Ken Carson performs on the 2024 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Competition on April 19, 2024. This week, Carson’s fourth album, Extra Chaos, turned his first to hit No. 1. on Billboard‘s album chart.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Photographs
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Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Photographs
Ken Carson has the No. 1 album for the primary time in his profession, because the Playboi Carti-affiliated rapper knocks his mentor from the height of the Billboard 200. With Extra Chaos debuting at No. 1, the complete high 10 consists of albums which have, at one level or one other, held the chart’s high spot. On the Sizzling 100 singles chart, Kendrick Lamar‘s “Luther (feat. SZA)” holds at No. 1 for a ninth consecutive week. And the albums and singles charts each carry echoes of Report Retailer Day.
TOP ALBUMS
Final week’s column surveyed just a few other ways that albums may expertise a lift on the Billboard charts — together with, however not restricted to, vinyl reissues, discount-priced digital variants and deluxe editions with further tracks. However there’s one other time-honored playbook for stars who hope to debut a brand new mission at No. 1: When doubtful, goal to launch your new album on a very gradual week.
Billboard makes use of a system for rating albums that deploys a system known as “equal album items” — a quantity that represents a mixture of gross sales and streaming — and for a closely hyped streaming-era mega-hit in its first week, that quantity can simply run into the a whole bunch of hundreds, and even hundreds of thousands. A yr in the past, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Division pulled down a staggering 2.61 million equal album items in its first week on the charts. However even a fraction of that quantity (for instance, the 298,000 equal album items Playboi Carti’s MUSIC achieved in its first week final month) can qualify as a blockbuster success.
Each of these albums debuted at No. 1 and are rightly thought-about colossal hits. However not all No. 1 albums are created equal. Take Extra Chaos, by the rapper Ken Carson. Found by the aforementioned Playboi Carti, Carson was closely influenced by — and, early in his profession, steadily within the shadow of — Carti’s aggressive, distorted “rage” rap. Carson signed to Carti’s label in 2019 and has been on an upward trajectory ever since; his 2023 album A Nice Chaos was seen as a inventive breakthrough and peaked at No. 11 on the Billboard 200. This week, its sequel crashes the chart at No. 1, displacing Carti’s newest album, MUSIC, which held the throne for 3 of the final 4 weeks. It is Carson’s first solo foray into the highest 10, not to mention the highest spot.
However a better have a look at the metrics — at these pesky equal album items — reveals that the album is the lowest-performing No. 1 title in virtually three years. Extra Chaos tallied simply 59,500 equal album items, however as a result of it did not have a ton of contemporary high-profile competitors, that was sufficient to land it on high of the charts.
To offer a way of what number of older albums spherical out the chart’s higher areas, contemplate this: Each single album within the high 10 — every thing between Ken Carson debuting at No. 1 and Bon Iver‘s SABLE, fABLE debuting at No. 11 — has hit No. 1 in a earlier week. (That final occurred in December 2023.) There are just a few incremental shifts in momentum: Kendrick Lamar and SZA simply launched their tour collectively, and that is helped GNX and SOS tick as much as Nos. 2 and three, respectively. Woman Gaga simply performed Coachella, and that is helped her current MAYHEM rebound from No. 12 to No. 10. Playboi Carti’s MUSIC is beginning to fade, so it drops from No. 1 to No. 7.
Trying forward? It is gradual going, with solely a handful of potential sleepers — new albums from Davido, Eric Church, Fuerza Regida, PinkPantheress, Maren Morris, Arcade Fireplace, Little Simz and some others — looming earlier than Morgan Wallen drops his 37-song opus I am the Downside on Might 16.
TOP SONGS
Talking of gradual weeks…
No new songs enter the Sizzling 100’s high 10 this week, as Kendrick Lamar’s “Luther (feat. SZA)” holds at No. 1 for a ninth consecutive week. It is now assembled the second-longest run at No. 1 for any hip-hop music in chart historical past, trailing solely Roddy Ricch‘s “The Field,” which topped the Sizzling 100 for 11 weeks again in 2020.
The complete high 10 solely evenly shuffles the deck from final week’s chart. Alex Warren‘s swoony breakthrough, “Atypical,” additional shores up its “music of the summer season” bona fides, because it climbs once more from No. 7 to No. 5 because of a surge in radio airplay, whereas Chappell Roan‘s “Pink Pony Membership” hits a brand new chart peak — and matches the high-water mark of her breakout hit “Good Luck, Babe!” final yr — by climbing from No. 5 to No. 4.
