Taylor Swift makes it an even six months at No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 (dated June 6), as she rules the list for a 26th week, bolstered by the coronation of her new single, “Bad Blood,” on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Artist 100 is the first weekly survey dedicated to measuring artist activity across Billboard’s most influential charts, including the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, Top Album Sales and the Social 50. The Artist 100 blends data measuring album and track sales, radio airplay, streaming and social media fan interaction to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.
Swift scores her record-extending 26th (nonconsecutive) week atop the Artist 100, up 64 percent in overall activity. As the Kendrick Lamar-assisted “Bad” vaults 53-1 on the Hot 100 following a full week of tracking after its video premiered to open the Billboard Music Awards (BBMAs) May 17, she logs a 208 percent surge in digital song sales, a 120 percent gain in streaming and a 78 percent lift in album sales, according to Nielsen Music.
With 26 weeks at No. 1, Swift easily has spent the most time at the Artist 100 summit since the chart launched on July 19, 2014. Sam Smith ranks second with three total weeks on top.
Lamar, meanwhile, roars 38-14 on the Artist 100, up by 67 percent in activity. He peaked at No. 1 in early April as his album To Pimp a Butterfly opened atop the Billboard 200 and Top Album Sales.
Rounding out the Artist 100’s top five, alt outfit Twenty One Pilots flies in at No. 2 as Blurryface bows as their first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 and Top Album Sales; Maroon 5 dips 2-3; Meghan Trainor jumps 7-4, after she performed ballad “Like I’m Gonna Lose You” with John Legend, on the BBMAs; and Ed Sheeran slips 4-5.
In other notable Artist 100 action, after being crowned champion of the eighth season of NBC’s The Voice (May 19), Sawyer Fredericks vaults 40-8, with 82 percent of his points from digital song sales; Luke Bryan bounds 25-9 as his new single “Kick the Dust Up” rockets 49-2 on Hot Country Songs, fueled most heavily by its No. 1 launch on the Country Digital Songs chart (127,000 sold); and Zedd re-enters at No. 17, as his True Colors enters Top Album Sales at No. 4 with 39,000 sold. The DJ had previously ranked as high as No. 42 on the Artist 100.
