On May 15, Drake dropped three albums at once. Together, “ICEMAN,” “HABIBTI,” and “MAID OF HONOUR” span 43 tracks and 149 minutes of hip hop, dance, and R&B. News of “ICEMAN” first surfaced in August 2024, but Drake retreated somewhat over the following years, limiting himself to streaming and the occasional live show as his feud with Kendrick Lamar and a lawsuit against their label Universal Music Group (UMG) wore on. Nearly two years later, Drake resumed teasing “ICEMAN” this spring, and on May 14 he announced two more albums alongside it during a livestream.

“ICEMAN,” “HABIBTI,” and “MAID OF HONOUR” debuted at No. 1, 2, and 3 on the “Billboard” 200 dated the fifth week of May, the first time in history a single artist has swept the Top 3, debut week or otherwise. Debuting at No. 1 and 2 simultaneously is already a rare feat, with only two prior instances: Guns N’ Roses with “Use Your Illusion II” and “Use Your Illusion I” in 1991, and Nelly with “Suit” and “Sweat” in 2004. The last time an artist held the Top 2 outside of a debut week was Future’s self-titled 2017 album.

“ICEMAN” is Drake’s 15th No. 1 album, surpassing Jay-Z’s record of 14 to make him the all-time leader among male soloists and hip hop/R&B artists. He’s now tied with Taylor Swift in the solo category. When groups are factored in, the Beatles hold the record with 19. Drake also leads all rap artists with 20 Top 10 albums, ahead of Future’s 18, and has spent a combined 38 weeks at No. 1 on the “Billboard” 200, tying him for 10th alongside Fleetwood Mac and the Rolling Stones.

“ICEMAN” moved 463,000 units in its debut week, the second-biggest release of 2026 behind BTS’s “ARIRANG” at 641,000. Streaming drove the bulk of that figure, with 462.2 million streams equating to 449,000 units and landing the album at No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart as the most-streamed release of the year to date. With the album only available to own on digital so far, sales stand at 13,000 copies, good for No. 5 on the Top Album Sales chart. “HABIBTI” came in at No. 2 with 114,000 units and “MAID OF HONOUR” next with 110,000, with streaming pulling both along to the same positions on the Top Streaming Albums chart.

The new releases also sent interest in Drake’s back catalog surging, with 12 of his albums charting on the “Billboard” 200 simultaneously. Beyond the Top 3, the rapper’s previous releases ranged from “Take Care” at No. 25 to “Nothing Was The Same” at No. 167, representing a first for a living artist. The closest comparison is Prince, when 13, and later 19, of his albums hit the chart in the two weeks following his death in 2016. The Beatles have done it twice as well—14 albums in 2010, when their music first became available to download on the iTunes Store, and 13 in 2014, boosted by a TV special marking the 50th anniversary of their breakthrough into the American market.

“Janice STFU” off “ICEMAN” debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in the fifth week of May and gave Drake his 14th chart-topper. The Beatles hold the all-time record with 20 No. 1 singles, followed by Mariah Carey with 19, and Drake, Rihanna, and Taylor Swift all tied for third. Drake has now surpassed Michael Jackson to become the record holder among male solo artists. Ten of Drake’s No. 1 hits have debuted right at the top, the most of any artist in history. His combined 57 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 puts him at fourth of all time, behind Mariah Carey (101 weeks), Rihanna (60), and the Beatles (59).

Forty-two of the 43 songs across the three new albums entered the Hot 100 in a single-week record that even surpasses when Morgan Wallen charted 37 songs during the debut week of “I’m The Problem” last May. Two of Drake’s songs already charted in previous weeks as singles, but 40 songs debuting at once is yet another all-time record. The rapper now has 402 Hot 100 hits under his belt, making him the first artist to surpass 400, with Swift trailing behind in second with 276. With nine new songs in the Top 10, his career total for Top 10 hits now sits at 90, ahead of Swift’s 69 for another all-time record. He also added 23 more songs to his Top 40 total, now at 241, again leading Swift’s 177.

