Chart Watch: Kings of Leon are Kings of the Chart
Kings of Leon land their first #1 album as WALLS enters the Billboard 200 in the top spot. This is the seventh studio album by the Nashville-based rock group, which consists of three brothers and a cousin. The group first broke into the top 10 in October 2008 with Only by the Night. That album spawned the top five smash “Use Somebody,” which won three Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year. The album finally peaked at #4 in September 2009, in its 48th week on the chart.
The Kings debuted at #2 with their last two albums, Come Around Sundown (November 2010) and Mechanical Bull (October 2013).
WALLS dislodges Green Day’s Revolution Radio from the #1 spot. This marks the first time that rock groups have had back-to-back #1 albums since June 2015, when Muse’s Drones dislodged Florence + The Machine’s How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful.
Trivia note: Kings of Leon hit #1 three years after Queens of the Stone Age topped the chart with …Like Clockwork. I guess you could call these bands the “Kings” and “Queens” of the album chart. (Three acts with related names — The Kingston Trio, Carole King, and Queen—have also had #1 albums.)
WALLS also enters the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart at #1. It’s the group’s fifth consecutive #1 album in the U.K. An album with a similar title, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, came close to being a transatlantic chart-topper. The album logged 15 weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 in 1980, but it stalled at #3 in the U.K.
Top Songs
The Chainsmokers’ “Closer” (featuring Halsey) tops the Hot 100 for the 10th straight week. It’s the second song to log 10 weeks at #1 in 2016, following Drake’s “One Dance” (featuring WizKid & Kyla).
“Closer” also continues to move up on the list of all-time biggest hits by duos. Just one other song by a duo has logged 10 or more weeks at #1 in the rock era. That’s Los Del Rio’s “Macarena,” which spent 14 weeks on top in 1996.
“Closer” tops the Top Digital Songs chart for the 11th week. It’s one of only four songs to top this chart for 11 or more weeks since the chart was inaugurated in 2004. Flo Rida’s “Low” (featuring T-Pain) and Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” (with Bruno Mars) both had 13 weeks on top. Pharrell Williams’s “Happy also had 11 weeks in the lead.
“Closer” sold just 97K copies this past week. This is the third week so far in 2016 that no songs have sold 100K. This happened just once in 2015. Between late-January 2007 and mid-August 2015, it never happened.
The Weeknd’s “Starboy” (featuring Daft Punk) holds at #2 in its fifth week on the Hot 100. The song holds at #1 on Billboard‘s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for the fourth week.
twenty one pilots’ “Heathens” holds at #3 in its 18th week.
DJ Snake’s “Let Me Love You” (featuring Justin Bieber) holds at #4 in its 11th week.
D.R.A.M.’s “Broccoli” (featuring Lil Yachty) inches up from #6 to #5 in its 19th week.
Bruno Mars’s “24K Magic” dips from #5 to #6 in its second week. (It will turn around.)
Major Lazer’s “Cold Water” (which features Justin Bieber and MØ) holds at #7 its 13th week.
Ariana Grande’s “Side to Side” (featuring Nicki Minaj) jumps from #10 to #8 in its eighth week. This ties “Dangerous Woman” as the highest-charting single from Grande’s third studio album, also titled Dangerous Woman.
Maroon 5’s “Don’t Wanna Know” (featuring Kendrick Lamar) vaults from #56 to #9 in its second week. This is an important single for Maroon 5. The group’s 2015 single, “This Summer’s Gonna Hurt…,” peaked at #23, breaking a string of eight consecutive top 10 hits. (The song contained a 12-letter expletive which begins with “mother.” The group no doubt thought it would seem edgy, but it came across as exploitive and out-of-character.)
“Don’t Wanna Know” is Maroon 5’s 12th top 10 hit. It’s the third top 10 hit for Lamar, following A$AP Rocky’s “F—in’ Problems” (there’s that word again) and Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood.” Lamar’s highest-charting single as a lead artist is “Swimming Pools (Drank),” which reached #17 in 2012.
Shawn Mendes’s “Treat You Better” drops from #8 to #10 in its 20th week.
Sia’s “Cheap Thrills” (featuring Sean Paul) drops out of the top 10 this week after a long run.
Gnash’s “I Hate U I Love U” (featuring Olivia O’Brien), which reached #10 two weeks ago, tops the 1 million mark in digital sales this week. Gnash is the second artist whose name begins with a silent G to land a million-seller. The first was Gnarls Barkley, whose “Crazy” topped the million mark in 2006.
Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” will top the 4 million mark in digital sales this week. (It is less than 7K units away from that threshold as we speak.) The spooky song has a resurgence every Halloween season.
Top Albums
Drake’s Views rebounds from #4 to #2 in its 25th week. It’s the first album to spend its first spend its first 25 weeks in the top five since Adele’s 21 in 2011. Adele’s blockbuster holds the record (since separate mono and stereo charts were combined in 1963), having spent its first 39 weeks in the top five. Will Views approach Adele’s record? Stay tuned. And how many more consecutive weeks would 21 have logged in the top five if the album chart had incorporated digital track sales and streaming data in 2011, as it does now?
The Suicide Squad soundtrack rebounds from #5 to #3 in its 11th week. It’s #1 on Top Soundtracks for the 11th week.
The Game lands his eighth consecutive top 10 album as 1992 debuts at #4. The album is based on the rapper’s experiences as a 12-year-old growing up in Compton, Calif., in, yes, 1992.
twenty one pilots’ Blurryface jumps from #7 to #5 in its 75th week. The album debuted at #1 in May 2015.
JoJo lands her third consecutive top five album as Mad Love debuts at #6. Linda Ronstadt had a #3 album with the same title in March 1980. (That same year, Boz Scaggs had a top 20 hit with a song titled “JoJo.”)
Hamilton rebounds from #11 to #7 in its 56th week. This is its 10th week in the top 10.
Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman jumps from #10 to #8 in its 22nd week. The album debuted and peaked at #2 in May.
Travis Scott’s Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight rebounds from #12 to #9 in its seventh week.
Green Day’s Revolution Radio drops from #1 to #10 in its second week.
Five albums drop out of the top 10 this week. Norah Jones’s Day Breaks drops from #2 to #11. OneRepublic’s Oh My My dives from #3 to #30. Solange’s A Seat at the Table drops from #6 to #15. Alter Bridge’s The Last Hero plummets from #8 to #146. Phantogram’s Three free-falls from #9 to #172.
Sabrina Carpenter‘s EVOLution debuts at #28. Carpenter is the third artist with that surname to land a top 30 album. Karen and Richard Carpenter had five top five albums between 1970-74. Mary Chapin Carpenter had back-to-back top 20 albums in the mid-’90s.
Look for Lady Gaga’s Joanne to debut at #1 next week. Michael Bublé ‘s Nobody But Me and Korn’s The Serenity of Suffering will probably open at #2 and #3, respectively. Chris Tomlin’s Never Lose Sight, Pentatonix’s A Pentatonix Christmas and I Prevail’s Lifelines will probably also debut in the top 10.
