Taylor Swift’s Fearless (Taylor’s Version) returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart for a second nonconsecutive week atop the list. The album surges from No. 157 to No. 1 with 152,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 7 (up 1,931%), according to MRC Data. The set vaults back to No. 1 after the Oct. 1 release of a signed CD available only in Swift’s webstore and its vinyl LP. Fearless (Taylor’s Version) debuted at No. 1 nearly six months ago, on the April 24-dated Billboard 200 chart.

Also in the new top 10: Meek Mill’s Expensive Pain arrives at No. 3, while Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga’s second collaborative album, Love for Sale, bows at No. 8.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. 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 Oct. 16, 2021-dated chart [where Fearless (Taylor’s Version) returns to No. 1] will be posted in full on Billboard’s website on Oct. 12. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

Of Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’s 152,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 7, album sales comprise 146,000 (up 15,807%), SEA units comprise 6,000 (down 1%, equaling 8.72 million streams of the album’s tracks) and TEA units comprise a negligible number.

Of the 146,000 copies sold for the week, CD sales comprise 77,000, while vinyl LP sales total 67,000. The album sold about 1,000 in cassettes and 1,000 in digital downloads, too. (The album was discounted at digital retail, which spurred a 268% increase in digital album sales, but only 1,000 copies sold for the week.)

Strikingly, 29% of the album’s to-date CD sales were generated in the week ending Oct. 7, concurrent with the availability of its signed CD. The signed CD was only sold via Swift’s webstore, for a limited time, during a pre-order window in late September. (Swift apparently signed so many copies, she “may never write the same again,” as her hand “is now frozen in the permanent shape of a claw.”) Of Fearless (Taylor’s Version)‘s 400,000 total album sales to-date, CD sales comprise 264,000 of that sum — with 77,000 of those CDs sold in the latest tracking week.

As for the vinyl LP sales of Fearless (Taylor’s Version), its 67,000 sold marks the fourth-largest sales week for a vinyl album since MRC Data began tracking music sales in 1991. Her own Evermore holds the record, with 102,000 sold in its first week of availability on vinyl (June 12-dated chart). The debut frames of Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour (76,000; Sept. 4) and Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever (73,000; Aug. 14) are in second and third place, respectively.

Fearless (Taylor’s Version) was issued in two vinyl editions: a gold-colored version that was sold through Swift’s webstore and widely available to all retailers and a red-colored edition exclusive to Target.

With the rush in sales for Fearless (Taylor’s Version), its release-to-date sales now climb to 400,000 in the U.S. That makes it the No. 2-selling album of 2021, second only to Swift’s own 2020 release Evermore, which has sold 434,000 copies in 2021. The No. 3-selling album of 2021 is Rodrigo’s 2021 release Sour, with 378,000. Thus, Swift has both the Nos. 1 and 2-selling albums of 2021, as well as the year’s top-selling album released in 2021: Fearless (Taylor’s Version).

For good measure, Swift has three albums among the top 10-sellers of 2021, as Folklore is the No. 7 best-selling album of the year, with 228,000.

With the return of Fearless (Taylor’s Version) to No. 1 after nearly six months, it’s the first album to wait that long between weeks on top since last November, when Luke Combs’ What You See Is What You Get returned to No. 1 after nearly a year. (Earlier in 2021, on the June 12-dated chart, Swift’s own Evermore returned to No. 1 for a fourth week, after nearly five months, following its vinyl LP release.)

Further, with Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’s leap from No. 157 to No. 1, it has the largest positional jump to No. 1 since the April 12, 1997, chart, when The Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death rose 176-1 after street date violation sales enabled its debut on the chart a week early.

Lastly, Swift’s total weeks at No. 1, across all nine of her No. 1 albums, now rises to 53. She continues to have the third-most weeks atop the list dating to the chart’s 1956 start. The Beatles have the most, with 132, while Elvis Presley is in second place with 67.

Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is a re-recorded version of Swift’s No. 1 2008 album Fearless. The re-recorded album has 26 tracks, including re-recordings of the original 13 songs on Fearless, along with the six bonus songs added to a 2009 reissue of Fearless (dubbed the Platinum Edition) and the 2010 single “Today Was a Fairytale.” Beyond those 20 re-recordings, Fearless (Taylor’s Version) also has six newly recorded “from the vault” songs that were written for the original Fearless album but were never recorded and released until 2021.

At No. 2 on the new Billboard 200, Drake’s Certified Lover Boy is a non-mover with 110,000 equivalent album units earned (down 19%). The album spent its first three weeks on the chart at No. 1.

Meek Mill collects his seventh top 10 album on the Billboard 200 as Expensive Pain debuts at No. 3. The set earned 95,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Oct. 7. Of that sum, SEA units comprise 82,000 (equaling 110.53 million on-demand streams of the set’s songs), album sales comprise 10,000 and TEA units comprise 3,000.

YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s Sincerely, Kentrell falls from No. 1 to No. 4 in its second week with 71,000 equivalent album units earned (down 48%). Lil Nas X’s Montero dips 3-5 (45,000; down 22%), Olivia Rodrigo’s former No. 1 Sour moves 5-6 (just over 43,000; down 5%) and Doja Cat’s Planet Her is down 6-7 (43,000; down 2%).

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga’s second collaborative album, Love for Sale, debuts at No. 8 on the Billboard 200. The pair’s first project, Cheek to Cheek, debuted at No. 1 in 2014.

Love for Sale is a covers collection of songs written by Cole Porter. Cheek to Cheek featured renditions of favorites from the American songbook by an assortment of songwriters. Love for Sale starts with 41,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise 38,000; SEA units comprise 3,000 (equaling 3.85 million on-demand streams of the set’s songs) and TEA units comprise a negligible number.

Love for Sale marks Bennett’s sixth top 10 album on the Billboard 200, and Lady Gaga’s 10th top 10.

Bennett achieved his first top 10 in 1962 with I Left My Heart in San Francisco. It climbed from No. 11 to No. 7 on the Monoaural LP’s chart dated Oct. 6, 1962. (At the time, there were two main album charts, a Monoaural LP’s chart, and a Stereo LP’s chart.) Gaga’s first top 10 came on the March 7, 2009-dated Billboard 200, when The Fame rose 26-10.

With Love for Sale’s top 10 arrival, Bennett has a 59-year span of top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 – the longest span of top 10s for a living artist.

Only Nat “King” Cole, who died in 1965, has a greater span of top 10s among all acts: a 63-year and eight-month span between his first top 10, Love Is the Thing, in April of 1957 and his most recent top 10, The Christmas Song, in January of 2021.

The 95-year-old Bennett made his Billboard 200 debut with the simply-titled Tony on Feb. 23, 1957 (when the chart was known as Best Selling Pop Albums).

Rounding out the new top 10 on the Billboard 200 is a pair of former No. 1s: Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album falls 7-9 (40,000 equivalent album units; up 2%) and Kanye West’s Donda drops 4-10 (39,000; down 20%).

Cardi B, along with Raven-Symoné, helped a happy couple get married on the latest episode of Cardi Tries, the rapper’s Facebook Messenger video series.

Cardi acted as the officiant and Raven was the ringbearer for the wedding of Brandi and Shannon, a lovely same-sex couple, in an episode released just ahead of National Coming Out Day.

“By the way WORLD I’m licensed to marry people ….sooo yea… I do it all and this was such a fulfilling thing to do and Raven was soo fun I was sooo starstruck,” Cardi tweeted on Saturday (Oct. 9).

Cardi Tries: Tying the Knot shows the brides’ big day, where one surprised the other with the celebrity-assisted pop-up wedding.

Cardi and Raven helped with planning the same-day nuptials — from selecting table settings to choosing a wedding gown — before taking part in the actual ceremony.

“You guys are probably wondering why I’m here,” Cardi — who recently gave birth to her second child, made history with her “WAP” wins at the 2021 BET Hip Hop Awards, and had her “Rumors” collab with Lizzo debut in the top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 — announced in front of a small group of the couple’s family and friends. “I’m gonna get these two beautiful ladies married.”

