SOURCE: billboard.com
After 22 months, SZA’s chart-topping SOS returns No. 1 on the Billboard 200, as the set jumps 15-1 on the Jan. 4-dated chart. It bolts back to the top thanks largely from activity generated by the album’s deluxe reissue on Dec. 20 (dubbed SOS Deluxe: LANA) that added 15 additional songs to the album.
The set was originally released on Dec. 9, 2022, with 23 tracks. All versions of the album, old and new, are combined for tracking and charting purposes and continue to chart under the title SOS.
SOS surges to No. 1 with 178,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 26 (up 297%), according to Luminate. With its return to No. 1, the set collects an 11th nonconsecutive week atop the list, and its first since the March 4, 2023-dated chart. That 22-month gap between weeks at No. 1 is the longest for any album since the Billboard 200 began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March 1956.
Notably, had the 15 new songs on the LANA deluxe edition of the album been released as a new stand-alone album, its track activity alone would have been enough for that stand-alone set to debut atop the list. (The 15 new songs generated 105,000 in SEA and TEA units. The No. 2 title this week, Michael Bublé’s former leader Christmas, earned 100,000 units from SEA, TEA and traditional album sales combined.)
SOS debuted atop the Billboard 200 dated Dec. 24, 2022, and logged 10 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the list through the March 4, 2023-dated chart. It has never left the weekly top 20 of the chart during the 107 consecutive weeks that it has spent on the list. SOS closed 2024 at No. 6 on the year-end Billboard 200 Albums chart, after it was No. 3 on the year-end list in 2023.
Also in the top 10 of the latest Billboard 200 chart, Frank Sinatra scores his first top 10-charting in over a decade, as his holiday compilation Ultimate Christmas vaults 17-10.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).
Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.