Sabrina Carpenter’s album Short n’ Sweet jumped back to number one after spending last week at number three. The album debuted at number one on September 7 and stayed steady for three weeks, making this its fourth week at the top. Sales for the week hit around 100,000 units, with 114.2 million streams (or 85,000 units) and 14,000 purely from album sales. Carpenter also topped the Artist 100 for the fourth time as well, retaking the throne from Chappell Roan.
Number two on the 200 is Roan’s album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, just like last week, with 63,000 units. Elsewhere in the top 10, Billie Eilish’s album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT made a leap from eight to five, returning to the top five for the first time since August 31. This can likely be attributed to the release of her “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” music video and to the start of her tour named after the album late last month.
The best-charting newcomer this week is Harlequin by Lady Gaga at number 20. Harlequin isn’t her highly anticipated seventh album, which Gaga alluded to around the time of the Paris Olympics, but rather has been billed as a companion album to the movie Joker: Folie à Deux. In that sense, it can be seen as a concept album inspired by Gaga’s own role in the film as Harley Quinn. Though Harlequin does include songs from the soundtrack, most of them were rerecorded and some are completely new tracks for the release. By any measure, it’s still a Lady Gaga album. Since a number of the songs are covers of classic jazz and musical numbers, the release has been classified as a jazz album and debuted at number one on both the Jazz Albums and Traditional Jazz Albums charts. This marks Gaga’s third number-one album in the genre following her duets with Tony Bennett.
Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has entered the fourth month of its reign atop the Hot 100, having been crowned number one a total of 13 times now. While streaming, sales, and airplay all trended downward 3–4%, the fact that it’s still performing so strongly across every metric makes it hard for any other songs to pose any real threat. In fact, most of those other songs are losing ground even faster.
Claiming number one 13 times is a feat achieved by only 16 songs in history, equaling just 1.4% of all number ones ever. Other songs that have held number one for 13 weeks include 1998’s “The Boy Is Mine” by Brandy and Monica and 1992’s “End Of The Road” by Boyz II Men. An impressive nine songs have reached 14 weeks, from Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” in 1992 to Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” in 2015. If “Bar Song” manages to take it number one another week beyond that even, it’ll be in a six-way tie for yet another record.
The Billie Eilish single “BIRDS OF A FEATHER” climbed from number six to number two this week—far outdoing its previous peak of five. Following the release of the accompanying music video on September 27, streams jumped by 16% and sales shot up 30%. “BIRDS” is Eilish’s third song in the top two, following 2019’s “bad guy” (number one) and 2020’s “Therefore I Am” (number two). Her highest-charting song since had been “Lunch,” which peaked at number five.
Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” “Please Please Please,” and “Taste” were all in the top 10, at numbers five, nine, and 10, respectively, extending her reign with three songs in the top 10 for a sixth consecutive week. The most comparable achievement in recent memory would be Drake’s nine-week streak back in 2018. The Beatles famously had three of their songs debut in the top 10 and stay there for five weeks straight, which Carpenter has now surpassed.
And making its first appearance on the chart, at number three, was “Timeless” by the Weeknd and Playboi Carti.
Billboard recently began naming its greatest pop stars of the 21st century. The top 10 is coming soon, but in the meantime, they named the Weeknd number 18. The order here isn’t important. The competition is fierce, with big names like Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, and Post Malone appearing in a list of artists who, for one reason or another, didn’t quite crack the limited list of 25 (BTS, incidentally, came in at number 19). But looking beyond the rankings, the Weeknd likely holds the distinction of having the most complex, dramatic rise from debut to stardom.
The way the Weeknd became the unexpected darling of alternative R&B in the 2010s was, even by today’s social media-rich standards, nothing short of phenomenal. The artist first burst forth onto the public stage when Drake endorsed his music, which he posted on YouTube, and his free mixtape House of Balloons saw endless praise from the media. When he went to put on his first concert in Toronto, the price of scalped tickets burst through the roof as fans fought for a seat against record company execs looking to see if the rumors of the singer’s talent were true. With Thursday and Echoes Of Silence following later that same year, the Weeknd had put out three mixtapes in quick succession that became the holy grail of a new style of music.
His career after signing with a major label in 2013 ran parallel to the rise of streaming. Spotify inducts tracks with over a billion streams into what it calls the Billions Club, and now that the company recently welcomed “After Hours” to the club, the Weeknd’s 18 tracks on the list mean the singer has more entries to his name than anyone else—not to mention the single most streamed song of all: “Blinding Lights,” played 4.5 billion times. That same song also ranks number one on Billboard’s Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs chart. His four number-one Billboard 200 albums and seven Hot 100 number-one songs are a natural reflection of all he’s accomplished.
The Weeknd is currently working on a new album, titled Hurry Up Tomorrow and expected to be the conclusion to another Weeknd trilogy following After Hours and Dawn FM. While no release date has been announced, details are expected around the end of the month, when the singer wraps up his After Hours Til Dawn Tour. He’s already let listeners in on some songs from the new album, including most recently “Timeless,” the track that debuted at number three this week on the Hot 100. With 28.6 million streams, it’s number one on the Streaming Songs chart, and represents yet another major debut consistent with the Weeknd’s style. In an interview last year, the singer expressed a desire to “kill” the name the Weeknd after using it for one last album. In that case, we might be witnessing the start of a grand farewell to an era.
Jimin’s album MUSE is number 103 on the Billboard 200, and Jimin himself stands at 72 on the Artist 100. His single “Who” is number 26 on the Hot 100 and number 20 on Streaming Songs, as well as 13 on the Global 200 and 12 on the Global Excl. US charts. “Who” has been in the top 40 of the Hot 100 for 11 weeks, with a noticeable climb from number 25 to 20 in streaming—the only song in the top 20 to have seen a jump of five spots this week.
The Stray Kids EP ATE is number 124 on the Billboard 200 and eighth in album sales. Stray Kids are number 42 on the Artist 100.
P1Harmony’s EP SAD SONG is number nine in album sales, and the group is 57 on the Artist 100.
ENHYPEN’s album ROMANCE: UNTOLD is number 11 on Top Album Sales, while the group is number 62 on the Artist 100.
LE SSERAFIM’s latest EP CRAZY is number seven on Top Album Sales, 68 on the Global 200, and 43 on Global Excl. US. LE SSERAFIM is also number 93 on the Artist 100.
JAEHYUN’s first album, J, debuts at number 18 for album sales and at number 11 on the Heatseekers Albums chart. The singer, meanwhile, debuts on the Emerging Artists chart at number seven.
The BOYNEXTDOOR EP 19.99 is number 20 on Top Album Sales, and the group is number 11 on Emerging Artists.
KATSEYE’s SIS (Soft Is Strong) EP is currently number 37 in album sales and at number four on the Heatseekers Albums chart. Their single “Touch” returns to the Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart at number 24, and sits at numbers 108 and 79 on the Global 200 and Global Excl. US charts, respectively. KATSEYE, meanwhile, is number 10 on the Emerging Artists chart.