Billboard 200: SZA (‘SOS’) spends 2nd week at #1 while RM achieves a milestone for BTS alums

SZA’s “SOS” is the number-one album for the second week in a row on the Billboard 200 for the tracking week that ended December 22. From its historic bow it dipped 43% to 180,000 equivalent album units based on its combined album sales, individual track sales, and online streams. Read more about this week’s chart here on Billboard.com.

Taylor Swift‘s “Midnights” maintained its grip on second place with 155,000 album units, which was actually up 12% from week-to-week thanks to a significant uptick in album sales likely due to holiday shopping. But regardless that’s a mightily impressive number for an album in its ninth week of release. Most artists would be overjoyed by that amount of activity in their first week.

Coming in at number-three is an album making a comeback. BTS alum RM‘s solo album “Indigo” returns to the chart in third position with 83,000 units thanks to its release on CD. Two weeks ago it debuted at number-15, so its sudden boom makes it the first solo album by a BTS member to crack the top 10. After that are a couple of holdovers to round out the top five. Metro Boomin‘s “Heroes and Villains” drops one spot to number-four with 76,000 units and Michael Buble‘s “Christmas” remains stuck at number-five despite gaining 16% to 72,000 units.

In our predictions contest for the week, most users thought “Midnights” would return to the top spot, though many still correctly predicted that “SOS” would hold steady. It was a close call for second place where Drake and 21 Savage‘s “Her Loss” was expected in that spot (it actually finished sixth), but again, dozens of users still got that one right by picking “Midnights.” No one anticipated the comeback for “Indigo” at number-three. A little more than a handful foresaw “Heroes and Villains” at number-four. And just over a dozen users were right about “Christmas” coming in at number-five again. How many did you get right this week?

Be sure to make your predictions so that artists can see how they’re faring in our racetrack odds. You can keep changing your predictions until just before the next tracking week begins every Friday. You’ll compete to win a spot on our leaderboard and eternal bragging rights. See our contest rules and sound off with other fans in our music forum. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.