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Bad Bunny blessed with Billboard's biggest boosts (and Bruno bolsters his bona fides)
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It might not strictly be a surprise that Bad Bunny looms large on this week's Billboard charts, as his album Debí Tirar Más Fotos, in its second week since release, climbs to No. 1, and three of its songs rank among the week's top 10. But it faced stiff competition: Taylor Swift gave him a left-field run for his money on the album chart, while the week's top song still belongs to Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars.
TOP ALBUMS
Last week, a hard-fought battle for No. 1 came down to two debuts: Lil Baby's WHAM and Bad Bunny's Debí Tirar Más Fotos. Bad Bunny faced a few disadvantages — his album came out on a Sunday with little warning, while Lil Baby's record dropped two days earlier and quickly expanded to include a handful of additional tracks — and thus entered the Billboard 200 at No. 2.
This week, WHAM slides from No. 1 to No. 5, while Debí Tirar Más Fotos claims the top spot in its first full week of release. But Bad Bunny's climb to No. 1 didn't come without fierce competition. Even with a 67 percent increase in Bad Bunny's streaming numbers from week to week, the race for chart dominance came down to just 1,000 "equivalent album units" — that's Billboard's metric for the cocktail of sales and streaming that informs each week's charts.
The album at No. 2, with 202,500 equivalent album units to Bad Bunny's 203,500? That'd be Lover: Live From Paris, a 2019 recording of a concert by none other than Taylor Swift. (The recording chronicles the last show Swift performed to promote her album Lover; an ambitious tour was planned but canceled due to the pandemic, paving the way for the record-breaking Eras Tour.)
That eight-song live set had actually charted before, after a limited vinyl-only release via Swift's web store in 2023; it debuted at No. 58 and then immediately dropped off the Billboard 200, making it — until now — the lowest-charting title in the singer's monumentally successful catalog.
So how did a two-year-old album containing a five-year-old recording of a live concert wind up contending for No. 1 this week, especially when you consider that it's never been available on streaming platforms at all? Swift made it available for purchase for a limited time from her own web store, as a heart-shaped vinyl LP and a digital download, and fans responded.
Now that it's no longer available for purchase — at least for the moment — look for Lover: Live From Paris to disappear from the Billboard charts quickly. But this week's burst of activity does give the singer yet another round of bragging rights: Swift has had 20 recordings hit the Billboard 200, and now every one of them has hit the top 20. Eighteen of them have hit the top 10, with only The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection and Speak Now: World Tour Live CD + DVD coming up short.
Don't be too surprised if those albums one day get heart-shaped, Target-exclusive, "Taylor's Version"-branded vinyl editions, just to help her complete the twentyfecta.
TOP SONGS
Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars' "Die With a Smile" continues to fend off all challengers atop the Billboard 100, as the song holds at No. 1 for a third consecutive week. But there's plenty of action to report, as Bad Bunny's dominance — and the aforementioned 67 percent increase in streaming of his new album, Debí Tirar Más Fotos — shakes up this week's chart.
Last week, all 17 of the songs on Bad Bunny's album hit the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, though none of them cracked the top 10. That changes dramatically this week, as every song from Debí Tirar Más Fotos climbs, in several cases dramatically. "DTMF," for example, zooms from No. 38 to No. 2. "Baile Inolvidable" rises from No. 28 to No. 3. "Nuevayol" rounds out his appearances in the top 10, as it speeds from No. 27 to No. 8. Bad Bunny has now charted 13 Spanish-language songs in the top 10 — that's the most non-English-language hits for any artist, ever.
The sudden introduction of three new Bad Bunny songs has naturally created a bit of a shakeup in the top 10, as several long-running standbys tumble: Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" gets crowded out of the No. 2 spot and slides to No. 4; Billie Eilish's "Birds of a Feather" plunges from No. 3 to No. 7 and Teddy Swims' "Lose Control" fades from No. 6 to No. 9.
But two newer songs are clearly gaining ground — and stand to climb further once Bad Bunny's streaming surge subsides. One is Kendrick Lamar's "Luther (feat. SZA)," which has proven to be GNX's most durable single; it's the only song in the top 10 not by Bad Bunny to rise this week. (Lamar is a seven-time nominee at the Grammy Awards on Feb. 2, and he'll perform at the Super Bowl a week later, so he's extremely well-positioned to stick around on the charts for the foreseeable future.)
The other song that's booming right now is "APT.," which holds at No. 5. The song, by BLACKPINK's ROSÉ and Bruno Mars, seems primed to become one of 2025's signature hits. Just look at the three songs immediately ahead of it on the chart: Shaboozey's "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" is, for all that song's charms, long overdue to begin its slow chart descent. Bad Bunny's "DTMF" and "Baile Inolvidable" are riding high off a post-release streaming surge that's bound to subside in the days to come.
Meanwhile, "APT." is the week's top-selling song. It's gaining ground on the radio charts, while most of the tracks ahead of it represent the fossilized remains of 2023 and 2024 — stuff like Benson Boone's "Beautiful Things," Hozier's "Too Sweet" and Swims' "Lose Control." And on streaming, "APT." is firmly in the top 10, pushed down only due to The Bad Bunny Effect. The fundamentals of "APT." are stronger than ever, so don't be surprised if Bruno Mars and his collaborators wind up holding down the Hot 100's top two songs in the weeks to come.
WORTH NOTING
Let's close out with one more note about Bruno Mars — who, it should be noted, is also nominated for two major Grammy Awards this year. ("Die With a Smile" is up for song of the year and pop duo/group performance.)
As "Die With a Smile" holds at No. 1 for a third week, Mars has now, cumulatively, been the owner of the country's top song for 37 weeks — a total that appears likely to rise as "Die With a Smile" dominates, "APT." looms and an as-yet-unannounced full-length album eventually/inevitably drops. That total pulls him into a tie for the eighth-most weeks at No. 1 for any artist in Billboard Hot 100 history. Also with 37 weeks at No. 1? Michael Jackson — though, to be fair to Jackson, that total excludes his work in the Jackson 5. Left in Mars' dust with a mere, piddling 36 weeks? Taylor Swift.
Once he surpasses MJ, Mars will still have a ways to go if he wants to keep climbing the all-timers list. Here are the seven acts who've posted the most weeks at No. 1, in ascending order:
7. Beyoncé, 46 weeks. The Grammy-winningest Grammy winner ever to win a Grammy, Beyoncé has posted almost an entire calendar year at No. 1 over the course of her career, and that's not counting her work in Destiny's Child.
6. Usher, 47 weeks. Last year's Super Bowl headliner is running neck-and-neck with Queen Bey.
5. Boyz II Men, 50 weeks. Two of the longest-running chart-toppers of all time — "One Sweet Day" and "End of the Road" — account for 29 of those 50 weeks.
4. Drake, 56 weeks. If we were counting songs about Drake, he'd be doing even better!
3. The Beatles, 59 weeks. The Beatles, it turns out, are very popular. Who knew?
2. Rihanna, 60 weeks. Another recent Super Bowl headliner. Just think how many more weeks she could spend atop the chart if she'd just release a new record…
1. Mariah Carey, 97 weeks. If you were born before 1990, when "Vision of Love" became her first chart-topper, then nearly two full years of your life have been spent with a Mariah Carey song at No. 1. "All I Want for Christmas Is You" (18 weeks and counting) and "One Sweet Day" (her collaboration with the aforementioned Boyz II Men) account for 34 of those 97 weeks on their own. Incredibly, she'd still be the chart queen even without them.
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