Not only does Drake secure his 15th No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart dated May 30 with ICEMAN, while additionally claiming a historic sweep of the chart’s entire top three positions, but he likewise places 12 albums altogether on the 200-position chart for the very first time.
Accordingly, Drake becomes the first living solo artist to have 12 albums charting simultaneously on the Billboard 200 since the chart merged its previously separate mono and stereo album rankings into one unified list in August 1963.
During that period (August 1963 to present), the only acts to place at least 12 albums on the chart simultaneously were Prince in two separate weeks after his death in 2016 and The Beatles in two different weeks in 2010 and 2014.
The Billboard 200 chart positions the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption, as measured in equivalent album units compiled by Luminate. Units include album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA), and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Every unit represents one album sale, 10 individual track sales from an album, or 2,500 ad-supported streams or 1,000 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.
On the Billboard 200 dated May 30, Drake appears with the following projects:
- No. 1 – ICEMAN
- No. 2 – HABIBTI
- No. 3 – MAID OF HONOUR
- No. 25 – Take Care
- No. 40 – Views
- No. 55 – $ome $exy $ongs 4 U (with PARTYNEXTDOOR)
- No. 65 – Scorpion
- No. 69 – Certified Lover Boy
- No. 81 – Thank Me Later
- No. 96 – For All the Dogs
- No. 130 – More Life
- No. 167 – Nothing Was the Same
Here are the acts that have placed at least 12 albums on the Billboard 200 simultaneously since August 1963:
- Drake – May 30, 2026 (12)
- Prince – May 28, 2016 (13)
- Prince – May 14, 2016 (a record 19)
- The Beatles – March 1, 2014 (13)
- The Beatles – Dec. 4, 2010 (14)
Prince achieved his milestones shortly after his passing, following a major resurgence of interest in his catalog among music listeners. The Beatles climbed the chart with 13 titles in 2014 largely because of promotional momentum connected to the CBS-TV concert special The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles, which marked 50 years of The Beatles’ success in the United States and coincided with the 50th anniversary of the band’s first live American television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (Feb. 9, 1964). Both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the surviving members of The Beatles, performed individually and together during the special. In December 2010, The Beatles dominated the chart after the group’s catalog finally became available on the iTunes Store for digital download purchases.
Although the Billboard 200 has tracked the nation’s most popular albums every week for decades, dating back to March 1956 when the ranking first started publishing regularly, the chart’s rules have evolved significantly over time — making it simpler for certain albums to remain on the chart in recent years compared to earlier decades. For instance, catalog albums, generally titles older than 18 months, were mostly restricted from charting between mid-1991 and the end of 2009. Then, toward the close of 2014, the chart moved from a pure album-sales formula to a multimetric methodology that included streaming activity. Due to the changes in the chart’s methodology, especially the addition of streaming data and the eligibility of catalog albums, many albums now continue appearing on the ranking for far longer periods than albums did in previous decades, when the chart mainly reflected sales of current and newly released projects.