The Year in Charts 2021: Morgan Wallen’s ‘Dangerous: The Double Album’ Is the Top Billboard 200 Album
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Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album is 2021’s year-end No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart.
The set was released in January, debuted atop the weekly Billboard 200 chart dated Jan. 23, and spent 10 weeks atop the list in 2021. That’s the most weeks at No. 1 among all albums since Drake’s Views racked up 13 weeks on top in 2016.
Billboard’s year-end music recaps represent aggregated metrics for each artist, title, label and music contributor on the weekly charts dated Nov. 21, 2020, through Nov. 13, 2021. The rankings for MRC Data-based recaps reflect equivalent album units, airplay, sales or streaming during the weeks that the titles appeared on a respective chart during the tracking year. Any activity registered before or after a title’s chart run isn’t considered in these rankings. That methodology detail, and the November-November time period, account for some of the difference between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by MRC Data.
Explore All of Billboard’s 2021 Year-End Charts
Dangerous was also the first album to spend its first 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 since 1987, when Whitney Houston’s Whitney album logged all 11 of its weeks at No. 1 starting from its debut week (from the June 27 through Sept. 5, 1987-dated charts). Dangerous is the only country album to spend its first 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 since the chart began publishing on a regular, weekly basis in March 1956. Further, Dangerous is one of just four country albums to spend at least 10 weeks in total at No. 1 on the weekly Billboard 200.
On Feb. 2, in the middle of the album’s fourth week of release, a video emerged showing Wallen using the N-word. He subsequently issued an apology. Reaction was swift, and his music was removed from dozens of high-profile playlists on streamers such as Apple Music and Spotify, and multiple radio groups dropped his music. However, on the Billboard 200 and Top Country Albums chart, the album posted a gain in units earned during its fourth week and held at No. 1 on both charts.
Dangerous never left the weekly top 10 on the Billboard 200 during the 2021 chart year (through the Nov. 13-dated chart) — a total of 43 weeks in the top 10. No album spent more time in the top 10 during the 2021 chart year than Dangerous.
With its year-end coronation, Dangerous is only the fourth country album to earn No. 1 year-end honors on the Billboard 200 Albums chart. It follows Taylor Swift’s Fearless (2009), Carrie Underwood’s Some Hearts (2006) and Garth Brooks’ Ropin’ the Wind (1992). (Country albums are defined as those that have charted on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart.)
Dangerous is also No. 1 on Billboard’s year-end Top Country Albums and Top Canadian Albums rankings, while Wallen leads the Top Country Artists, Hot Country Songs Artists, Country Streaming Songs Artists and Top Country Albums Artists recaps.
At No. 2 on the year-end Billboard 200 Albums roundup is Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album Sour, which spent five nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the weekly Billboard 200 during the 2021 chart year. Pop Smoke’s 2020 release Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon is the No. 3 album of the year, following its No. 7 placing in 2020.
Swift is also No. 1 on the 2021 year-end Billboard 200 Artists roundup, which ranks the most successful artists on the chart during the eligibility year, based on the cumulative performance of their charting albums. Swift placed a total of nine albums on the weekly chart in 2021 – the most of any artist.
Drake’s Certified Lover Boy, The Kid LAROI’s F*ck Love, Luke Combs’ What You See Is What You Get, Ariana Grande’s Positions, Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia and Lil Baby’s My Turn round out the rest of the year-end top 10 Billboard 200 Albums at, in order, Nos. 5-10. Of the entire top 10, Future Nostalgia is the only album not to also reach No. 1 on the weekly Billboard 200 chart.
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