As you might have noticed by now, Taylor Swift is all set to upend next week's Billboard charts. But for now, five wildly different acts take advantage of an uncluttered lane to debut in the top 10 — including, at No. 7, Mariah Carey, who doesn't even need "All I Want for Christmas Is You" to rule the charts. On the Hot 100 singles chart, HUNTR/X's "Golden" sits at No. 1 for an eighth nonconsecutive week, while Tate McRae lands two songs in the top five.
TOP STORY
Taylor Swift's new album, The Life of a Showgirl, won't show up on the Billboard charts until next week. And, though it's unwise to confidently predict what will happen on future charts, it's fair to say that it's gonna hit No. 1, given that it's already racked up sales — as in "copies sold," not even accounting for streaming — in excess of 3 million.
For purposes of comparison, this week's No. 1 album (the soundtrack to KPop Demon Hunters, which reclaims the top spot from Cardi B's Am I the Drama?) tops the charts thanks to roughly 102,000 "equivalent album units," a phrase that represents the cocktail of sales and streaming that forms the streaming-era Billboard charts. Add up the numbers posted by every one of this week's top 10 albums — heck, add up this week's top 50 — and you won't equal the kind of figure The Life of a Showgirl will have racked up by the time the dust settles on its first week in the world. (Yes, the many variant physical editions are helping to inflate that number, but a sale is a sale.)
So it's natural to think of this week — capturing as it does the final moments of a pre-TLOAS reality — as the calm before the storm. But we've still got quite a bit of chart action to go around, starting with five albums debuting in the top 10. It's an impressive range of titles, too, across many genres. It's also the most top 10 debuts in a single week since late July, so the charts, they are a-churnin'.
Pop star Doja Cat leads the pack at No. 4 with Vie, which ties the peak of its 2023 predecessor Scarlet. Rapper Young Thug debuts at No. 6 with his ninth top 10 album, UY SCUTI. Olivia Dean, whose first-ever hit "Man I Need" is zooming up the Hot 100 singles chart (see below), debuts at No. 8 with her new album, The Art of Loving. And the K-pop boy band P1Harmony returns to the top 10 with its latest record, EX, at No. 9.
The other debut belongs to venerable superstar Mariah Carey, who scores her 19th top 10 album with Here for It All at No. 7. With numbers heavily tilted toward sales, Here for It All looks primed for a short run in the top 10, but since we're maybe two months away from a Mariah-led holiday takeover, she won't be gone — from either the charts or our hearts — for long. And, in the meantime, Carey has become just the third woman to land a new album in the top 10 in the '90s, '00s, '10s and '20s. (The others: Madonna, who also ruled the '80s charts with an iron fist, and Shania Twain.)
TOP ALBUMS
With five albums zooming into this week's top 10, it's a slow week for the chart's holdovers. In addition to KPop Demon Hunters at No. 1, Morgan Wallen climbs to No. 2 with his forever hit I'm the Problem, while Cardi B's Am I the Drama? — last week's chart-topping debut — slips to No. 3. Sabrina Carpenter's Man's Best Friend slides down to No. 5.
The other old-timer, sitting tight at No. 10, is Bad Bunny's DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, which leads a small flood of chart entries for the Puerto Rican superstar this week. Bad Bunny was announced as the 2026 Super Bowl halftime performer on Sept. 28 — everyone's been super-chill about it — and his catalog is already seeing a boost.
In addition to his latest album, 2022's Un Verano Sin Tí leaps from No. 35 to No. 23, while 2020's YHLQMDLG and 2023's Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va A Pasar Mañana re-enter the Billboard 200 at Nos. 155 and 156, respectively. Each year brings a fresh discussion of how halftime artists are compensated, but there's no doubt that the show (and the discussion around it) helps drive sales and especially streaming.
Finally, it'll be intriguing to see how the arrival of Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl affects the chart performance of her increasingly vast catalog — especially given that TLOAS is the shortest album she's released in ages. With only 12 songs (as opposed to the 31 that filled out the two-hour anthology edition of last year's The Tortured Poets Department), it leaves more available time for listeners to stream Swift's older works once they're ready for a break from the new stuff.
As it stands, Swift's eight most recent albums hold down a total of nine spots in the Billboard 200 — 1989 is represented in both its original and Taylor's Version form — which is the most of any artist. Assuming the rising tide of her fans' enthusiasm lifts her various other boats, Swift stands to dominate next week's Billboard charts with more than just The Life of a Showgirl.
TOP SONGS
For the eighth nonconsecutive week, HUNTR/X's "Golden" holds down the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, while the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack continues to place three songs in the top 10. So, you know, the usual. Radio stations are still playing Alex Warren's "Ordinary" to an unsettling degree; Morgan Wallen still rules the country world; the top 10 still can't quit a record-setting Teddy Swims song that feels 500 years old; rinse, repeat.
Four songs do make moves worth noting this week, though their actual chart climbs are likely to be slowed by next week's Swiftian onslaught. (Remember last year, when songs from The Tortured Poets Department filled the Hot 100's top 14 slots?)
- Tate McRae's new song "Tit for Tat" debuts at No. 3, matching her all-time career high as a solo artist. (McRae hit No. 1 earlier this year with the Morgan Wallen duet "What I Want," which still sits at No. 4.) The song ties the chart peak of her breakthrough song "Greedy" — and, given that most of its numbers are derived from streaming (against very little airplay), she's got room for growth.
- Leon Thomas's venerable R&B hit "Mutt" has been hovering just outside the top 10 for months now, and it climbs a spot this week to a new peak at No. 11. It's wild that the song is still showing momentum in its 35th week on the chart, although — as previously noted — it's almost certain to have at least a dozen new songs ranked ahead of it next week.
- For an artist who'd never charted until recently, Olivia Dean is experiencing an even-more-rapid rise: Her first chart hit, "Man I Need," leaps from No. 25 to No. 12. "Man I Need" looks likely to stick around on the chart for a while, even as Swift — and then the looming onslaught of holiday music — is sure to place a sizable speed bump in its path.
- Finally, the psych-rock band Tame Impala has been a festival headliner and a stadium-filler, but until this week, it had never cracked the Hot 100 with one of its own songs. (Frontman Kevin Parker has worked on other chart hits, including Dua Lipa's "Houdini.") This week, a single from Tame Impala's forthcoming album Deadbeat, "Dracula," breaks into the Hot 100 at No. 55.
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