This is the second time Drake’s placed nine songs in the Hot 100 Top 10 simultaneously following the release of “Certified Lover Boy” in 2021, though Swift remains in a class of her own here, having swept the entire Top 10 three times: with “Midnights” in 2022 (No. 1–10), “The Tortured Poets Department” in 2024 (No. 1–14), and “The Life of a Showgirl” in 2025 (No. 1–12). Topping both the “Billboard” 200 and the Hot 100 in the same week is one of pop’s most coveted milestones, and Drake’s now done it 29 times, tying Swift for second place behind the Beatles’ record of 39.

“Janice STFU” also debuted at No. 1 on the Global 200, joining a total of eight tracks from “ICEMAN” claiming the Top 7 plus No. 9. Sweeping the Global 200’s Top 7 has been done twice before, once by BTS this April and once by Swift in 2024. “ICEMAN” also marks Drake’s second time scoring eight songs in the Global 200 Top 10, following “Certified Lover Boy” in 2021, while BTS and Swift have each dominated nine of the Top 10, the group once and the singer-songwriter four times. Drake has now had 45 Top 10 hits on the Global 200, overtaking Swift’s 42.

Noah Kahan’s fourth album, “The Great Divide,” debuted at No. 1 on the “Billboard” 200 in the second week of May and held there for three straight weeks, the first rock album to do so since Mumford & Sons’ 2012 album “Babel.” The last one was even further back when just looking at solo artists—Jack Johnson’s “Sleep Through The Static” in 2008. The most recent rock album to hold No. 1 for two weeks was Zach Bryan’s self-titled release.

Kahan and Bryan stand out even within the broader story surrounding rock’s resurgence, and it’s easy to see why they’re often mentioned together. Both work in a pop/rock sound rooted in modern folk and country, building their audiences through autobiographical songs with a simple acoustic sound. They fill arenas through sheer talent rather than through spectacle, driven by deeply loyal fan bases, and have become icons of their genre precisely by shedding the traditional flashy image of rock star bands.

“The Great Divide” is Kahan’s first No. 1 album. It moved 389,000 units during its debut week, the third-highest of 2026, and set an all-time record for rock albums since the current system was introduced in 2014, easily surpassing Dave Matthews Band’s 2018 album “Come Tomorrow,” which previously held the record with 292,000 units. “Divide” was streamed 215.4 million times, equivalent to 212,000 units and making it the biggest streaming week of any album this year prior to Drake’s comeback, naturally placing it at No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart. Pure album sales amounted to 175,000 copies, No. 1 for the week and the highest sales for a rock album since TOOL’s 2019 “Fear Inoculum” with 248,000 copies. Notably, 118,000 vinyls of “Divide” were sold, a new rock record.

The massive streaming numbers carried over to the Hot 100, where 21 tracks off “The Great Divide”—including bonus tracks from the deluxe edition—made the chart, ranging from “Doors” at No. 9 to “A Few Of Your Own” at No. 81. Kahan is now the 13th artist in history to have 21 or more songs on the Hot 100 in the same week. Nineteen of those were new to the chart that week, bringing his career Hot 100 total to 30 songs.

Ella Langley’s single “Choosin’ Texas” picked up where it left off, reclaiming No. 1 once again. The song had previously topped the chart for a combined seven weeks, spread out across the second week of February, the first week of March, the third and fourth weeks of March, and the second and third weeks of April. Three more weeks at No. 1 from the second through fourth weeks of May brought the total to 10, then spread across five distinct runs to tie Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” (2023) and Harry Styles’ “As It Was” (2022) for the most spikes to the top in chart history. Even with perennial hit status, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has reached No. 1 only eight separate times across holiday seasons between 2019 to 2025—a reminder that reclaiming the top after losing it is even harder than holding onto it in the first place.

Five songs reached No. 1 while “Choosin’ Texas” was still hanging around—Bad Bunny’s “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS,” Taylor Swift’s “Opalite,” Bruno Mars’ “I Just Might,” BTS’s “SWIM,” and Olivia Rodrigo’s “drop dead”—which says a lot about how firmly the song’s popularity has kept it anchored at the top. Traditional country has a strong, specific foundation that a pop smash can temporarily outgun, but once the flood recedes, “Choosin’ Texas” rises back to the top.

