Drake held onto the No. 1 spot on the album chart for a third straight week, with premieres for Lil Nas X‘s “Montero” and a new one from the K-pop group NCT 127 ultimately posing little threat in the face of still-dominant numbers for the blockbuster “Certified Lover Boy.”
Drake’s album had 168,200 album-equivalent units for the week, down from 232,400 in week 2 and 595,300 in its debut week. While full album sales for “Certified Lover Boy” in the latest frame were a negligible 1,800, the Drake record continues to be a streaming monster, with another 208.4 million streams in week three.
“Montero” had a creditable opening week, though Lil Nas X’s album may not shape up to be the behemoth that his media profile and major hit singles might have suggested. His debut full-length album (following an earlier EP, “7,” that was counted as an album for Grammy nomination purposes) had 123,000 album units in its first week. Song streams for the album’s opening week stood at 126.9 million, with full album sales at 21,600 and individual track sales at 25,600.
NCT 127’s “Sticker — The Third Album” was third in more ways than one, coming in at No. 3 with 62,400 album-equivalent units. Song streams were minimal, by the standards of today’s hit albums, at a relatively minuscule 3.6 million. However, “Sticker” was by far the best-selling album of the week, with 59,000 copies sold — thanks in part to the now-common K-pop strategy of selling the CD in a variety of deluxe physical packages.
Those two debuts pushed Kanye West’s “Donda” further down a spot to No. 4 in its fourth week, with 57,600 album units.
Among last week’s big debuts, Kacey Musgraves’ “Star-Crossed” slipped from No. 3 in its opening frame to No. 10 this week, and Baby Keem’s “The Melodic Blue” fell from No. 5 to No. 12, neither one representing a huge dropoff.
Beyond the debuts for Lil Nas X and NCT 127, other albums debuting this week on the Rolling Stone chart include Mozzy’s “Untreated Trauma” at No. 21, Bob Dylan’s archival “Springtime in New York: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 16 / 1980-1985” at No. 36, Daughtry’s “Dearly Beloved” at No. 52, Carly Pearce’s “29” at No. 57, Scotty McCreery’s “Same Truck” at No. 84 and Spiritbox’s “Eternal Blue” at No. 92.
Holdovers in the top 10 include the two biggest albums of the year so far, Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” and Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album,” hanging in at Nos. 5 and 8, respectively. Also enduring after months on the chart are Doja Cat at No. 6, the Kid Laroi at No. 7 and Billie Eilish at No. 9.
Drake commanded the Rolling Stone songs chart as well as the album chart. His “Way 2 Sexy,” with featured appearances from Future and Young Thug, is No. 1 for the third straight week, just like his “Certified Lover Boy” album. The tune had 28.1 million streams for the week.
Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby” has never risen above No. 2 to claim the top spot on the songs chart, facing strong competition from Drake’s song and, before that, one by the Kid Laroi. But at No. 2 it still stands, after nine weeks. The collaboration with Jack Harlow was streamed 24.6 million times during the week, bolstered, of course, by the release of the “Montero” album. Lil Nas X also had the week’s top-debuting song, with “That’s What I Want” coming in at No. 5.
The second-highest-debuting track for the week was Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version),” which the superstar rush-released from her likely far-off-in-the-future “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” project after the original Big Machine version of the tune became a TikTok phenomenon. The single debuted at No. 22 on the RS chart with 8.1 million streams tallied.
Among the top 10 songs, Drake still holds four of those slots, and Lil Nas X has three, not leaving a lot of room for anybody else. The remaining three went to “Stay,” the former No. 1 by the Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber, now down to No. 4; country singer Walker Hayes’ “Fancy Like” at No. 6; and rock band Glass Animals’ rising “Heat Waves,” crashing the party at No. 10.
To see the full list of the top 200 albums, click here. The list of the top 100 songs can be found here.
