He’s the second country act to rule the chart this year.
Luke Combs leaps from No. 10 to No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated Nov. 23) to become the top musical act in the U.S. for the first time, as his new LP What You See Is What You Get debuts as his first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 172,000 equivalent album units, according to Nielsen Music.
The total is the biggest week for a country album in over a year, since Carrie Underwood’s Cry Pretty in September 2018.
What You See Is What You Get logged 58,000 in streaming equivalent albums (SEA), which translates to 74 million on-demand audio streams for the album’s 17 songs during the tracking week, a new one-week streaming record for a country album.
Combs also lands his highest rank yet on the Billboard Hot 100, as the new album’s “Even Though I’m Leaving” vaults 33-11. The song concurrently becomes his record-extending seventh No. 1 career-opening single on the Country Airplay chart.
Notably, Combs is just the second country act to rule the Artist 100 in 2019, joining Thomas Rhett, who reigned on June 15 concurrent with the chart start of his album Center Point Road.
Two country acts topped the Artist 100 in 2018 (Underwood and Jason Aldean), while three did in 2017 (Rhett, Kenny Chesney and Chris Stapleton).
The Artist 100 measures artist activity across key metrics of music consumption, blending album and track sales, radio airplay, streaming and social media fan interaction to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.
Rounding out the Artist 100’s top five, Post Malone dips to No. 2 after 12 weeks at No. 1, Billie Eilish rises 4-3, Lizzo lifts 5-4 and Taylor Swift jumps 9-5, as her single “Lover” leaps 43-26 on the Hot 100 following the arrival of its remix with Shawn Mendes.
Check out this week’s full Artist 100 here.