Happier Than Ever (Album)

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    Billie Eilish Earns a Third Week at No. 1, Narrowly

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    “Happier Than Ever” beat out Doja Cat’s “Planet Her” on the Billboard album chart by a margin of 1,000 equivalent album sales.After a tight weekly race, Billie Eilish holds at No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart for a third time, just ahead of releases from earlier this year by Doja Cat and Olivia Rodrigo.Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever,” a moderate streaming success that has been a huge hit on vinyl, had 50 million streams and sold 23,000 copies as a complete package in its most recent week, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. Altogether, “Happier Than Ever” was credited with the equivalent of 60,000 sales in the United States, the lowest weekly total for a No. 1 album since Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” notched 56,000 in the winter doldrums at the start of the year.Right behind Eilish, at 59,000 equivalent units — Billboard’s publicly reported numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand — is Doja Cat’s “Planet Her,” a steady seller for the last two months, which jumps three spots to No. 2. It had 78 million streams, the best of any album this week, but was overtaken by Eilish’s album sales, which are weighted more heavily in the formula that determines chart positions. (It takes 1,250 song streams on paid accounts or 3,750 on free, ad-supported ones to count the same as a single album sale.)Rodrigo’s “Sour,” which came out in May and has had a total of four weeks at No. 1, fell one spot to No. 3 in its 13th week out. The Kid Laroi’s “____ Love” held at No. 4, while Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” is in fifth place. Also this week, the country-pop duo Dan + Shay opened at No. 6 with their latest, “Good Things.” More

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      Billie Eilish's ‘Happier Than Ever’ Stays No. 1

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      George Harrison’s 1970 triple album “All Things Must Pass” also returns to the Top 10 for the first time in 50 years thanks to a host of reissues.It may be a digital world, but when it comes to the weekly music charts, old-fashioned sales still make a big difference.This week, Billie Eilish’s latest album, “Happier Than Ever,” a big vinyl hit, holds at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, while George Harrison’s 1970 triple LP “All Things Must Pass” returns to the Top 10 for the first time in 50 years thanks to a cornucopia of reissues, including a $1,000 “uber” version with collectible gnome figurines.“Happier Than Ever” had the equivalent of 85,000 sales in the United States in its second week out, according MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. That is down 64 percent from its opening week, but enough to hold the top spot on this week’s chart. The album’s overall number incorporates 66 million streams and 36,000 copies sold as a complete package — 34,000 of which were on physical formats like vinyl and CD.Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” is No. 2 in its 12th week out, while Nas’s surprise “King’s Disease II” opens in third place with the equivalent of 56,000 sales, including 47 million streams. The Kid Laroi is No. 4 with “____ Love” and Doja Cat’s “Planet Her” is No. 5.“All Things Must Pass,” featuring the hit “My Sweet Lord,” was released in late 1970 and held at No. 1 for seven weeks in early 1971. This month an array of reissue versions was released, ranging from a plain two-CD set ($20) to the $1,000 eight-LP, five-CD/Blu-ray Uber Deluxe Edition ($1,000). Packaged in a wooden crate, that version contains two books, a bookmark fashioned from an oak tree on the grounds of Harrison’s mansion, and miniature reproductions of Harrison and the garden gnomes pictured on the original album cover.Those reissues helped “All Things Must Pass” reach No. 7 on the weekly chart, its first time in the Top 10 since March 1971. The album had the equivalent of 32,000 sales, including 28,000 sold as a complete package; songs from the set were also streamed nearly 4 million times. More

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      Billie Eilish, 21st-Century Pop Paragon, Hits No. 1 With Big Vinyl Sales

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      “Happier Than Ever” debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 with 54 percent of its total from physical formats.Billie Eilish emerged a few years ago as the embodiment of the new-model pop star — flooding the internet with content, designing merch items herself and accumulating boatloads of fans through social media.But in some ways her mode of success is thoroughly traditional. “Happier Than Ever,” the seven-time Grammy winner’s second studio album, opens at No. 1 on the latest Billboard album chart with decent streaming traffic but extraordinary sales of vinyl, CDs and even cassettes. It had 114 million streams — far exceeded by other recent chart-toppers by J. Cole, Olivia Rodrigo and Morgan Wallen, among others — but sold 153,000 copies as a complete package.Altogether, “Happier Than Ever,” Eilish’s second No. 1 album, had the equivalent of 238,000 sales in the United States, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm. It was the fifth-best opening for an album this year — beaten by Cole, Rodrigo, Wallen and Taylor Swift.Released in an array of boxed sets and retail-exclusive variants, “Happier Than Ever” made 54 percent of its total sales in the United States on physical formats, including 73,000 vinyl LPs, 46,000 CDs and nearly 10,000 on cassette. It had the second-highest weekly vinyl haul since at least 1991, when SoundScan, MRC Data’s predecessor, first began keeping accurate data on music sales. (Only Swift’s recent LP release of “Evermore,” which sold 102,000 copies after months of preorders, had more.)How unusual is that? Well, last year streaming made up 83 percent of recorded music revenues in the United States, and physical formats just 9 percent, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. But CD and LP sales are far more lucrative than streams, and offer a big chart boost. Indeed, “Happier Than Ever” would have taken No. 1 this week on vinyl sales alone.Also this week, “Welcome 2 America,” an unearthed Prince album recorded in 2010, opens at No. 4, with the equivalent of 54,000 sales. The Kid Laroi’s “____ Love,” last week’s top seller, falls to No. 2, Rodrigo’s “Sour” is No. 3 and Doja Cat’s “Planet Her” is in fifth place. More

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      Billie Eilish’s New Pop Perspective

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      When Billie Eilish swept the biggest Grammy categories in early 2020, she was a phenomenon, yet somehow not quite a pop star. Her music tended toward the gloomy and insular, and her ravenous fan base was built online among young people, not on the radio.One pandemic later, and Eilish’s world — and worldview — has grown. Her new No. 1 album, “Happier Than Ever,” addresses her fame, and its wages, head on, with her most emotionally specific lyrics. It is an album made by someone freshly cast out of the womb.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about Eilish’s musical and personal evolutions, how she has navigated growing up in public and the harsh sensation of the internet beginning to turn on one of its own.Guests:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterLindsay Zoladz, who writes about music for The New York Times and others More