Toby Keith’s 35 Biggest Hits re-enters the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Feb. 17) at No. 1, following the country superstar’s death on Feb. 5 of stomach cancer. It’s the fifth chart-topper for Keith on the all-genre chart, and first since 2010.
The best-of collection earned 66,000 equivalent album units in the tracking week ending Feb. 8 (up 953%). The album was originally released in 2008 and initially peaked at its debut rank of No. 2 on the list dated May 24, 2008. It contains 31 of Keith’s 42 top 10 hits on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, including 15 of his 20 No. 1s.
35 Biggest Hits is Keith’s first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 since 2010’s Bullets in the Gun. He also topped the tally with Big Dog Daddy (2007), Shock’N Y’all (2003) and Unleashed (2002). During his lifetime, he logged 14 top 10-charting albums (inclusive of his five No. 1s).
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multimetric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Feb. 17, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Feb. 13. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X and Instagram.
Of 35 Biggest Hits’ 66,000 units earned in the tracking week ending Feb. 8, SEA units comprise 46,000 (up 689%, equaling 64.04 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 35 songs), album sales comprise 11,000 (up 3,251%) and TEA units comprise 9,000 (up 6,966%).
35 Biggest Hits is the first posthumous No. 1 on the Billboard 200 since Pop Smoke’s Faith debuted at No. 1 on the July 31, 2021, chart, following his death on Feb. 19, 2020. The last retrospective album to hit No. 1 posthumously was Prince’s The Very Best Of, which topped the chart dated May 7, 2016, following his death on April 21 of that year. 35 Biggest Hits is the first retrospective album to reach No. 1 since BTS’ Proof opened at No. 1 on the June 25, 2002 chart.
Also, as 35 Biggest Hits replaces another country album at No. 1 — Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at Time, which dips to No. 2 — it’s first time in more than nine years that one country album has replaced another at No. 1. It last happened in late October and early November of 2014, when three country albums each debuted at No. 1 and spent one week in succession: Blake Shelton’s Bringing Back the Sunshine (Oct. 18), Jason Aldean’s Old Boots, New Dirt (Oct. 25) and Florida Georgia Line’s Anything Goes (Nov. 1).
Back on the new Billboard 200, One Thing at a Time slips one spot to No. 2 with 65,000 equivalent album units (down 2%). Four more former No. 1s follow Wallen’s, as SZA’s SOS steps 6-3 (53,000; up 28%), 21 Savage’s American Dream falls 2-4 (51,000; down 16%), Taylor Swift’s Midnights rises 9-5 (51,000; up 35%) and Drake’s For All the Dogs descends 3-6 (49,000; down 4%). SZA and Swift both gain thanks in part to exposure during the Grammy Awards’ CBS-TV broadcast (Feb. 4). The former performed and won best R&B song (for SOS single “Snooze”), while the latter won two trophies (both for Midnights: album of the year and best pop vocal album).
Noah Kahan’s Stick Season slips 4-7 on the Billboard 200 with 49,000 equivalent album units earned (though up 4%), Swift’s chart-topping 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is pushed down 5-8 with 48,000 units (up 7%) and Swift’s former leader Lover is also squeezed down despite a gain, falling 7-9 with 45,000 units (up 13%). Zach Bryan’s self-titled chart-topper rounds out the top 10, falling 8-10 with 42,000 units (while up 5%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
