CELEBRITY
Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets’ hits 11 weeks atop Billboard 200, Megan Thee Stallion and Chappell Roan in top 5.
Taylor Swift‘s “The Tortured Poets Department” was released in April and has been number-one on the Billboard 200 ever since. The album added an 11th week for the tracking week that ended July 4, Independence Day, achieving 114,000 equivalent album units based on its combined record sales, individual track sales and online streams. Read all about this week’s chart here at Billboard.com.
“Tortured Poets” has now tied Swift’s “Fearless” and “1989” as her longest-running number-one album. She also extended her record as the solo artist with the most weeks at number-one (she’s up to 80). And it became the first album by a woman to lead for 11 straight weeks since Whitney Houston‘s “Bodyguard” soundtrack back in 1992-1993.
Speaking of indefatigable albums, Morgan Wallen‘s “One Thing at a Time” was back up to number-two with 74,000 units in its 70th week on the chart. Megan Thee Stallion‘s “Megan” debuted at number-three with 64,000 units. Billie Eilish‘s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” stayed put at number-four with 63,000 units. And Chappell Roan made the top five for the very first time with 60,000 units for “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess”; the album was released way back in September 2023 but has become a huge sleeper hit in recent weeks.
In our weekly Billboard 200 predictions contest, most of our game players were right once again that “Tortured Poets” would be number-one and rack up between 100,000 and 149,999 album units. Only six people foresaw “One Thing at a Time” bouncing back to number-two, though. Then at number-three, our consensus was right about “Megan.” At number-four, seven people correctly picked “Hit Me Hard and Soft.” And 13 players anticipated “Midwest Princess” climbing to fifth position.