AceShowbiz - The Noah Kahan album The Great Divide remains at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for a second consecutive week, according to the chart dated May 16. The album earned 163,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. during the tracking week ending May 7, marking a 58% decline from its debut week’s 389,000 units, as reported by Luminate.

The Great Divide is notable for being the first rock album in nearly three years to hold the top spot for two weeks. The last rock album to achieve this feat was Zach Bryan’s self-titled album, which topped the chart for two weeks in September 2023. Billboard classifies rock albums as those eligible for or charting on the Top Rock Albums chart.

In addition to Noah Kahan, other major chart moves include Kacey Musgraves debuting her sixth top 10 album with Middle of Nowhere, which enters the chart at No. 3. This continues Musgraves' streak of all top 10 albums debuting within the top five positions. Meanwhile, the impact of the Michael Jackson biopic Michael is reflected on the charts, with Jackson having two albums in the top 10: Thriller rises from No. 7 to No. 5, and his hits compilation Number Ones climbs from No. 13 to No. 6.

The Billboard 200 ranks the most popular albums in the U.S. based on a multi-metric consumption model that includes album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA), and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). One equivalent album unit equals one album sale, 10 individual track sales, or 2,500 ad-supported or 1,000 paid/subscription on-demand streams of songs from an album. The May 16 chart will be fully published on Billboard’s website on May 12. For ongoing updates, fans and industry watchers can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on X and Instagram.

Breaking down The Great Divide’s numbers, of the 163,000 units earned in the tracking week, 137,000 were SEA units, representing a 35% decline and totaling 139.5 million on-demand official streams of the album’s songs. This achievement secures the album’s second week at No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart. Album sales accounted for 26,000 units, down 85%, causing the album to slip from No. 1 to No. 2 on the Top Album Sales chart. The remaining units came from TEA, which fell 66%.

Holding steady at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 is Ella Langley’s former band Dandelion with 103,000 equivalent album units, down by 8% from the previous week.

Kacey Musgraves’ Middle of Nowhere debuts at No. 3 with 100,000 equivalent album units, marking her best sales week to date. The breakdown includes 64,500 album sales, which places the album at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart, 35,000 SEA units equivalent to 35.54 million on-demand official streams placing it at No. 10 on Top Streaming Albums, and 500 TEA units.

Middle of Nowhere is Musgraves’ sixth studio album and was announced earlier in March. The project features collaborations with Gregory Alan Isakov, Miranda Lambert, Willie Nelson and Billy Strings. It was led by the single “Dry Spell,” which peaked at No. 15 on Hot Country Songs in March, and the album was released on May 1. Musgraves will launch the Middle of Nowhere arena tour on August 21 in Chicago, continuing through the end of October.

The strong debut week for Middle of Nowhere benefited from its availability in 16 physical variants, including signed editions, as well as a deluxe digital download edition featuring two bonus tracks.

Interestingly, this is the second album titled Middle of Nowhere to reach the top 10 on the Billboard 200. The brother trio Hanson previously reached No. 2 with an album of the same name in 1997.

Meanwhile, Morgan Wallen’s former No. 1 album I'm the Problem drops from No. 3 to No. 4 with 83,000 equivalent album units earned, marking a 3% increase from the prior week.

The continuing buzz from the Michael Jackson biopic Michael is evident as Jackson now has two albums in the top 10 simultaneously. His iconic album Thriller rises from No. 7 to No. 5, earning 62,000 equivalent album units, a 36% increase. Meanwhile, his 2003 compilation album Number Ones jumps from No. 13 to No. 6 with 62,000 units, up 65%. This marks the first time Number Ones has reached the top 10 and gives Jackson his 11th top 10 album overall.

With the rise of Number Ones, Michael Jackson, who passed away in 2009, has now scored at least one new top 10 album in every decade from the 1970s onward. This achievement places him among an elite group of artists alongside Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and James Taylor to have maintained top 10 chart presence over six decades.

Jackson’s chart history includes two top 10 albums in the 1970s: Ben (No. 5 in 1972) and Off the Wall (top 10 in 1979, peaking at No. 3 in 1980). In the 1980s, he scored two No. 1 albums: Thriller and Bad. The 1990s saw two No. 1 albums: Dangerous and HIStory: Past, Present and Future Book 1. The 2000s included Invincible and the posthumous This Is It soundtrack. In the 2010s, he had Michael and Xscape, and now in the 2020s, Number Ones has entered the top 10.

Other notable chart activity includes BTS’ ARIRANG falling from No. 5 to No. 7 with 49,000 units (down 13%). Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving remains steady at No. 8 with 42,000 units (down 3%). Wallen’s One Thing at a Time holds No. 9 with 40,000 units, up 3%, and Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS climbs from No. 12 to No. 10 with 37,000 units, down 3%.

Luminate, the independent data provider for Billboard charts, rigorously reviews all data submissions before finalizing chart rankings. Data considered suspicious or unverifiable is removed based on established criteria to ensure accuracy in chart placements.