Who Will Have the No. 1 Album Subsequent Week?

The Contenders is a midweek column that appears at artists aiming for the highest of the Billboard charts, and the methods at the back of their efforts. This week, for the impending Billboard 200 albums chart dated Jan. 25, 2025, we have a look at whether or not a brand new rising blockbuster from Dangerous Bunny will declare the highest spot, or whether or not it’s going to be lapped through the cargo of a loved Taylor Swift reside set. 

Dangerous Bunny, Debí Tirar Más Fotos (Rimas): The newest LP from Puerto Rican international celebrity Dangerous Bunny may have already been the No. 1 album within the nation had it loved a complete monitoring week. However because of its Sunday unencumber (Jan. 5), two days into monitoring, it pulled up simply brief, posting 122,000 first-week gadgets and falling at the back of Lil Child’s WHAM set, which bowed at No. 1 with 140,000 gadgets.  

The excellent news for Fotos is that it helps to keep rising. Whilst the album’s first-day numbers on streaming have been cast however unexceptional, they’ve ballooned just about on a daily basis since – an especially strange trajectory for a brand new unencumber through a longtime celebrity – to the purpose the place the album now claims the highest 3 spots on each the Apple Song real-time chart and the Spotify Day-to-day Most sensible Songs USA list. (Each scores are led through the viral break “DtMF,” which might additionally problem for a best spot at the Billboard Sizzling 100 subsequent week.)  

The runaway streaming luck of Fotos, blended with it now getting the advantages of a complete week of monitoring (in addition to a heavy week of promo, together with a up to date Subway Busking efficiency with Jimmy Fallon) signifies that the set will have to have a fair higher appearing in its 2nd body – possibly extra in step with the outlet week of Bunny’s earlier album, 2023’s Nadie Sabie Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana, which controlled 184,000 gadgets in its Billboard 200-topping debut week.

Taylor Swift, Lover (Reside in Paris) (Republic): The Town of Lover reside display that Taylor Swift performed in Paris in 2019 has lengthy held a different position within the hearts of Swifties – each for its intimate acoustic variations of many highlights from 2019’s Lover set, and for the truth that it was once probably the most ultimate complete reside presentations Swift carried out for some years, after her deliberate Lover Fest mini-tour was once canceled within the wake of the 2020 COVID pandemic and he or she was once compelled to regroup for 2023-24’s world-conquering Eras Excursion. In 2020, the set was once aired as an ABC reside particular, adopted through the limited-edition unencumber a double-LP model of the set in 2023, entitled Lover (Reside From Paris), accumulating 8 performances from the gig.  

That unencumber was once restricted to 13,000 copies, and naturally bought out, leading to a No. 58 bow at the Billboard 200. The set was once re-released this Jan. 7, then again, as a 72-hour webstore unique, and is predicted to promote an entire lot greater than that this time round. The affect it has in this upcoming Billboard 200 relies on when the copies of it formally send – her webstore famous that every one copies would send “on or ahead of Jan. 20,” however with many Swifties it appears having already won their copies, it kind of feels prone to be an actual contender for subsequent week.  

May just it beat out Dangerous Bunny’s burgeoning blockbuster? In spite of her 14 occupation No. 1s at the Billboard 200, Swift hasn’t ever reached the apex with a reside set – with 2020’s No. 3-peaking Folklore: The Lengthy Pond Studio Classes coming closest. However with the mix of the set’s popularity amongst Swifties, the ones enthusiasts’ love for accumulating her information (with Taylor claiming 5 of the highest 10 best-selling vinyl LPs of 2024) the half-decade wait because the particular first of all aired and the way she’s gotten exponentially larger in the previous few years… as with just about the whole thing Taylor Swift-related in 2025, it’s most probably now not an ideal concept to guess in opposition to her.  

Lil Child, WHAM (High quality Keep an eye on/Motown): Closing week’s No. 1 turns out lovely positive for a point of fall-off in its 2nd body. Its opening selection of 140,000 were given a large elevate from direct-to-consumer album gross sales (in CD and virtual obtain shape), serving to it get 50,000 of the ones first-week gadgets, which is sort of all the time a lot decrease in an album’s 2nd week. And on streaming, Lil Child‘s set is obviously slipping – it’s nonetheless littering the Apple Song chart, however with just one tune (the Long term- and Younger Thug-featuring “Dum, Dumb and Dumber”) within the best 20, and it claims simply two overall entries in Spotify’s 200-position Day-to-day Most sensible Songs USA chart. That’s now not surprising in anyway – maximum giant streaming albums do revel in a large drop-off in week two – however it simply presentations how outstanding it’s that Fotos continues to be increasing find it irresistible is. (WHAM will have to nonetheless get a small spice up on streaming from the Friday unencumber of its deluxe version – that includes 4 bonus tracks – to DSPs, having in the past been to be had just for acquire as a part of the deluxe at the Motown webstore.)