Chart Beat
Elton John and Dua Lipa’s ‘Cold Heart’ Is Australia’s Christmas No. 1
Christmas always arrives early in Australia, and it’s a particularly joyful one this year for Adele, Elton John, Dua Lipa and Pnau. Elton and Dua’s “Cold Heart” (Pnau Remix) is the Christmas No. 1 in the land Down Under, where it clocks up five non-consecutive weeks at the summit. “Cold Heart” (via Warner/Universal) is just one week away from equaling Elton’s all-time streak at No. 1, the double A-side Princess Diana tribute “Something About The Way You Look Tonight”/Candle in the Wind 1997.” The current frame is glittering with Christmas tunes, led by Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” (Columbia/Sony) lifting 8-2. Carey’s Christmas classic just misses out on a rare four-peat; the single has led the survey in the holiday seasons of 2018, 2019 and 2020. Explore See latest vide...
Mariah Carey’s Biggest Albums & Songs: ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’ & More
Submit questions about Billboard charts, as well as general music musings, to askbb@billboard.com. Please include your first and last name, as well as your city, state and country, if outside the U.S. Or, tweet @gthot20. Let’s open the latest mailbag. MARIAH CAREY’S BIGGEST ALBUMS & SONGS Hi Gary, With “All I Want for Christmas is You” and Merry Christmas both making their annual resurgences, could you please recap Mariah Carey‘s career sales, streaming and radio airplay highlights? Thank you! Jess HahnColumbia, S.C. Hi Jess, Happy holidays! As a last-minute (or not, depending on where you are with your shopping) gift to Lambs, here’s an update of Carey’s best-selling albums, most-streamed songs and most-heard hits on radio in the U.S., according to MRC Data (from titles’ releases...
The Lumineers Land Fifth Alternative Airplay No. 1 With ‘Brightside’
The Lumineers top Billboard‘s Alternative Airplay chart with a lead single from an album for a fourth straight time, as “Brightside” rises to No. 1 on the Dec. 25-dated survey. “Brightside” is the duo’s fifth total No. 1. The act first led with “Ho Hey” in 2012, followed by “Ophelia” (2016), “Cleopatra” (2017) and “Gloria” (2019). Of those, only “Cleopatra” was not released as a lead single. “Brightside” previously crowned Adult Alternative Airplay for two weeks in November; it currently ranks at No. 3. On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay list, “Brightside” holds at its No. 2 high with 4.7 million audience impressions, up 5%, according to MRC Data. On the multi-metric Hot Alternative Songs and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs charts, “Brightside” ranks at ...
Adele’s ‘30’ Becomes 2021’s Best-Selling Vinyl Album, Holds at No. 1 on Top Album Sales Chart
Adele’s 30 spends a fourth consecutive, and total, week at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated Dec. 25) – and also becomes 2021’s top-selling album on vinyl. Across all of its available formats, both physical and digital, 30 sold 146,000 copies in the United States in the week ending Dec. 16 (down 2%) according to MRC Data. Its total sales climb to 1.21 million. It is the only album released in 2021 to sell a million copies. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news 30 also rules the Vinyl Albums chart for a fourth week, selling 41,000 copies (up 16%). Its total sales on vinyl now climb to 234,000 – becoming 2021’s top-selling album on wax. It surpasses the previous top-seller, Taylor Swift’s Evermore, which has sold 232,000 on vinyl throug...
Adele’s ‘30’ Heading For U.K. Christmas No. 1
Adele should be top of the tree this Christmas. The superstar British singer is all set to land the U.K.’s Christmas No. 1 album, with 30 (Columbia) leading the midweek chart and holding course for a fifth consecutive week atop the national chart. If it maintains its position when the survey proper is published this Friday — Christmas Eve — it’ll tie Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour as the longest-running No. 1 album of the year. Sour, however, completed its five-week run in separate blocks. 30 would be Adele’s second Christmas leader, following 2015’s 25, part of its 13-week reign. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Elsewhere on the chart blast, Michael Buble’s Christmas (Reprise) lifts 5-4, while Andre Rieu and his Johann Strauss Orchestra’s Happy Together...
Mariah Carey’s Kids Shower Her With Confetti to Celebrate Her ‘Christmas’ Return to Hot 100 No. 1
Mariah Carey is back at No. 1 again, with her holiday classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You” spending a sixth week atop the Billboard Hot 100. And just because No. 1 is a familiar spot for the Queen of Christmas doesn’t mean she isn’t celebrating the song’s latest return to the top. Explore See latest videos, charts and news “Yaaaas! I can’t even know what to say,” Carey says in a celebratory voice note she tweeted out Monday (Dec. 20). “The kids [10-year-old twins Monroe and Moroccan] just woke me up with confetti … and [boyfriend Bryan] Tanaka brought in two mimosas – one for him, one for me. We’re celebrating. This type of news, it’s never like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so bored of this news.’ To have another Billboard Hot 100 [No. 1] with a song that means so much to me, I can’t even, I can...
