Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” and its lead single “The Fate of Ophelia” have dominated the Billboard 200 and Hot 100 for five consecutive weeks. Only 16 albums in history have debuted at No. 1 on both charts simultaneously—and Swift alone accounts for seven of those instances, the most of any artist. Among them, only two eras managed to hold both No. 1 spots into a second week: “Midnights” with “Anti-Hero” in 2022, and “The Tortured Poets Department” with “Fortnight” in 2024. With “The Life of a Showgirl” and “The Fate of Ophelia,” Swift sets a new precedent: the first—and now the longest—pairing ever to reign over both charts for five straight weeks.

Let’s take a closer look at “The Life of a Showgirl” and its performance on the Billboard 200. After its historic debut with 4 million units on the chart dated October 18, the album has held the No. 1 position for five consecutive weeks. Swift now extends her career total to 91 weeks atop the Billboard 200—the most for any solo artist in history. Elvis Presley follows with 67 weeks at No. 1.

Only three albums that debuted at No. 1 in 2025 have managed to hold the top spot for two weeks or more. The other two are Morgan Wallen’s “I’m The Problem”—which ruled for its first eight weeks and logged 12 weeks at No. 1 overall—and Playboi Carti’s “MUSIC,” which spent its first two weeks at the summit and three weeks in total. Taylor Swift’s previous album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” set an even higher bar: 12 straight weeks at No. 1 and 17 weeks in all.

In its second week, “The Life of a Showgirl” posted 338,000 units—a steep 92% drop from its historic debut frame. Such a sharp decline is expected when an album opens as high as this one did. Even so, that second-week total still ranks as the fifth-largest weekly sum of 2025. For comparison, “The Tortured Poets Department” logged 439,000 units in its second week in 2024. Analysts point to Swift’s strategy of concentrating the album’s alternate versions in its debut week as a key reason for the comparatively lower Week 2 number. Meanwhile, the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack—steadily holding No. 2 for the past five weeks—has earned 96,000, 104,000, 96,000, 84,000-, and 84,000-units week by week.

Now, let’s turn to the Hot 100. In its first week, “The Life of a Showgirl” delivered overwhelming chart power, placing all 12 of its tracks at Nos. 1 through 12 on the Hot 100. Its second-week performance was nearly as staggering: Swift held eight spots in the Top 10, with all 12 tracks remaining inside the Top 14. While there have been five instances in chart history where one artist claimed 12 of the Top 14 slots, this marks the first time it has ever happened in an album’s second week—and therefore the first time a single album has achieved the feat twice. Of the previous four occurrences, three belonged to Swift; the remaining one was by Drake. By Week 3, Swift still occupied four spots in the Top 10—Nos. 1, 4, 5, and 6. She now holds the all-time record for the most weeks with at least four songs in the Top 10, achieving the milestone seven times. Drake follows with six such weeks, and Kendrick Lamar and The Beatles have each done it five times.

“The Fate of Ophelia” also delivered a rare feat in its second week. The track entered the Radio Songs Top 5 just two weeks after release—a pace matched or surpassed only twice in history: Adele’s “Easy on Me,” which hit the Top 5 in its very first week back in 2021, and Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” which achieved the same two-week climb in 2011. The song also earned 49.1 million streams in Week 2, making it one of only a handful of tracks to exceed 40 million streams in each of their first two weeks. The last singles to manage that level of early momentum were Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” which stayed above the 40-million mark for four consecutive weeks, and Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help” which did so for two. Earlier this year, Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “luther” also cleared 40 million streams for three straight weeks following the Super Bowl Halftime Show, though not during its debut stretch. For Swift, this marks the first time since 2017’s “Look What You Made Me Do” that she has crossed that benchmark. Taken together, these past milestones underline just how difficult such numbers are to achieve without both a song that becomes a full-blown cultural event and an artist with overwhelming streaming power.

With “The Fate of Ophelia” holding the No. 1 spot for a fifth consecutive week, the track becomes Swift’s third song to reign for at least five weeks. She previously achieved this with “Anti-Hero,” which led for eight weeks in 2022, and “Blank Space,” which topped the chart for seven weeks in 2014. Swift has now accumulated 41 total weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100, surpassing Michael Jackson’s 37 weeks and Bruno Mars’s 39 to stand alone at No. 8 on the all-time list. Just ahead of her are Beyoncé with 46 weeks and Usher with 47, while Mariah Carey remains the unrivaled leader with an extraordinary 97 weeks. Looking specifically at songs that spent two weeks or more at No. 1, Swift has eight such hits—tying her with Beyoncé, Janet Jackson, Katy Perry, and The Supremes for fifth place. Mariah Carey once again tops this category with 17 songs. Narrowing the field further to tracks that have ruled for at least four weeks, Swift has five, placing her in a five-way tie with The Beatles, Drake, Bruno Mars, and Katy Perry. Carey once again leads this metric with seven titles.

