Yahoo News RM Becomes First BTS Member to Have a Solo Album Reach Top 10 With Rising ‘Indigo,’ While SZA Rules Chart for a Second Week
BTS member RM has earned his first solo top 10 album on the Billboard 200 chart with “Indigo” rising dramatically to No. 3 in its third week out, thanks to a belated CD release, after initially debuting as a digital-only album at No. 15 and then dropping off the chart in its second week.
Boosted by its Dec. 16 CD release, and multiple collectible deluxe packages, “Indigo” logged the equivalent of 83,000 album units sold in the United States, according to data by Luminate. CDs made up 77,500 of the 10-song album’s unit tally for the week, two weeks after the record originally launched onto the Dec. 17-dated chart at No. 15 with 31,000 units purely from streaming and digital downloads.
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“Indigo” included collaborations with several Korean artists and American heavy-hitters like Erykah Badu and Anderson .Paak. Of the track list, the K-pop rapper told Variety in an interview, “I thought it could be a well-balanced album and a very unique piece if I could harmonize all of these artists, like industry to industry, continent to continent, nation to nation.”
The singer is the first of the seven-member group to notch a solo top 10 spot on the Billboard 200 (J-Hope’s “Jack in the Box” peaked on the July 30-dated chart at No. 17); as a group, they’ve achieved seven top 10s, with six fulfilling the coveted top slot.
SZA’s “SOS” logs a second week atop the Billboard 200 album charts after debuting at No. 1 last week with the second-largest streaming week ever for an album by a female artist. The set earned the equivalent of 180,000 album sales in the U.S., down 43% but still riding high after entering atop the list last week with 318,000 units.
Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” holds at No. 2 with an increase of 31% in album sales, due to holiday shopping. As Billboard points out, a majority of these sales were vinyl-driven (up 41%) as the record has five different vinyl editions, earning the pop singer the third-largest sales week for any vinyl album in 2022. It follows only the debut weeks of “Midnights” itself (which logged 575,000 first-week vinyl copies) and Harry Styles’ “Harry’s House” (182,000).
Among the other non-Christmas albums in the top 10, Metro Boomin’s “Heroes & Villains” slips 3-4 on the Billboard 200 with 76,000 units (down 25%), Drake and 21 Savage’s “Her Loss” falls 4-6 with 60,000 units and Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” is at No. 10 with 52,000 units.
Returning Christmas favorites fill in the other spots on the list, including Michael Bublé’s “Christmas” holding on as the top holiday collection, staying at No. 5 with 72,000 units, Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” rising to No. 7, the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas” soundtrack landing at No. 8 and Mariah Carey’s “Merry Christmas” sitting at No. 9.
Over on the Hot 100 songs chart, SZA had a diminished presence, due to the holiday buzz leading that list to be largely filled with Christmas songs. SZA’s “Kill Bill,” which debuted at No. 3 on the singles chart last week, slips to No. 7 as the only “SOS” song to stay in the top 10 during her album’s second chart-topping week.
Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” leads the list for an 11-week career total, spread out across the last four years. Carey becomes the second artist, and first woman, to achieve three chart-topping songs for 11 or more weeks each. Carey and Boyz II Men’s “One Sweet Day” held the record for the chart’s longest hold — lasting 21 years — until Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito,” featuring Justin Bieber, earned 16 weeks on top in 2017. The songs are tied for the second-longest No. 1 takeover, after Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, led the chart for 19 weeks in 2019.
Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” stays at No. 2; Bobby Helms’ “Jingle Bell Rock” rises 4-3, Burl Ives’ “A Holly Jolly Christmas” jumps 5-4 and Wham!’s ’80s hit “Last Christmas” enters the top five for the first time, at No. 5, since its Feb. 8, 1986-dated debut on the chart.
Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” rises 8-6 on the Hot 100, and José Feliciano’s “Feliz Navidad,” also gets a lift from 11-8. Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy” rounds out the top 10, still finding favor after having previously earned the top slot on the Oct. 29-dated chart.
Swift’s “Midnights” single “Anti-Hero” also holds in the top 10 of the Hot 100 at No. 9 after boasting six chart-topping weeks. More notable is the fact that Swift’s single has risen to top Billboard’s Radio Songs chart for the first time since it came out, holding its grip on radio airplay with 79.4 million audience impressions.
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