Top Album Sales is a music chart published by Billboard magazine starting in May 1991, [1] and has existed in its current form since December 2014. It is a weekly chart documenting the best-selling albums on a weekly basis in the United States. Up until December 2014, this had been documented by the Billboard 200 chart, but that chart was altered to factor in music streaming by accounting for album-equivalent units in its tallies to document the effect of the rise of music streaming outlet such as Apple Music and Spotify. Starting in the Top Album Sales chart's debut week of May 25, 1991, Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from Soundscan, now known as Luminate. [1] During the week of December 6, 2014, the chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. [1] The Top Album Sales chart was created to preserve the older methodology of counting pure album sales. [2] [3] [4] [5]
In December 2023, Taylor Swift became the first act to simultaneously occupy the top 4 positions of the chart. [6] In January 2024, Swift also became the first act to simultaneously occupy 7 of the top 10 positions. [7]
Issue date | Album | Artist(s) | Pure sales | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
December 13 | 1989 | Taylor Swift | 281,000 | [8] [9] |
December 20 | 230,000 | [10] [11] | ||
December 27 | 2014 Forest Hills Drive | J. Cole | 353,000 | [12] [13] |
The Billboard 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by Billboard magazine to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Sometimes, a recording act is remembered for its "number ones" that outperformed all other albums during at least one week. The chart grew from a weekly top 10 list in 1956 to become a top 200 list in May 1967, acquiring its existing name in March 1992. Its previous names include the Billboard Top LPs (1961–1972), Billboard Top LPs & Tape (1972–1984), Billboard Top 200 Albums (1984–1985), Billboard Top Pop Albums (1985–1991), and Billboard 200 Top Albums (1991–1992).
The Digital Songs or Digital Song Sales chart ranks the best-selling digital songs in the United States, as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published by Billboard magazine. Although it originally started tracking song sales the week of October 30, 2004, it officially debuted in the issue dated January 22, 2005, and merged all versions of a song sold from digital music distributors. Its data was incorporated in the Hot 100 three weeks later. Since October 2004, digital sales have been incorporated into many of Billboard's music singles charts. The decision was based on the dramatic increase of the digital market while commercial single sales in a physical format were becoming negligible.
American rapper Kanye West has released ten studio albums, four collaborative studio albums, one compilation album, one demo album, two live albums, one video album, and five mixtapes. All ten of his studio albums have been certified at least gold in the United States. As of June 2021, West has certified 25 million equivalent solo albums units in the United States, placing him among the highest-certified music artists in the United States.
Taylor Alison Swift is an American singer-songwriter. Known for her biographical songwriting, artistic reinventions, and cultural impact, Swift is a leading figure in popular music and the subject of widespread media coverage.
The American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift has released 11 original studio albums, 4 re-recorded albums, 5 extended plays (EPs), and 4 live albums. She has sold 114 million album-equivalent units worldwide, 57 million of which are certified in the United States. In terms of pure sales, she has tallied 46.6 million albums in the United States and 7 million albums in the United Kingdom. On the US Billboard 200, as of August 2024, she has accumulated 14 number-one albums—seven of which sold one million first-week copies, and 86 weeks at number one—more than any other solo act.
1989 is the fifth studio album by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released on October 27, 2014, by Big Machine Records. Executive-produced by Swift and the Swedish producer Max Martin, it was Swift's effort to recalibrate her artistic identity from country to pop.