The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the charts dated Sept. 28, we head back to the Billboard 200, where Sabrina Carpenter’s latest has reigned for its first three weeks – but now faces a familiar challenger, again revitalized.
Sabrina Carpenter, Short N’ Sweet (Island): For a 12-track album with no expanded deluxe edition available on DSPs, the endurance in consumption for Sabrina Carpenter’s Short N’ Sweet has been damn impressive. After bowing atop the Billboard 200 with 362,000 units earned in its debut week, the set has not only held at No. 1 over the last two weeks (amidst a not-particularly-crowded release schedule), but continued to post unit totals in the six digits – 117,000 in its third week – a combo that only her good buddy Taylor Swift had previously managed to pull off this year, of course with her 15-week No. 1 The Tortured Poets Department.
The set should continue to slide in its fourth week, but only slowly – the album still holds four of the top 10 spots on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA chart and three on the Apple Music real-time update, with fan favorite “Bed Chem” slowly rising towards the territory of the set’s top-charting trio: “Espresso,” “Please Please Please” and “Taste.” SnS may also benefit some from Carpenter’s well-received debut performance on the VMAs mainstage last Wednesday (Sept. 11), where she played a medley of those three hits (and made out with an alien), while also picking up the song of the year Moonperson for “Espresso.”
Travis Scott, Days Before Rodeo (Cactus Jack/Epic): If Carpenter thought she had vanquished Travis Scott for good during their showdown for the top spot three weeks earlier – where Short N’ Sweet edged out Days Before Rodeo for No. 1 by a margin of under 1,000 units, one of the year’s closest races – she may have to think twice next week. While Scott’s album has already fallen from No. 2 to No. 106 on the Billboard 200, and the rapper already pulled out many of the stops with the digital reissue of his beloved 2014 mixtape during its first week of re-release, he had not yet pushed the button on shipping out any vinyl copies of the album.
That changes this week, as the vinyl edition of Days Before Rodeo has begun to ship to fans — both the vinyl LP (in its standard and deluxe version, with different packaging between the two) and its two deluxe vinyl boxed sets (one with a branded hoodie and an album, and one with a branded T-shirt and an album). Though the streaming presence of Days Before Rodeo is fairly minimal compared to the album-wide dominance of Short N’ Sweet, that sales advantage might be massive enough – with Scott’s fanbase long proven to be willing to shell out for his physical releases – to get it back in the hunt on the Billboard 200 this week, and very possibly over the top for the first time.
IN THE MIX
Eminem, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace) (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope): Speaking of last week’s VMAs – they were led by MTV icon Eminem, who reassembled the Slim Shady Army from his classic 2000 performance of “The Real Slim Shady” for his show-opening performance of current hit “Houdini.” That song’s parent album, his career-bookending The Death of Slim Shady, should see a small bump from that performance next week – but will be helped out even more by a new deluxe edition of the set, which reached digital retailers and streamers on Friday, as well as the release of the album’s CD version, both in a wide general release, and as a d2c-exclusive version with an alternate album cover.
Miranda Lambert, Postcards From Texas (Vanner/Republic/Big Loud): Always good to get a new LP from country great Miranda Lambert, who has reached the Billboard 200’s top 10 with each of her last seven unaccompanied solo sets – most recently with the No. 4-charting Palomino in 2021. The album is available for sale on CD and vinyl, with signed copies also purchasable of both through her webstore.
