region after its 40th anniversary reissue, vaulting 115-7; Rod Wave’s new Jupiter’s Diary: 7 Day Theory bows at No. 9; and Michael Bublé’s chart-topping Christmas jingles its way back to the top 10 with a 19-10 climb.

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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 Dec. 3, 2022-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Nov. 29. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

Of Midnights’ 177,000 equivalent album units earned, SEA units comprise 118,000 (down 16%, equaling 155.8 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks), album sales comprise 57,000 (down 4%) and SEA units comprise 2,000 (down 49%).

Four former No. 1’s follow Swift on the new Billboard 200, as Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss is a non-mover at No. 2 (119,000 equivalent album units; down 30%), Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti is steady at No. 3 (56,000; up less than 1%), Lil Baby’s It’s Only Me is also stationary at No. 4 (48,000; down 9%) and Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album rises 6-5 (42,000; up 2%).

Jackson’s former No. 1 Thriller returns to the top 10, jumping from No. 115 to No. 7 after it was reissued in celebration of its 40th anniversary. It earned 37,000 equivalent album units (up 283%). Of that sum, album sales comprise 27,500 (up 820%), SEA units comprise 9,000 (equaling 13.17 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks) and TEA units comprise 500.

Thriller spent 37 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 1983-84 — the most weeks at No. 1 for an album by a singular artist. The only album with more weeks at No. 1 is the soundtrack to the film West Side Story, with 54 weeks in 1962-63.

Thriller was last in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 on the June 30, 1984-dated chart, when it ranked at No. 8. During its initial chart run, its last week on the list was April 20, 1985. It didn’t return to the list until Dec. 5, 2009, when the chart began allowing catalog (older) albums to chart again. (From May of 1991 through November 2009, catalog albums were generally not allowed to chart on the Billboard 200.)

For its 40th anniversary, Thriller was reissued in a variety of new configurations and formats, some with additional bonus tracks. All versions of the album, old and new, are combined together for tracking and charting purposes. Thriller has seen a few high-profile reissues in the past, including a remastered “special edition” in 2001 with previously unreleased bonus tracks and a 25th anniversary edition in 2008 with an unreleased song and new remix collaborations with Akon, Fergie, Kanye West and will.i.am.

Harry Styles’ former leader Harry’s House rises 9-8 on the new Billboard 200 with 33,000 equivalent album units (up 10%).

Rod Wave’s new eight-song Jupiter’s Diary: 7 Day Theory debuts at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 with nearly 31,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, SEA units comprise a little more than 30,000 (equaling 43.32 million on-demand official streams of the set’s tracks), while album sales and TEA units comprise the remaining units. It’s the fifth consecutive and total top 10-charting album for the artist, and follows a pair of No. 1s in Beautiful Mind (2022) and SoulFly (2021).

Rounding out the new top 10 is Bublé’s former No. 1 Christmas, which rises 19-10 with 31,000 equivalent album units (up 51%%). The set was originally released in 2011 and spent five weeks at No. 1 in late 2011 and early 2012. It has returned to the top 10 in every Christmas season since.

Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.

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