Taylor Swift’s ‘All Too Well’ Hits Its First Billboard Airplay Chart
Taylor Swift‘s “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)” has already topped the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs charts (dated Nov. 27), and now adds another impressive, if perhaps unlikely, achievement: It reaches its first Billboard radio airplay chart, entering Adult Pop Airplay at No. 38, up 52% in plays in the Dec. 13-19 tracking week, according to MRC Data. Explore See latest videos, charts and news The song has overcome two notable challenges in bowing on the ranking: It’s not being promoted, by Republic Records, as a proper radio single, and it clocks in, in its longest form, at over 10 minutes. It’s even competing for airtime against another Swift song that is receiving a focused promotional campaign at radio: “Message in a Bottle (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault),” which ranks a...
Christmas Tunes Dominate Record-Setting U.K. Singles Chart
It’s a very merry Christmas for Ed Sheeran and Elton John as their holiday-themed collaboration snags a second week atop of the U.K. chart. “Merry Christmas” (Atlantic) leads a new frame that features 24 Christmas songs in the Top 40. According to the Official Charts Company, that’s a new all-time chart record for the most Christmas-themed songs in the chart a week prior to the Dec. 25 holiday. The Top 10 on this week’s Official U.K. Singles Chart is home to Christmas hits by Wham! (at No. 3), Mariah Carey (No. 4), Shakin’ Stevens (No. 6) and The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl (No. 7), all of which hold their positions from last week, while Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” (MCA) lifts 10-8. Indeed, just one song in the Top 10 this week doesn’t have Santa at it’s heart — Sa...
Adele’s ‘30’ Extends U.K. Chart Reign
Adele’s 30 (Columbia) remains rock-solid atop the Official U.K. Albums Chart. The British singer’s fourth album enters a fourth week at No. 1, for the longest consecutive run at the top for any album in 2021, the OCC reports. When the chart week wrapped up last Friday (Dec. 17), it wasn’t even close. According to the charts compiler, 30 scooped nearly twice the volume of chart sales of its closest competitor, Ed Sheeran’s = (equals via Asylum). If Adele’s latest LP manages another week at No. 1, it will equal Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour (Interscope) for the most total weeks at the summit, with five. Sour’s reign, however, wasn’t a continuous one. The highest new entry on the current frame belongs to Paul Weller, whose An Orchestrated Songbook (Polydor) starts at No. 4, for the former Jam frontma...
Adele’s ‘30’ Spends Fourth Week at No. 1 on Billboard 200 Albums Chart
Adele’s 30 holds firm at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for a fourth consecutive, and total, week. It’s the first album with four weeks in a row at No. 1 since March. 30 earned 183,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 16 (down 6%) according to MRC Data. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The last album with four straight weeks at No. 1 was Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album, which spent all 10 of its weeks at No. 1 from its debut frame, between the charts dated Jan. 23 and March 27. The last album by a woman with four weeks in a row at No. 1 was Taylor Swift’s Folklore, which spent its first six weeks atop the list (of its total of eight nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1) beginning in August 2020. 30 is the ...
Billie Eilish’s Biggest Billboard Hits: ‘Bad Guy,’ ‘Everything I Wanted’ & More
Happier-than-ever birthday, Billie Eilish! As the singer-songwriter turns 20 Dec. 18, Billboard celebrates by recapping her biggest chart hits and accomplishments. Eilish has tallied 30 entries on the Billboard Hot 100, from her first, “Lovely,” with Khalid, on the chart dated June 9, 2018, through the latest list, dated Dec. 18. She boasts five top 10s, including the No. 1 “Bad Guy,” which holds the distinction of dethroning the longest-leading hit in the chart’s history, Lil Nas X’s 19-week No. 1 “Old Town Road,” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus. On the Billboard 200 albums chart, Eilish has scored two No. 1s: When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, for three weeks in 2019, and Happier Than Ever, for three weeks beginning this August. Explore See latest videos, charts and news Eilish also hol...
Carrie Underwood & More Bring Holiday Cheer to Top 10 on Album Sales Chart
Four out of the top 10-selling albums of the week were holiday efforts, as the march to Christmas nears ever closer. On Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart dated Dec. 18 (reflecting the sales week ending Dec. 9), Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas TV soundtrack climbs 7-6, Carrie Underwood’s My Gift rises 12-7, Kelly Clarkson’s When Christmas Comes Around… flies 25-9 and Michael Bublé’s chart-topping Christmas holds steady at No. 10. Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now MRC Data. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by t...
