After spending two weeks down at number-four on the Billboard 200 albums chart, Taylor Swift‘s “The Tortured Poets Department” returned to number-one for the tracking week that ended August 1. It was a slow week on the chart as “Tortured Poets” only achieved 71,000 album units based on its combined record sales, individual track sales and online streams. Read more about this week’s chart here at Billboard.com.
Every album in the top five actually moved up despite tallying fewer album units than last week. Morgan Wallen‘s “One Thing at a Time” was back up four spots to number-two despite a 1% drop to 64,000 units. Zach Bryan‘s “The Great American Bar Scene” moved up two spots to number-three despite a 14% drop to 61,000 units. Chappell Roan‘s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” climbed four spots to a new all-time high at number-four despite slipping 1% to 53,000 units. And Billie Eilish‘s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” rose four spots to number-five despite a 2% dip to just under 53,000 units.
In our weekly Billboard 200 predictions contest, our game players were split between “Tortured Poets” and Eminem‘s “The Death of Slim Shady” for the number-one spot (“Slim Shady” was actually number-seven this week). Meanwhile, 19 of us correctly anticipated that the top album would achieve fewer than 100,000 album units. Our consensus was right, however, that “One Thing at a Time” would be back in second position. Then at number-three, only six people predicted “The Great American Bar Scene,” but we correctly anticipated the new all-time high for “Midwest Princess” at number-four, as well as the number-five position for “Hit Me Hard and Soft.”
A lot of Gold Derby users did well predicting this week’s chart: 16 people tied by answering four out of six prediction questions correctly. How did you do? Find out here.
Be sure to make your predictions so that artists can see how they’re faring in our racetrack odds. You can keep changing your predictions until just before the next tracking week begins every Friday. You’ll compete to win a spot on our leaderboard and eternal bragging rights. See our contest rules and sound off with other fans in our music forum. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.
