The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on the metric consumption measured in equivalent album units. Units include album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit is equivalent to an album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 supported by ads or 1,250 paid / on-demand subscription to official audio and video generated by songs from an album. The new chart dated 16 January 2021 (where Ever returns to No. 1) will be published in full in Advertising panelJanuary 12th website. For all news on the charts, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on Twitter and Instagram.
Here is a look at artists with at least 40 weeks in first place on the Billboard 200 chart, since March 25, 1956, when the chart started to be published regularly:
The Beatles, 132
Elvis Presley, 67
Garth Brooks, 52
Michael Jackson, 51
Taylor Swift, 51
Whitney Houston, 46
The Kingston Trio, 46
The Beatles also continue to have a record 19 albums in the first place. The band took first place in 2000-01 with the biggest hits defined 1, who spent eight weeks at the top of the list.
Presley, who died in 1977, has a total of 10 chart leaders and was last in first place in 2002 with the best-of set Elv1s: 30 hits # 1, who stayed in first place for three weeks.
Brooks has nine leaders and stayed in pole position in 2013 for a week with boxing All my roots are to blame: five decades of influences.
Jackson has six No. 1s, with most of his 51 weeks at No. 1 generated by Thriller ‘s 37 – week reign in 1983-84. Jackson was the last one with the soundtrack of Michael Jackson’s This Is It in 2009 (for a week). It was released a few months after his death earlier that year.
Seven of Swift’s eight # 1 albums spent more than a week at number one: Fearless (11, 2009-09), Speak Now (six, 2010-11), Red (seven, 2012-13), 1989 (11, 2014-15), Reputation (four, 2017-18), Folklore (eight, 2020) and Ever (three so far; 2020-21). Her only album to record just a lonely week in charge was 2019 Lover.
Houston has four No. 1s, with three of them each registering at least 11 weeks in the lead (his self-titled debut, 14 in 1986; Whitney, with 11 in 1987; The bodyguard soundtrack, with 20 in 1992-93). She took first place in 2009 (for a week) with her last studio album released before her death in 2012, I look at you.
The Kingston Trio registered all five of its No. 1s between 1958 and 1960. The last group was No. 1 on December 26, 1960 with String Along.