You’d be forgiven for assuming that Sabrina Carpenter’s <em>Short n’ Sweet</em> would top the <em>Billboard</em> albums chart in its first week of eligibility.

You’d be forgiven for assuming that Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet would top the Billboard albums chart in its first week of eligibility. / Billboard

You’d be forgiven for assuming that Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet would top the Billboard albums chart in its first week of eligibility — especially if you knew that the singer would also have three of the top five songs on the Hot 100. (“Taste” enters this week’s chart at No. 2, followed by “Please Please Please” at No. 3 and “Espresso” at No. 4.) Still, while Short n’ Sweet took No. 1, it grabbed the spot in a down-to-the-wire photo finish with the 10th-anniversary reissue of Travis Scott’s 2014 mixtape Days Before Rodeo, which benefited from a flood of digital variant editions. And not even a small army of Sabrina Carpenter singles could dislodge Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” from holding down an eighth week at the top of the Hot 100.

TOP ALBUMS

Sabrina Carpenter was expected to have a massive week; after all, she’s had two of the summer’s biggest songs (“Espresso” and “Please Please Please”), which only heightened expectations for the release of her new sixth album, Short n’ Sweet. Still, her journey to the top of the album charts was fraught right up to its final moments, as she fended off a furious challenge from rapper Travis Scott.

For those who wish to break down Billboard’s byzantine metrics, the pair’s neck-and-neck battle was unbelievably close, as Carpenter snagged 362,000 “album equivalent units” — a number derived from a mix of online sales, physical sales and streaming — to 361,000 for Scott’s Days Before Rodeo. Both numbers were boosted by digital variant editions, but Scott took such efforts to another level: He released eight different versions of the album, with seven containing bonus tracks and each available for a limited time. Six of those were available only on his website and priced at just $4.99.

The strong numbers for Days Before Rodeo are especially striking, given that it was originally released as a free mixtape in 2014. It had never been made available for sales or streaming, so the version that cracked the Billboard charts this week was a 10th-anniversary commemorative edition, with physical copies (and variant editions) available only via Scott’s webstore.

Elsewhere in the Top 10, country star Lainey Wilson scored her highest chart position to date with the debut of her new album Whirlwind at No. 8. Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion, which entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1 last week, slid to No. 3 to make room for Carpenter and Scott. And Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess fell from No. 2, its chart peak so far, to No. 4.

Rounding out the Top 10, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time fell from No. 4 to No. 5, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department slipped from No. 3 to No. 6, Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft slid from No. 5 to No. 7, Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene dropped from No. 6 to No. 9 and Noah Kahan’s Stick Season took a dip from No. 8 to No. 10.

TOP SONGS

Milestones abound this week, as Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” extends its longest-of-the-year run at the top of the Hot 100 to eight nonconsecutive weeks. That’s two weeks longer than the run enjoyed by Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help (feat. Morgan Wallen),” which this week slid from its long-held slot at No. 2 all the way down to No. 5.

The real milestone action lives in between those two “song of the summer” finalists: Fueled by Short n’ Sweet’s chart-topping debut — and the concurrent release of the album’s new single and video, “Taste” — Sabrina Carpenter now holds the No. 2 song (“Taste”), the No. 3 song (“Please Please Please,” up from No. 9) and the No. 4 song (“Espresso,” up from No. 7) simultaneously. She’s the first solo artist ever, in the history of the chart, to have her first three top-five hits land in the top five simultaneously.

In fact, only one artist has ever accomplished this feat prior to Carpenter: The Beatles, who first pulled it off on March 7, 1964 with “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You” and “Please Please Me.” (In other words, Carpenter can’t say she’s the first artist to have her first three top-five hits land in the top five simultaneously while one of those songs contains the words “Please Please.” And it should be noted that The Beatles’ first five singles were all in the top five simultaneously, back in April 1964.)

Elsewhere, in chart news that doesn’t place the words “Sabrina Carpenter” and the words “The Beatles” in the same sentence, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ new collaborative single (“Die With a Smile”) slides to No. 6 from last week’s No. 3 debut. Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” (No. 5 to No. 7), Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” (No. 6 to No. 8) and Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” (No. 4 to No. 9) all tumbled down the chart to make way for Carpenter’s surge. But Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control” remains impervious to the chart surges of others, as it holds steady at No. 10.

WORTH NOTING

Speaking of “Lose Control” and the imperviousness thereof, the song is currently experiencing its astounding 33rd week in the Top 10 — a number that has it tied with three other songs for the ninth-longest Top 10 run of all time. Looking over the list of the longest-ever runs in the Top 10, it’s hard not to notice a fair bit of recency bias, as streaming algorithms and radio playlists have made it easier than ever for songs and albums to stick around the charts for months or even years at a time. (As you might expect, given those considerations, it’s also harder than ever for songs to crack the Top 10 in the first place.)

In fact, the longest-ever run took place from 2020 to 2021, as The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” sat on the Top 10 for a whopping 57 weeks (and then shocked the world by receiving zero Grammy nominations). From there, it’s a flood of recent-vintage jams: The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber’s “Stay” held on for 44 weeks in 2021-22, followed by Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” (41 in 2023-24), Dua Lipa’s “Levitating” (41 in 2021), Post Malone’s “Circles” (39 in 2019-20), Harry Styles’ “As It Was” (38 in 2022-23), Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” (37 in 2021-22) and Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” (34 in 2023-24).

If “Lose Control” can hold on for one more week, it’ll leave in the dust the 33-week runs of “Sunflower” (by Post Malone and Swae Lee in 2018-19), “Girls Like You” (by Maroon 5 feat. Cardi B in 2018-19) and “Shape of You” (by Ed Sheeran in 2017). Can you imagine how long those early Beatles singles would have hung around on the charts if Spotify had been around in 1964?

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