by Taylor Swift Midnights records a fifth week atop the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Dec. 10), while a flurry of holiday albums jingles the top 10. Midnights earned 151,000 equivalent album units in the tracking week ending December 1 in the US (down 15%), according to Luminate. Swift’s latest album with more weeks at No. 1 is Folklorewhich landed eight non-consecutive weeks at the top of the chart in 2020. Since then, she has claimed four more chart-topping albums: Still (four weeks at No. 1 in 2020-21), Fearless (Taylor version) (two weeks, 2021), Red (Taylor’s version) (one week in 2021) and Midnights (five weeks so far).
Also in the top 10, holiday albums in the catalog fueled by streaming activity are making waves as former No. 1 Michael Bublé Christmas goes up 10-4, Nat King Cole’s The Christmas song jumps 18-8 and Vince Guaraldi Trio A Charlie Brown Christmas the soundtrack jumps from 17 to 10.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the United States based on multimetric consumption measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units include album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA), and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals 1 album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 official ad-supported audio and video streams or 1,250 paid/on-demand subscription generated songs from a album. The new table dated December 10, 2022 will be published in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (December 6). For all charting news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on Twitter and Instagram.
Of Midnights151,000 equivalent album units earned, SEA units include 89,000 (down 24% or 117.93 million official on-demand streams of tracks in the set), album sales include 60 000 (up 5%) and SEA units include 2,000 (down 6%).
Five former No. 1s are No. 2-6 on the latest Billboard 200 chart. Drake and 21 Savage His loss holds at No. 2 (93,000 equivalent album units earned; down 22%), Bad Bunny’s A Verano Sin Ti is stationary at No. 3 (52,000 units; down 7%), Bublé’s Christmas goes up 10-4 (47,000 units; up 55%), Lil Baby’s It is only me falls 4-5 (43,000 units; down 10%) and Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: the double album plunges 5-6 (40,000 units; down 3%). The Weeknd Compilation The strong points drops 6-7 with 40,000 units (up 2%).
Cole’s The Christmas song increased from 18 to 8 with 36,000 units of equivalent albums (+58%). The album, which includes seasonal favorites like the title track and “O Holy Night,” peaked at No. 6 two holiday seasons ago, on the chart dated January 2, 2021. Topped the Harry Styles charts Harry’s house falls 8-9 with 35,000 units (up 5%). Trio Guaraldi A Charlie Brown Christmas the soundtrack jumped from 17 to 10 with 33,000 units (up 45%). The seasonal set peaked at No. 6 almost a year ago on the list dated January 1, 2022.
Luminate, the independent data provider of the Billboard charts, performs a thorough review of all data submissions used to compile weekly chart rankings. Luminate examines and authenticates the data. In partnership with Billboarddata deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.