Can anything halt SZA’s reign over the Billboard album chart?
For a 10th time, “SOS,” the second studio LP by SZA — the genre-blurring R&B singer and songwriter born Solána Imani Rowe — is the No. 1 album in the country. In the last 10 years, only six other releases have lasted as long at the top: Adele’s “25” (2015) and Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” (2021), also with 10 weeks apiece; Taylor Swift’s “1989” (2014), with 11; and the “Frozen” soundtrack (2013), Drake’s “Views” (2016) and Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” (2022), each with 13.
Since it came out in early December, “SOS” has been a steady streaming hit, though its numbers have gradually slipped. For the current chart, the album logged the equivalent of 87,000 sales in the United States, including 118 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate. In its 11 weeks out, “SOS” has racked up nearly two billion streams.
Also this week, “Trustfall,” the latest by Pink, opens at No. 2 with the equivalent of 74,500 sales. That total includes 59,000 copies sold as a complete package and 17 million streams. Swift’s “Midnights” holds at No. 3 and Metro Boomin’s “Heroes & Villains” is No. 4.
How much longer can SZA dominate? A few just-released titles could challenge “SOS” on next week’s chart, including “AfterLyfe,” by the rapper Yeat, and “Mañana Será Bonito,” by the neon-haired Colombian star Karol G.
But SZA still has a few levers left to pull. Last week she embarked on her first arena tour, and any day now she is expected to release an expanded version of “SOS” with as many as 10 additional songs, which could give the LP a second wind on the chart.
If any artist is capable of displacing SZA, it is surely Wallen, who on Friday will release “One Thing at a Time,” his third studio album and the follow-up to “Dangerous,” which has had an astounding chart run. This week, “Dangerous” is No. 5, notching its 108th time in the Top 10 — more than any LP except the soundtrack to “The Sound of Music” and the “My Fair Lady” cast recording.
