Three albums debut in the top five of this week's Billboard albums chart. But none can unseat last week's champion: BTS's Arirang, which holds on to the top spot thanks to another flood of sales. When it comes to the week's most popular singles, BTS's "Swim" isn't quite so lucky: It slips to No. 2, making way for the return of Ella Langley's durable country blockbuster "Choosin' Texas."
TOP STORY
Last week, a No. 1 debut for BTS's Arirang seemed as inevitable as the tides: The K-pop boy band didn't have much competition beyond country star Luke Combs (whose The Way I Am debuted at No. 2), and the group had already banked six No. 1 albums in its career. So it came as no surprise when Arirang became its seventh.
This week, Arirang's continued chart dominance seemed like less of a given, seeing as how a huge percentage of its first-week numbers came from album sales (which don't carry over from week to week), while the latest round of debuts figured to be similarly formidable. Plus, those six chart-topping BTS albums mentioned in the previous paragraph? Every one of them stayed on top for just one week.
So consider it a genuine career milestone that, thanks in large part to sales of another 114,000 copies in week two, Arirang has now posted the longest run at No. 1 of any album in BTS's career. It needed those sales, too, because three albums debut just behind it in this week's top five, led by Ye — the rapper formerly known as Kanye West — and his long-delayed new release Bully, which debuts at No. 2.
In terms of his commercial fortunes, Ye has suffered a great deal of self-inflicted damage — most notably from a string of antisemitic remarks online — in recent years. The run-up to Bully's release was characteristically messy, as well: In the eternity since Ye began taking pre-orders for the album back in 2024, Bully has taken many forms, some involving forays into AI-generated vocals. But the controversies and false starts don't seem to have blunted public interest in the rapper's work, at least if this week's charts are any indication: Bully has piled up 152,000 equivalent album units (a number that represents both sales and streaming) in its first week.
In recent years, big debuts in pop and hip-hop have often been driven by first-week sales; that's where big-name artists tend to leverage dedicated fans who show their loyalty by buying up multiple copies on vinyl and/or CD. But in the case of Ye and Bully, the first-week sales weren't that enormous for such a well-known artist: Even with many alternate physical versions — and even with a long runway for Ye to accumulate pre-orders — Bully sold just 56,000 copies in its first week. Where the album has really succeeded is via streaming, which might suggest that the current audience for his work is more curious than deeply dedicated. Nevertheless, it's a strong debut from an artist who's done as much to alienate fans as any major star in recent years.
Bully's first-week success on streaming has helped him on a different chart, as well: Of the album's 18 tracks, 16 land on this week's Hot 100, led by his Travis Scott collaboration "Father" at No. 21.
TOP ALBUMS
With BTS and Ye battling it out for No. 1, singer-songwriter Melanie Martinez can't feel bad about debuting at No. 3 with her fourth album, Hades. The former competitor on The Voice has now banked four top 10 albums dating back to 2015 — an impressive run, given how hard it's been for artists to make the leap from TV singing competitions (beyond the first few seasons of American Idol) to sustained chart success.
Other notable debuts are scattered across the Billboard 200. Rapper Yeat returns to the top 10 for a seventh time, as ADL debuts at No. 5. Genre-obliterating polymath RAYE lands just outside the top 10, as she hits No. 11 — easily a career high — with This Music May Contain Hope. And the raunchy pop singer Slayyyter hits the Billboard 200 for the first time in her career, as Wor$t Girl in America debuts at No. 22.
There's also a re-entry worth noting: Two weeks ago, Johnny Blue Skies & The Dark Clouds — that's Sturgill Simpson and his band — spent a single week on the Billboard 200, all the way up at No. 3 with their new album Mutiny After Midnight. But, in large part because the album isn't available via streaming services, it dropped all the way off the chart last week. Now, it's back at No. 42, demonstrating yet again that if your following is strong enough, streaming isn't everything.
TOP SONGS
This week, Ella Langley's "Choosin' Texas" further cements its status as the biggest country crossover hit of 2026 so far, as the song returns to No. 1 for a fifth nonconsecutive week. Aided by a new video that premiered on April 1 — and in line for another chart boost after Langley's album Dandelion drops this Friday — "Choosin' Texas" is this week's most-streamed song. At this point, it's well-positioned for a chart run lengthy enough to put it squarely in the "song of the summer" conversation. If that seems premature, consider that last summer's biggest chart hit, Alex Warren's "Ordinary," still sits at No. 5.
"Choosin' Texas" is no mere placeholder, either: It displaces last week's top song, BTS's "Swim," even as "Swim" sold an additional 67,000 copies in its second week. Given that 67,000 is a huge number for a single in 2026, it speaks to Langley's airplay and streaming numbers that "Choosin' Texas" managed to reclaim the top spot anyway. (It also demonstrates, yet again, that commercial radio programmers have been slow to wholeheartedly embrace K-pop outside of a few outliers like HUNTR/X's "Golden." BTS has had a few major radio hits in the U.S., but they haven't come easily.)
The rest of the top 10 barely changes from last week, but there's some intriguing motion from two songs on the outside looking in. RAYE's "Where Is My Husband!" has been a solid chart hit, with more than six months on the Hot 100. This week, aided by the debut of her new album, it leaps from No. 17 to a new peak at No. 11. And Langley doesn't appear to be done crashing the top 10, as a follow-up single to "Choosin' Texas" (called "Be Her") climbs to its own fresh peak, at No. 12.
Copyright 2026 NPR