Langley’s dominance doesn’t stop with one single, either. As “Be Her” held No. 5 in the second week of May, her new duet with Wallen, “I Can’t Love You Anymore,” debuted at No. 7, becoming her first Top 10 debut. That made Langley the first country singer to have their first three Top 10 hits there simultaneously, a feat that requires immediate follow-up hits while the lead single’s still riding high. “I Can’t Love You Anymore” is also the first country duet—where both artists are credited as lead performers equally, as distinct from a featured credit like Wallen’s appearance on Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help” in 2024—to debut in the Top 10. For a country duet simply reaching the Top 10 without debuting there, you’d have to go back to Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton’s 1983 hit “Islands In the Stream.”

That same week, all three of Langley’s songs occupied the Top 3 on the Hot Country Songs chart, making her only the second woman to sweep the top after Beyoncé did the same with the release of “COWBOY CARTER” in 2024. Among male artists, Wallen’s done it 26 times, fueled by the long-running popularity of the 73 tracks off his 2023 album “One Thing At A Time” and 2025 album “I’m The Problem.”

As of the fourth week of May, “Choosin’ Texas” has spent 10 and 25 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs respectively, with 11 consecutive weeks atop Streaming Songs, seven straight weeks topping Digital Song Sales, and a new peak of No. 5 in airplay—and it shows no signs of leaving the charts even as we enter the second half of the year.

“Be Her” jumped to No. 2 on the Hot 100 in the third week of May and stayed there the following week, meaning Langley spent two consecutive weeks with songs at both No. 1 and No. 2. Holding the Top 2 simultaneously for two or more weeks is something only 20 artists have managed across a combined 103 weeks in chart history. The Beatles lead with 10 weeks, followed by Outkast with eight. Among solo artists, Drake tops the list with seven. Only four solo women—Ashanti, Iggy Azalea, Swift, and Langley—have ever done it, and Langley’s the only country artist, with Wallen having held the Top 2 for just one week last May.

The April 24 release of the biopic “Michael” and its strong North American box office performance sent Michael Jackson’s streaming numbers surging across major charts. In the week immediately following the release, his solo catalog generated 137.5 million streams—about 2.5 times the 55.9 million recorded the week before, when anticipation was already high. On the charts dated the second week of May, Jackson climbed from No. 29 to No. 3 on the Artist 100, while “Thriller” returned to the “Billboard” 200 at No. 7. “Thriller” holds the record for the most weeks at No. 1 for an album attributed to a single artist, with 37 weeks at the top between 1983 and 1984, and May marked its first appearance in the Top 10 since peaking at No. 7 during the 40th-anniversary reissue in 2022. Jackson’s greatest hits album “Number Ones” from 2003 rose to No. 12, the soundtrack “Michael: Songs From The Motion Picture” debuted at No. 37, and “Billie Jean”—the singer’s most-streamed track that week at 9.4 million plays—returned to the Hot 100 at No. 38.

By the third week of May, “Thriller” rose from No. 7 to No. 5, while “Number Ones” jumped from No. 13 to No. 6, reaching the Top 10 for the first time and giving Jackson his 11th Top 10 album. He now has at least one Top 10 album in every decade from the 1970s through to the present, a feat shared by only four other artists: Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and James Taylor.

Jackson’s resurgence wasn’t limited to the US, either. On the Global 200, “Thriller” returned at No. 104 in the second week of May then jumped to No. 3 the following week and finally No. 1 the week after, making it the oldest song to top the chart since its launch in 2020. Other notable instances of past hits reaching No. 1 on the Global 200 include “Last Christmas” by Wham! (1984), “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” by Kate Bush (1985), “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey (1994), and “Beauty And A Beat” by Justin Bieber and featuring Nicki Minaj (2013).

Finally, in the fourth week of May, Jackson topped the Artist 100 after sustained gains across streaming, radio, and album sales following the film’s release. That same week, his back catalog as a whole ranked No. 3 in streaming, No. 8 in radio, and No. 2 in sales. Jackson passed away in 2009, five years before the Artist 100 launched in 2014, and while posthumous No. 1s on the chart have happened before, every other case—including David Bowie and Prince in 2016—involved artists who died after the chart began.

