Taylor Swift’s ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ returns to #1 on Billboard 200, Michael Buble rises in the week before Christmas

For the Billboard 200 tracking week of December 15 to December 21 — just a few days before Christmas Day — Taylor Swift‘s re-recorded album “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” returned to number-one for a fourth nonconsecutive week, gaining an impressive 25% from week to week to achieve 136,000 equivalent album units based on its combined record sales, individual track sales and online streams. Read all about this week’s chart here at Billboard.com.

Swift’s holiday season bump dropped Nicki Minaj‘s “Pink Friday 2” to number-two with 100,000 album units. The rapper was sandwiched by Swift as “Midnights” jumped back up to number-three, up 31% to 75,000 album units. Michael Buble‘s holiday blockbuster “Christmas” also gained, though perhaps surprisingly not as much as Swift did. It rose one spot to number-four, increasing 10% to 70,000 album units. The current tracking week will likely be “Christmas’s” last on the chart until next year as holiday albums naturally tend to disappear as soon as Christmas Day is in the rearview. And Morgan Wallen‘s “One Thing at a Time” rounds out the top five with 64,000 units.

In our weekly Billboard 200 predictions contest, just 15 game players correctly bet on “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” returning to number-one. Most thought Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign‘s joint venture “Vultures” would top the chart, but that album ended up pushing back its release date to January 12, 2024. Perhaps surprisingly, no one thought “Pink Friday 2” would be at number-two; some predicted it for first, third, fourth or fifth place in its second week of release, but its runner-up finish took all of us by surprise.

Similarly, “Midnights” making a big jump to number-three was unexpected to all but two of us. An impressive 18 were right that “Christmas” would be number-four, while our odds correctly pegged “One Thing at a Time” for number-five. Despite this week’s unexpected outcomes, two of our users managed to correctly predict four out of six outcomes. How did you do?

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