Getty Image / Aaron J. Thornton
Taylor Swift has absolutely dominated the Billboard 200 charts for months and held the #1 spot for 12 straight weeks but Eminem showed the world he still has his fastball after Billboard confirmed ‘The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)’ is debuting at #1 on the chart.
The Tortured Poets Department had completely taken over the Billboard charts since Taylor Swift dropped the album on April 19th. At one point, she held the top 14 spots on the Billboard 100 chart while the album became the first in history to pick up 1+ billion streams in a week. And she has held tight to the top spot on the Billboard 200 album for months and occupied the #1 spot for 12 straight weeks until now.
Eminem Makes History Of His Own With ‘The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)’
On Sunday, Billboard confirmed that Eminem‘s new album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), is debuting at #1 this week which marks his 11th album to hit #1.
By hitting #1 for the 11th time, Eminem joins rarefied company and ties Bruce Springsteen, Kanye West, and Barbara Streisand for the fifth most #1’s in the history of the Billboard Hot 200. Ahead of that quartet are The Beatles (#1 with 19), Jay-Z and Taylor Swift (#2 with 14 each), and Drake with 13.
While Eminem bumps Taylor Swift from the #1 spot it is hard to imagine a world where Taylor Swift doesn’t have The Beatles’ record set in her sights and at 34-years-old she should have a lot of albums left in her career Interestingly, The Tortured Poets Department didn’t just fall to #2 but hit the #4.
Meanwhile, all of the songs from Eminem’s new album hit YouTube 10 days ago and have been racking up millions of views for each track.
Across the album, ‘Habits’ leads the way with 7.8 million views on YouTube so far:
As for the numbers surrounding Eminem’s new album, Billboard released this data:
Of The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce)’s 281,000 first-week units, SEA units comprise 164,500 (equaling 220.08 million on-demand official streams of the tracks on the streaming edition of the album; Death also debuts at No. 1 on Top Streaming Albums), album sales comprise 114,000 (all from digital downloads; it wasn’t available as a physical album) and TEA units comprise 2,500.
Only time will tell if Eminem’s new album has staying power on the charts but it’s off to an incredible start by unseating Taylor Swift’s stranglehold on the #1 spot.