Coldplay tops album chart, thanks to old-fashioned sales and modern tricks

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Coldplay performs during the Glastonbury Festival 2024 on June 29, 2024. This week, the band's 10th album, Moon Music, became its fifth to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. / Getty Images

Another relatively uneventful week on the Billboard Hot 100 sees Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” in the top spot for a 14th nonconsecutive week, while The Weeknd’s “Timeless” may not be so timeless after all. The Billboard 200 albums chart offers a bit more action, at least at the top, as Coldplay enters the chart at No. 1 thanks to good old-fashioned sales.

TOP ALBUMS

In a year dominated by new and newish artists — lookin’ at you, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, Shaboozey et al. — breaking through with hit singles, it feels positively quaint to see the Billboard 200 topped this week by the earnestly anthemic British uplift of Coldplay, especially given that none of its songs have taken off. But here we are: Moon Music, the group’s 10th studio album, is its fifth to hit No. 1. (Though all 10 Coldplay albums have hit No. 1 in the U.K., Moon Music is the band’s first to top the U.S. chart since Ghost Stories in 2014.)

Goosed by high-profile TV appearances on SNL and elsewhere, Moon Music’s chart success was fueled almost entirely by an old-fashioned metric: album sales, which accounted for nearly 90 percent of the band’s 120,000 “equivalent album units.” (That’s Billboard-speak for the cocktail of sales, airplay and streaming that goes into ranking the performance of albums on any given week’s Billboard 200 chart.) But newfangled tricks helped, too. The album was available in no fewer than eight different vinyl editions, including two signed versions and a Target-exclusive edition with three extra tracks; six different CD editions and four different discounted download editions, including two that include scads of bonus tracks. Pick your metaphor: They flooded the zone, they pulled out all the stops, they left it all on the field, they made fetch happen.

Of course, the irony of traditional album sales in the streaming era is that they both require the most fan commitment — people have to plunk down actual money — and produce the most ephemeral chart results. Because streaming algorithms and radio playlists keep feeding fans what they’ve already heard, those metrics are conducive to long-term chart success. But sales, for all their private permanence for listeners, produce more of a sugar-high effect on the charts these days. Which is all a way of saying that in the absence of a blockbuster hit on radio and streaming (“We Pray,” with guest performances by Little Simz, Burna Boy, Elyanna and TINI, enters this week’s Hot 100 at No. 87), Moon Music is a prime candidate for a precipitous fall next week. But it’ll always be remembered — and marketed — as a chart-topper.

The rest of the top 10 has enjoyed a significantly longer run at or near the top of the charts. Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet slides from No. 1 to No. 2, while Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess slips from No. 2 to No. 3. Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft hold steady at No. 4 and No. 5, respectively. Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department rises from No. 7 to No. 6, switching spots with Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion. Future’s Mixtape Pluto tumbles from No. 3 to No. 8, Noah Kahan’s Stick Season drops from No. 8 to No. 9 and Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album holds at No. 10.

TOP SONGS

The singles chart this week brings a few longevity-based milestones, which we’ll get to in a moment, but the big news here is the decline of The Weeknd’s new single with Playboi Carti, “Timeless,” which debuted at No. 3 last week (the highest Hot 100 debut of The Weeknd’s career) before sliding to No. 12. The Weeknd has had some of the most durable hits of the 21st century so far — including the record-setting “Blinding Lights,” which sat on the Hot 100 for 90 weeks that spanned 2019 to 2021 — but his forthcoming album has produced only boomlets, at least so far. (“Dancing in the Flames” slides from No. 37 to No. 41 this week, after peaking at No. 14 about a month ago.)

Elsewhere, as noted above, there are a few milestones to note, all rooted in staying power. Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” holds at No. 1 yet again, marking 14 nonconsecutive weeks at the top of the chart; that’s the third-longest run at the top in this decade, after Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” (16 weeks) and Harry Styles’ “As It Was” (15 weeks). Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control,” which holds at No. 8 after topping the chart briefly back in March, has now been in the top 10 for 39 weeks — that’s tied with Post Malone’s “Circles” for the fifth-longest top 10 run of all time. (At 57 weeks, the aforementioned “Blinding Lights” holds the record.)

Sabrina Carpenter has had three songs in the top 10 for seven consecutive weeks now, and is one of only six acts ever to have pulled off that feat. All three of Carpenter’s singles are rising, too, thanks in part to The Weeknd’s decline: “Espresso” moves from No. 5 to No. 4, “Taste” climbs from No. 9 to No. 7 and “Please Please Please” ticks up a spot from No. 10 to No. 9.

Elsewhere on the top 10, Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” holds at No. 2, Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help” (featuring Morgan Wallen) climbs from No. 4 to No. 3, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” rises from No. 6 to No. 5 and Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” ticks up from No. 7 to No. 6. And, with The Weeknd vacating his spot in the top 10, Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” climbs from No. 12 to No. 10 — its 25th week in the top 10 so far.

WORTH NOTING

Last week, a trio of superstars underperformed on the Billboard 200 albums chart to a humbling degree, as Lady Gaga’s Joker-adjacent jazz-and-standards album Harlequin (which debuted at a soft No. 20), Luke Bryan’s Mind of a Country Boy (which debuted at a softer No. 51) and Katy Perry’s 143 (which fell from No. 6 to No. 76 in its second week) all posted showings that felt pretty dismal compared to the blockbuster albums that preceded them.

This week, the humblings accelerate, as all three records tumble off the chart entirely. That has to sting particularly hard for Gaga, who is 1) unaccustomed to her albums disappearing from the Billboard 200 after a single week; and 2) also smarting from the catastrophic box-office faceplant of Joker: Folie à Deux.

Granted, the charts have never felt more crowded or competitive, as perpetually streaming catalog titles — Taylor Swift has nine albums on the chart by herself, while Drake has six and Zach Bryan has five — block out the majority of the 200 available spots. But Gaga, Perry and Luke Bryan can’t be thrilled about having their brand-new records out-charted by the 2011 compilation 4 Hits: Milli Vanilli, which debuts on the Billboard 200 this week at No. 197. There’s no shame in being surpassed by Taylor Swift, but it’s another matter altogether to lose out to a disgraced “singing” duo whose decades-old greatest hits fit on an EP.