Talking of “music of the summer season” contenders, BigXthaPlug‘s “All of the Means (feat. Bailey Zimmerman)” slides a bit from its debut at No. 4 final week, however nonetheless sits comfortably at No. 8. A rustic/hip-hop hybrid with an earwormy hook courtesy of Zimmerman, it is bought room to develop as extra radio playlists embrace it.
And, talking of songs which have positively been embraced by radio, Teddy Swims‘ “Lose Management” has simply set an all-time report that may have appeared inconceivable a decade in the past. The music, which climbs from No. 8 to No. 7 this week — and topped the chart for a single body again in March 2024 — has now logged probably the most weeks within the high 10 (58 and counting!) of any monitor within the historical past of the Billboard Sizzling 100, which dates again to 1958.
The earlier record-holder, now in second place with 57 weeks, was The Weeknd‘s “Blinding Lights,” which dominated early pandemic-era playlists in 2020. And in third place? Shaboozey‘s “A Bar Tune (Tipsy),” which falls from No. 4 to No. 6 on this, its forty eighth week within the high 10. (As you may be capable of inform, these record-setting runs within the high 10 are an especially current phenomenon, unique to the streaming period.)
The following — and actually solely remaining — milestone for “Lose Management” will virtually actually arrive in a couple of month. The aforementioned “Blinding Lights” posted the longest-ever run within the Billboard Sizzling 100, with 91 weeks on the chart in 2020 and 2021. “Lose Management” now sits at 87 weeks, which is at present tied for the third-longest Sizzling 100 run in historical past. Provided that the monitor nonetheless sits comfortably at No. 7, it is just about sure to surpass The Weeknd’s report within the weeks and weeknds to come back.
WORTH NOTING
Cultural occasions usually have an effect on the Billboard charts, whether or not it is Kendrick Lamar deriving a lift from the Tremendous Bowl halftime present or Doechii and Chappell Roan taking large leaps after acting on the Grammys. Generally, even lower-profile occasions can have an effect.
Take Report Retailer Day, a twice-annual occasion by which followers are inspired to go to their native report shops — and scoop up unique titles on vinyl and/or CD within the course of. The primary of this yr’s RSD occasions happened April 12, which fell inside the eligibility window for this week’s charts. And RSD titles, with an emphasis on vinyl reissues, dot the decrease areas of the Billboard 200. (Even the Sizzling 100 singles chart will get in on the act, as Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight” — which options Report Retailer Day 2025 ambassador Submit Malone — re-enters the chart at No. 33, because of an RSD-exclusive 7″ single.)
Submit Malone’s RSD actions additionally included the discharge of his Tribute to Nirvana set, which was recorded as a pandemic-era stream (he additionally carried out “Smells Like Teen Spirit” with the surviving members of Nirvana on SNL‘s Fiftieth-anniversary present) however launched to vinyl completely for this occasion; it debuts on the Billboard 200 at No. 106. However Submit Malone bought outperformed by none aside from chart perennial Fleetwood Mac, whose self-titled 1975 album bought reissued on picture-disc vinyl and reenters the chart at No. 94.
Different RSD titles cracking the Billboard 200 embrace a “crimson smoke vinyl” reissue of The Smashing Pumpkins‘ Siamese Dream (No. 114), a Tenth-anniversary vinyl version of Lord Huron‘s Unusual Trails (No. 120), Gracie Abrams‘ vinyl problem of Dwell From Radio Metropolis Music Corridor (No. 141), Rage Towards the Machine’s Dwell on Tour 1993 (No. 149), Twenty One Pilots’ Blurryface (No. 151), Laufey and the Los Angeles Philharmonic‘s A Evening on the Symphony: Hollywood Bowl (No. 169), Lil Uzi Vert‘s Everlasting Atake (No. 176), Charli xcx‘s Quantity One Angel (No. 180), T-Ache‘s Completely satisfied Hour: The Biggest Hits (No. 190) and Speaking Heads‘ Dwell on Tour 1978 (No. 192).
All of it factors to Report Retailer Day’s mainstream acceptance, but in addition to followers’ and collectors’ need to carry their favourite music of their fingers. The music business would not dwell by streaming alone, and this week’s charts exhibit that listeners don’t desire it to.
