On the latest Billboard 200 albums chart, the big news was at the top of the list, where Taylor Swift’s 1989 easily collected a seventh nonconsecutive week at No 1. In total, Swift has been at No. 1 for 31 weeks with her four different No. 1 albums. Among all women, only Whitney Houston has clocked more frames atop the tally, with 46. (Swift had been tied with Mariah Carey for the second-most No. 1 weeks among women, with 30 each.)
1989 earned its seventh week at No. 1 by selling 430,000 equivalent album units (up 15 percent) in the week ending Dec. 28, according to Nielsen Music. (The Billboard 200 chart now measures multi-metric album consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums [TEA] and streaming equivalent albums [SEA].)
Let’s take a closer look at some of the movers and shakers on the newest Billboard 200:
— Pentatonix, That’s Christmas To Me – No. 3 — The holiday album slides by 39 percent in total units (131,000 for the week) and by 41 percent in album sales (121,000) — but holds at No. 3. The sales dip isn’t surprising, even though the tracking week captured the last few days leading up the Christmas holiday (Dec. 25). By the time Christmas rolls around, most consumers have already purchased their holiday music for the year, so it’s natural to see sales erosion. Next week we’ll see an even larger tumble for the album, as the chart gets back to its normal post-holiday business. That’s Christmas To Me has spent six weeks (all consecutive) locked in the top three of the chart, peaking at No. 2 for two weeks. It also finishes 2014 as the year’s top selling holiday effort (see item, below).
— Fabolous, The Young OG Project – No. 12 — Just two albums debut on the new Billboard 200, and only one of them is a new release: Fabolous’ The Young OG Project at No. 12. The album — his first since 2009’s Loso’s Way — moved 71,000 units (pure album sales equaled 66,000 of that sum). It also takes a bow at No. 3 on Rap Albums. Fabolous’ last album, Loso’s Way, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 99,000 copies in its first week.
— Meghan Trainor, Title (EP) – No. 24 — The chart placement of Trainor’s Title (EP) is greatly enhanced by its TEA performance. Of its total units for the week (43,000), 34,000 were TEA while another 7,000 were traditional album sales. (SEA comprised a little under 2,000 units.)
— Idina Menzel, Holiday Wishes – No. 30 — The Frozen star sees her album finish 2014 as the year’s second-biggest selling Christmas set (370,000 sold) behind Pentatonix’s That’s Christmas To Me (1.14 million). (That’s Christmas To Me is also 2014’s best-selling album by a group.) The year’s No. 3 seller was Michael Buble’s evergreen Christmas, with 342,000. Christmas was released in 2011 and spent five weeks at No. 1 that year and in early 2012.
— Soundtrack, Annie – No. 29 — The soundtrack to the 2014 movie musical hits a new chart high, as it climbs 63-29 with 36,000 units (up 109 percent). The film opened in U.S. theaters on Dec. 19.
— Joe Cocker, The Best of Joe Cocker: 20th Century Masters The Millennium Collection – No. 75 — The second and final debut on the newest Billboard 200 comes from the late Joe Cocker, as this greatest hits album bows at No. 75 in the wake of the artist’s death on Dec. 22. The set, which was released in 2000, sold 17,000 units in the frame ending Dec. 28 (up from essentially no sales in the week previous).
