The Taylor Swift juggernaut continued on the Billboard 200 albums chart for the tracking week that ended August 15. Her “Tortured Poets Department” logged a 15th week at number-one with 85,000 equivalent album units based on its accumulated traditional album sales, individual track sales and online streams. But she wasn’t the only one who had a good week on the chart. Chappell Roan had her best week ever. Read more about this week’s chart here at Billboard.com.
“Tortured Poets” is now tied with Carole King‘s “Tapestry” as the third longest-running number-one album by a woman, behind only Adele‘s “21” (24 weeks at number-one) and the “Bodyguard” soundtrack (20 weeks at number-one). To achieve this, Swift only had to release one album variant including ““The Prophecy (Long Story Short — Live From Lyon)” as a bonus track.
Meanwhile, Roan’s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” climbed up to the number-two spot with 72,000 album units. That’s the highest rank it has achieved to date on the chart with the greatest number of album units achieved in a single week. Not bad for an album that’s almost a year old. Speaking of a year old, Morgan Wallen‘s “One Thing at a Time” moves up to number-three this week with 63,000 album units. Billie Eilish‘s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” also gained a spot to number-four with 57,000 album units. And rounding out the top five was Zach Bryan‘s “The Great American Bar Scene” with 48,000 album units.
In our weekly Billboard 200 predictions contest, our game players were split between “Tortured Poets” and Polo G‘s “Hood Poet” for the number-one spot, with 22 correctly picking the former. “Midwest Princess” keeps surprising us, though; no one guessed that it would rise to a new high at number-two. There were 11 players who bet on “One Thing at a Time” at number-three, but we were surprised again at number-four, with zero people picking “Hit Me Hard and Soft.” Our consensus was right, however, that “The Great American Bar Scene” would hold down the number-five spot. Ultimately, seven players correctly answered three out of six predictions questions. How well did you do? Find out here.