• CORTIS’s EP “GREENGREEN” debuted at No. 3 on the “Billboard” 200 in the fourth week of May, marking the group’s second time on the chart with a career-best 87,000 units. 81,000 copies sold put the EP atop the Top Album Sales chart, while 5.9 million streams contributed 5,500 units. “GREENGREEN” held onto No. 1 in sales the following week. CORTIS previously peaked at No. 15 on the “Billboard” 200 and No. 3 on the Top Album Sales chart with “COLOR OUTSIDE THE LINES” in 2025.

• “REDRED” debuted at No. 63 on the Global 200 in the second week of May and climbed to No. 38 by the fourth week, while also entering the Bubbling Under Hot 100 at No. 17 in the third week of May. CORTIS returned to the Artist 100 at No. 5 in the fourth week of May, a personal best.

• Tame Impala and JENNIE’s song “Dracula” rose from No. 18 to No. 10 on the Hot 100 in the third week of May, the first Top 10 hit for both artists. Kevin Parker, better known under the moniker Tame Impala, had nearly entered the Top 10 as a songwriter and producer before when the Dua Lipa single “Houdini” peaked at No. 11 in 2023 and Lady Gaga’s “Perfect Illusion” at No. 15 in 2016. JENNIE had previously reached No. 13 as a member of BLACKPINK with “Ice Cream” featuring Selena Gomez.

• JENNIE’s now the second BLACKPINK member to crack the Top 10 as a solo artist, after ROSÉ reached No. 3 with “APT.” alongside Bruno Mars. Together, that makes BLACKPINK the fifth girl group to have two or more group members with solo Top 10 hits after Destiny’s Child, Fifth Harmony, the Go-Go’s, and the Runaways, or sixth if you include mixed-gender group Fleetwood Mac.

• Over the past four weeks, “Dracula” has reached new highs of No. 6 in streaming and No. 11 in airplay, suggesting the makings of a long-running hit. On more genre-specific charts, the song’s spent 18 weeks atop the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart and two weeks at No. 1 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. JENNIE returned to the Artist 100 at No. 100 in the second week of May and climbed to No. 90 by the fourth week.

• BTS’s album “ARIRANG” has been in the “Billboard” 200 Top 10 for nine straight weeks, while “SWIM” has been sitting at No. 1 on the Global Excl. US chart for seven straight weeks as of the fifth week of May. “SWIM” held onto No. 2 on the Global 200 for the second through fourth weeks of May and dipped to No. 10 in the fifth week. The same week, eight of the Global 200 Top 10 belonged to Drake, with Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” also in the mix, while tracks off “ARIRANG” continued to hang around in the No. 30 to 150 range.

• ILLIT’s mini album “Mamihlapinatapai” debuted at No. 26 on the “Billboard” 200 and No. 3 on the Top Album Sales chart in the third week of May, with the group returning to the Artist 100 at a new high of No. 26. “It’s Me” debuted on the Global 200 at No. 104 that same week and rose to No. 67 the following week.

• &TEAM’s EP “We on Fire” debuted at No. 52 on the “Billboard” 200 and No. 2 on the Top Album Sales chart in the fifth week of May, with the group returning to the Artist 100 at a new high of No. 23.

• NMIXX’s EP “Heavy Serenade” debuted at No. 182 on the “Billboard” 200 and No. 8 on the Top Album Sales chart in the fifth week of May, with the group returning to the Artist 100 at No. 66.

• TWS’s fifth mini album, “NO TRAGEDY,” debuted at No. 50 on the Top Album Sales chart in the third week of May.

• KATSEYE’s EP “SIS (Soft Is Strong)” returned to the “Billboard” 200 at No. 168 and the Top Album Sales chart at No. 17 in the second week of May, with “BEAUTIFUL CHAOS” also returning to the Top Album Sales chart the same week at No. 32.

• “DO IT” by Stray Kids returned to the Top Album Sales chart at No. 33 in the fourth week of May.

• TOMORROW X TOGETHER returned to the Artist 100 at No. 80 in the fifth week of May.