Taylor Swift (‘Tortured Poets’) notches 12th week atop Billboard 200, blocking yet another artist from #1

Taylor Swift has achieved a new personal milestone, spending her 12th straight week at number-one on the Billboard 200 albums chart with “The Tortured Poets Department.” That makes this her longest-running chart-topper of all time. It’s also the first album by a woman ever to spend its first 12 weeks at number-one. But that means country singer Zach Bryan had to settle for number-two. Read more about this week’s chart here at Billboard.com.

“Tortured Poets” actually gained 43% to achieve 163,000 equivalent album units based on its combined record sales, individual track sales and online streams. That increase was spurred by Swift restocking several album variants in her webstore, and by the release of yet three more digital variants including exclusive bonus tracks. That meant the 137,000 album units for Bryan’s “The Great American Bar Scene” weren’t enough for number-one. He joins a growing list of artists who have been blocked from the top spot by Swift, including Billie Eilish (“Hit Me Hard and Soft”), Gunna (“One of Wun”), Dua Lipa (“Radical Optimism”) and Gracie Abrams (“The Secret of Us”). Time will tell how many more variants Swift has up her sleeve.

Meanwhile, Morgan Wallen‘s “One Thing at a Time” dropped one spot to number-three with 69,000 units. “Hit Me Hard and Soft” held on to number-four with 58,000 units. And Chappell Roan‘s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” maintained its number-five position with 54,000 units.

In our weekly Billboard 200 predictions contest, most game players thought “The Great American Bar Scene” would finally replace “Tortured Poets” at number-one. Our consensus was right, though, that the top album would achieve between 150,000 and 199,999 album units. And we correctly predicted that “One Thing at a Time,” “Hit Me Hard and Soft” and “Midwest Princess” would place third, fourth and fifth, respectively. Ultimately, one user was able to get a perfect score answering our six prediction questions. How did you do? Find out here.

Be sure to make your predictions so that artists can see how they’re faring in our racetrack odds. You can keep changing your predictions until just before the next tracking week begins every Friday. You’ll compete to win a spot on our leaderboard and eternal bragging rights. See our contest rules and sound off with other fans in our music forum. Read more Gold Derby entertainment news.