Among the track-level metrics for “The Fate of Ophelia,” its digital sales trajectory stands out as particularly unusual. In its debut week, the song recorded no digital sales at all, as Swift released the album exclusively as a full-package download, making individual track purchases unavailable—a strategy clearly designed to maximize album sales. In Week 2, only the No. 1 single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” became available for à-la-carte purchase. Then in Week 4, on the chart dated November 8, the song rebounded with 22,000 digital sales. This spike came after Swift released the Alone in My Tower Acoustic Version of the song, on the afternoon of October 28. Since Billboard’s tracking week for that chart ran through October 30, about a day and a half of sales from the new version counted. The gap between “Golden” and “The Fate of Ophelia” in streaming and radio was minimal at the time, and without the boost from the new track release, their positions at Nos. 1 and 2 could easily have flipped. The same pattern repeated in Week 5, on the chart dated November 15. The Alone in My Tower Acoustic Version benefited from a full week of sales, and near the end of the tracking period—on November 6—Swift added yet another version, the Loud Luxury Remix. During that same frame, “Golden” surpassed “The Fate of Ophelia” in both streaming and radio audience.

A hint of the holiday season began to surface on the chart dated November 15. On the Hot 100, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” returned at No. 31, while Wham!’s “Last Christmas” reappeared at No. 43. The seasonal shift was visible on the Billboard 200 as well, with the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas” re-entering at No. 85 and Mariah Carey’s “Merry Christmas" landing at No. 113.

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” returned to the Streaming Songs chart at No. 25 with 9.9 million streams—an increase of more than three and a half times from the previous week. It has yet to appear on Radio Songs, but airplay—virtually nonexistent just one week earlier—is now rising rapidly. Because the chart’s tracking period runs from October 31 to November 6, the song’s sudden surge essentially marks the unofficial start of the holiday season the moment November arrives. This pattern has repeated itself in recent years. During the same early-November tracking window, the song drew 10.4 million streams in 2024 (November 1–7) and 10.8 million streams in 2023 (November 3–9).

Meanwhile, the chart week beginning on October 31 coincided with Halloween itself—a detail that inevitably boosted the season’s signature song, Michael Jackson’s 1984 classic “Thriller.” The track leapt from No. 32 on the chart dated November 8 to No. 10 on the November 15 ranking. “Thriller” originally peaked at No. 4 in 1984, and this marks its first return to the Top 10 since then. With this resurgence, Michael Jackson becomes the first artist in history to score Top 10 hits in the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s—a six-decade span unmatched by anyone else.

“Thriller” posted strong weekly numbers, earning 14 million streams to place at No. 6 on Streaming Songs and selling 3,000 downloads to reach No. 5 on Digital Song Sales. Although the track has re-entered the Hot 100 every year since 2018, its highest Halloween-season peak in recent years was No. 19 in 2021, with most returns landing somewhere in the 20s. But this year’s performance isn’t meaningfully stronger than usual. In 2024, “Thriller” logged 5.8 million and 17 million streams across the two weeks surrounding Halloween. This year’s counts—8.9 million and 14 million—add up to roughly the same overall level. The difference, instead, seems to lie in weaker competition across the market. As “The Life of a Showgirl” begins to lose some of its early streaming dominance roughly a month after release, no new blockbuster hit has emerged to take its place, resulting in a slightly softer streaming environment in the upper tier of the chart. In fact, during the 2024 Halloween stretch, “Thriller” managed 17 million weekly streams yet only ranked No. 14 on Streaming Songs.

Beginning with the chart dated October 25, Billboard implemented a major update to the Hot 100’s recurrent rules—the system that determines when older, declining tracks are removed from the chart and later allowed or disallowed to re-enter. Under the previous policy, songs were eliminated once they fell below No. 25 after 52 weeks on the chart, or below No. 50 after 20 weeks. The new framework is designed to clear out high-ranking but aging hits more aggressively. A track is now removed from the Hot 100 if it falls below No. 5 after 78 weeks, No. 10 after 52 weeks, No. 25 after 26 weeks, or No. 50 after 20 weeks. Songs removed under these conditions may re-enter the Hot 100 as long as they return within the Top 50—but they can also be removed again if they later fall under the same criteria. One aspect of the previous system remains unchanged: recurrent songs that do make it back onto the Hot 100 are still excluded from the Radio Songs chart.

The policy shift is intended to ease the recent stagnation on the charts. As streaming has become the dominant metric, well-established hits tend to linger far longer than they once did—a trend that has also affected the radio market, making it even more conservative in its rotations. The new rules introduced by Billboard are designed to accelerate turnover on the rankings, particularly in the upper tier.

With the new rules in effect, seven songs from the Top 40 on the chart dated October 18 disappeared from the following week’s ranking. The most notable exit was “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims, which bowed out after an extraordinary run—112 weeks on the chart, ending at No. 17. Other removals included “Die With A Smile” by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars (No. 22 in its 60th week), “Beautiful Things” by Benson Boone (No. 25 in its 89th week), and two tracks by Morgan Wallen—“I’m The Problem” (No. 31 in its 36th week) and “Just In Case” (No. 33 in its 29th week). Also removed were “luther” by Kendrick Lamar and SZA (No. 38 in its 46th week), and “Good News” by Shaboozey (No. 34 in its 46th week).

