This week’s top single on the music charts is Mariah Carey’s unstoppable holiday hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” while Nicki Minaj scores the top album with her first studio LP in five years.
For at least four years, Minaj has been teasing her newest album, “Pink Friday 2,” and for a while, it looked doubtful that it would ever be released. At one point, Minaj even declared—then swiftly withdrew—that she was retiring from music. But on December 8, her fifth studio album, “Pink Friday 2,” which is named after her 2010 debut, was finally released. It opens at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming her third No. 1 album. In the US, “Pink Friday 2” accounted for 228,000 sales, with 170 million streams and 92,000 total copies sold, including 25,000 on vinyl.
This week’s top three songs are Drake’s “For All the Dogs” and Taylor Swift’s “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” while Tate McRae, a 20-year-old Canadian pop singer, arrives at No. 4 with her second studio album, “Think Later.” “Christmas” by Michael Bublé comes in fifth.
Carey reclaims the top spot this week for its 13th cumulative time at No. 1. Carey’s 1994 holiday hit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” took a 25-year journey to No. 1 and has spent a total of 12 weeks at the top over the last four Christmas seasons.
Brenda Lee’s 1958 hit song “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” had been the number one song on the Hot 100 singles chart for the past two weeks. The song received promotion this year in the form of a music video and TikTok spots. This week, “Rockin'” falls to No. 2.