Demi Lovato wasn’t just dancing with the devil; she was dancing with the top spot on the album chart, as her new release had a late surge of support and nearly toppled Justin Bieber from atop the rankings. Lovato’s “Dancing With the Devil… The Art of Starting Over” bowed at No. 2 with 68,600 album units, not too far behind the 69,800 for Bieber’s album.
Lovato’s win came on the strength more of her album sales than her streams, suggesting a concentrated turnout of mega-fans for her project’s first week. She had 37,000 full-album sales and 34.4 million song streams in week one. By comparison, Bieber appears to be all but done selling albums in his third week; he sold only 4,300 ones during the period. But his song streams remain relatively huge, at 78.9 million, more than twice as many as Lovato’s.
It was actually a close three-way finish at the top of the Rolling Stone album chart. Last week’s winner, Rod Wave’s “SoulFly,” fell to No. 3 in its second week with a still strong 65,300 album units, within spitting distance of both Bieber and Lovato in the last stretch.
The race was also fierce for the fourth and fifth spots. Lil Tjay’s “Destined 2 Win,” which had been projected by some to win the chart this week, came in at No. 4 with a highly respectable 59,500 album units. That was just barely good enough to push Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” to fifth place, as that long-time favorite racked up another 59,100 album units.
The rest of the album top 10 was taken up be returning favorites from Ariana Grande, Pop Smoke, Dua Lipa, the Weeknd and Carrie Underwood. The latter singer’s Christian album, “My Savior,” took a predictable dip after scoring big numbers during Easter week, but still had resilience with 30,200 album units good enough to allow it to hang in at No. 10.
After the strong debuts by Lovato and Lil Tjay, the only other album to even debut in the top 50 was Sturgill Simpson’s new bluegrass project, “Cuttin’ Grass Vol. 2,” in at No. 46 wth 13,300 album units.
On the songs chart, Olivia Rodrigo‘s “Deja Vu” may not be the immediate monster that her first single, “Drivers License,” was, but it still bowed big at No. 3, reeling in 17.3 million streams in its first week.
Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” held over at No. 1 in its second week, collecting 28 million more streams. “Peaches,” by Justin Bieber featuring Giveon and Daniel Caesar, also held its spot at No. 2, with 23.5 million streams this week.
Rounding out the top 10 songs were Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open” at No. 4, Cardi B’s “Up” at No. 5 and tunes by Masked Wolf, Dua Lipa featuring Da Baby, Lil Tjay with 6LACK, Giveon and Drake at Nos. 6-10.
Lovato’s strength on the album chart was spread out when it came to individual songs from the project, with none of her tunes quite cracking the top 25. The singer’s top tune for the week is “Met Him Last Night,” a collaboration with Ariana Grande, which debuted at No. 26.
One thing that’s sure is that it won’t be Bieber, Lovato or any other holdovers in the top spot on next week’s chart. That will easily belong to Taylor Swift’s “Fearless (Taylor’s Version),” which may not debut with “Lover” or “Folklore”-level numbers but is definitely not performing like an archival project either.