The rule change also produced an unexpected side effect: with “luther” removed from the Hot 100, there were no rap songs at all in the Top 40. On the chart dated October 25, the highest-ranking rap track was “Shot Callin” by YoungBoy Never Broke Again at No. 44. This marks the first time since February 1990 that the Top 40 contained no rap titles. Back then, the highest-charting rap song was “Just a Friend” by Biz Markie at No. 41. For nearly 36 years afterward, at least one rap song appeared within the Top 40 every week. Of course, it is also true that “The Life of a Showgirl” occupied nearly a third of the Top 40 with its 12 tracks, leaving fewer available slots for other genres to break through.

But the moment also underscores a broader, unmistakable trend: the waning dominance of rap—once the biggest beneficiary of the streaming era. Hip-hop’s market share peaked at around 30% in 2020 and has been declining ever since, falling to 25% in 2023 and hovering near 24% this year. On the Billboard Hot 100 dated October 24, 2020, rap accounted for 16 of the Top 40 entries. By the chart dated October 28, 2023, that number had dropped to just eight.

The absence of rap in the Top 40 lasted only two weeks and was resolved on the chart dated November 8, when “Lover Girl” by Megan Thee Stallion debuted at No. 38. Even so, the fact that “luther” stands as the genre’s most recent Top 10 hit is a reminder of the commercial contraction rap has been experiencing—a reality that is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

• Jisoo and Zayn’s “Eyes Closed” debuted at No. 72 on the Hot 100 and No. 20 on the Global 200 on the chart dated October 25. Jisoo also re-entered the Emerging Artists chart at No. 15. This marks her first appearance on the Hot 100—meaning that every member of BLACKPINK now holds a solo Hot 100 hit, the first time this has ever happened for a K-pop girl group. It is only the 10th instance in chart history in which every member of a group with four or more members has landed a solo entry on the Hot 100. The previous groups to achieve this milestone include BTS, The Beatles, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, New Edition, New Kids on the Block, One Direction, U2, and Wu-Tang Clan.
• “Spaghetti,” the collaboration between LE SSERAFIM and j-hope, debuted at No. 50 on the Hot 100, No. 4 on Digital Song Sales, and No. 6 on the Global 200 on the chart dated November 8. For LE SSERAFIM, it marks their third Hot 100 entry and their highest peak yet, as well as their first appearance on Digital Song Sales. It is also their 10th entry on the Global 200—and their first to reach the Top 10. For j-hope, the song becomes his ninth career Hot 100 hit, and his fifth entry on the chart in 2025 alone.
• “Golden” by HUNTR/X has accumulated 15 weeks at No. 1 on the Global 200 as of the chart dated November 15. This ties it for the third-longest reign on the chart, alongside “As It Was” by Harry Styles. Ahead of them are “Die With A Smile” by Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars with 18 weeks at No. 1, and the all-time leader, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey, which has topped the chart for 19 weeks.
• “Gabriela” by KATSEYE reached a new peak on the Hot 100, rising to No. 33 on the chart dated November 15.
• “TEN: The Story Goes On” by TWICE debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 and at No. 2 on Top Album Sales on the chart dated October 25. TWICE re-entered the Artist 100 at No. 8.
• The first mini-album “HYPE VIBES” from CxM—the project unit composed of S.COUPS and MINGYU—debuted at No. 71 on the Billboard 200 and No. 5 on Top Album Sales on the chart dated October 25. CxM entered the Artist 100 at No. 43 and opened at No. 1 on Emerging Artists.
• “Color Outside The Lines” by CORTIS re-entered the Billboard 200 at No. 171 on the chart dated October 25. CORTIS returned to the Artist 100 at No. 80.
• BABYMONSTER’s second mini album “WE GO UP” debuted at No. 13 on Top Album Sales on the chart dated October 25. BABYMONSTER re-entered the Artist 100 at No. 86 and returned to Emerging Artists at No. 2.
• “Blue Valentine” by NMIXX debuted at No. 177 on the Billboard 200 and at No. 7 on Top Album Sales on the chart dated November 1. The song “Blue Valentine” entered the Global 200 at No. 78. NMIXX re-entered the Artist 100 at No. 61 and returned to Emerging Artists at No. 1.
• “The Action” by BOYNEXTDOOR debuted at No. 40 on the Billboard 200 and at No. 7 on Top Album Sales on the chart dated November 8. BOYNEXTDOOR re-entered the Artist 100 at No. 25 and returned to Emerging Artists at No. 1.
• “Ashes To Light” by ATEEZ debuted at No. 11 on Top Album Sales on the chart dated November 15. ATEEZ re-entered the Artist 100 at No. 71.
• “House Of Tricky: Wrecking The House” by xikers debuted at No. 16 on Top Album Sales on the chart dated November 15. xikers re-entered the Artist 100 at No. 94 and returned to Emerging Artists at No. 2.