It was a three-way, down-to-the-wire race to be No. 1 on this week's Billboard 200 albums chart. The entrants: new albums by A$AP Rocky and the K-pop boy band ENHYPEN, plus an older record by the freshly surging superstar known as Bad Bunny.
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Sometimes, the Billboard charts get a little sleepy. Sometimes, they wake up and get wild.
This week on the Billboard 200 albums chart, three very different albums were locked in a dead heat for the No. 1 spot, and all three came within a few thousand "equivalent album units" — that's the mix of sales and streaming that forms each week's chart placements — of topping the chart.
At No. 1, the rapper A$AP Rocky debuts atop the Billboard 200 with his new album Don't Be Dumb — read more about the album here — thanks to a generous mix of streaming and sales, with the latter figure boosted by digital downloads, CDs and more than a dozen different vinyl editions. The record's "equivalent album units" figure for the week came in at roughly 123,000.
At No. 2 with 122,000 equivalent album units, the K-pop group ENHYPEN debuts with THE SIN : VANISH. Its number is derived almost entirely from sales — there are 20 different editions on CD alone — which portends a steep drop on next week's chart. (For chart purposes, sales don't carry over from week to week.)
Then, at No. 3 with 119,000 equivalent album units, you've got an old reliable with a twist: Bad Bunny's 2025 album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS jumps up from No. 12 on the strength of a fresh run of vinyl sales. About 85,000 copies of the album shipped via an Amazon exclusive, giving the superstar his biggest-ever week of vinyl sales in the run-up to both this weekend's Grammys (where he's nominated for six awards) and his Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 8.
As you can imagine, Bad Bunny stands to be a major factor on the charts in the weeks to come, as he's set to benefit from colossal worldwide exposure the way Kendrick Lamar did last year. But Bad Bunny and his team aren't counting on halftime shows alone: He's also dropping a fresh run of the album on white vinyl across all major retailers on Feb. 6.
With those three albums dominating the race for the chart's top spot, last week's leader — Zach Bryan's With Heaven on Top — dips to No. 5. But it still holds off an additional pair of top 10 debuts, one from the rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again (a.k.a. NBA YoungBoy, with Slime Cry at No. 6) and one from the rising pop singer Madison Beer (Locket at No. 10). Beer's previous highest placement on the Billboard 200 came in 2021, when Life Support hit No. 65.
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There's intriguing action outside the albums chart's top 10, as well, as a few old catalog titles take giant leaps.
As noted in this space last week, rapper Fetty Wap recently re-entered the Billboard 200 with his self-titled 2015 debut — a chart surge inspired largely by his recent release from prison. This week, the album leaps from No. 44 to No. 23, while his signature hit "Trap Queen" (which peaked at No. 2 during a year-long, decade-ago chart run) re-enters the Hot 100 at No. 37. However long the Fettaissance lasts, it's an impressive feat.
Elsewhere, the announcement of an inscrutably titled, dance-friendly new album from Harry Styles — Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally., out March 6 — has helped send two of the singer's catalog titles zooming back up the chart. Harry's House, which won album of the year at the Grammys three years ago, leaps from No. 185 to No. 60, while Fine Line re-enters the Billboard 200 at No. 124. Look for more action from Styles' catalog now that the new album's first single, "Aperture," is out in the world.
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The upper reaches of this week's Hot 100 singles chart aren't terribly surprising: Bruno Mars' "I Just Might," which debuted at No. 1 last week, stays put atop the chart, while Olivia Dean's "Man I Need" rises to a new peak at No. 2. That said, long story short: If it was in the top 10 last week, it's still in the top 10 this week. Nothing to see here, folks. Did you know that Alex Warren has a song called "Ordinary"?
Still, there's a genuinely intriguing development near the bottom of the chart. Debuting at No. 97, more than three decades after its release, "Lover, You Should've Come Over" has just become the first Jeff Buckley song ever to crack the Hot 100. "Last Goodbye" didn't do it, his signature cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" didn't do it, none of Buckley's various posthumously released recordings did it, and now the singer — who drowned in 1997 — has a bona fide chart hit.
The 1994 album that produced "Lover, You Should've Come Over," Grace, has been experiencing a minor chart boom of its own since late last year, thanks in part to the release of a documentary about the singer's life. (It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley draws part of its title from the chorus to "Lover, You Should've Come Over.") This week, Grace jumps to No. 156 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
For those of us who've been evangelizing about Buckley's music for 30-plus years — or, say, named one of our children after the only album he released in his lifetime — it's a bittersweet but extraordinarily welcome moment.
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