“It’s not only a special day for you guys. It’s a special day for me. I want to thank you guys for making me a part of your beautiful journey,” she said, fanning her face before beginning the ceremony.

By the end of the episode, Cardi — who privately wed Offset in 2017 — had decided, “I think I’m gonna have a wedding-wedding now.”

Earlier, she’d confided to Raven, “I got married in my bedroom … I do wish I had a bigger wedding because I’m very flamboyant, so I do want the whole dress and the whole cake and everything. I didn’t even have a ring, so I just didn’t feel like I was married because I didn’t have the whole shabangabang.”

Watch a clip of the ceremony below, and view the entire Cardi Tries video on Facebook.

Adele unexpectedly played about 40 seconds of new single “Easy On Me” for fans Saturday afternoon (Oct. 9).

The singer had an hour to kill before an interview, so she hopped on to Instagram Live to chat. Toward the end of her time logged on with fans, she gifted those tuning in with a taste of the new ballad.

“There ain’t no gold in this river/ That I’ve been washing my hands in forever/ And there is hope in these waters/ But I can’t bring myself to swim when I am drowning in this silence/ Baby, let me in,” Adele can be heard singing in the snippet.

Some familiar names popped up in the chat as thousands of followers joined in to listen. Alicia Keys chimed in with a fitting “snippet vibes” comment, while Ben Platt expressed the general excitement of the room with “ITS HAPPENING.”

Adele — who was a bit distracted by her two new dogs and trying to figure out how to add another Instagram user to her live session — stared in wonder at the stream of questions coming in ahead of playing “Easy On Me,” which is set for an Oct. 15 release. The track is the first new music to be heard from the star in nearly six years and is expected to be on her next album, which fans believe could be titled 30 based to mysterious billboards that recently popped up around the world.

Besides giving fans a sneak peek of “Easy On Me,” Adele answered a number of random questions as they appeared in the chat stream.

Many questions, of course, were centered on her upcoming album, but she didn’t want to “give too much away” yet.

“I do have a favorite song from the new album,” Adele teased. “But I’m not gonna tell you what it is ’cause you don’t have the track list yet.”

“I’m excited to get it out into the world at last,” she added.

Adele vaguely revealed that the album is “dropping soon. Don’t you worry,” and although she’d previously said the new album isn’t necessarily a “divorce record,” during Saturday’s Instagram Live she did say it’s based on “divorce, babe. Divorce.”

Also of note: Adele had some kind words for Britney Spears — “Of course I support #FreeBritney. I love Britney. Met her a couple times. I absolutely adore her. Really happy for her,” she said — and decided that her favorite album of 2021, so far, is Drake’s.

Adele’s previous studio album, 2015’s 25, sold 3.38 million copies in its debut week in the U.S., which was the biggest sales week of an album since Nielsen (now MRC Data) began tracking point-of-sale music purchases in 1991. That impressive number brought the fun fact that 25 sold about 335 copies per minute in the U.S. during its first week on sale.

Watch a clip of the “Easy on Me” song preview, followed by a recording of her full chat with fans, below.

Night owls roaming the streets of Harlem, New York at 2 a.m. on Saturday (Oct. 9) were treated to a near-religious experience when Madonna and Jon Batiste led an impromptu sing-along of “Like a Prayer” down 126th Street.

The New Orleans-style street party started nearby at Ginny’s Supper Club in the basement of inventive eatery Red Rooster, where Madonna, Batiste and his band performed a selection of her classic hits and songs from her Billboard 200-topping Madame X album to celebrate the release of her Madame X concert film on Paramount+. “Madame X is born,” Madonna said, tipping to the documentary’s release. “But the fact, is she’s always been here pushing, you inspiring you.”

While the Madame X movie captures M’s intimate 2019 residency at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Belvedere Vodka-hosted event in Harlem made the BAM shows look like an arena in comparison. The Red Rooster basement has a 100-person capacity, which meant everyone in attendance got very up close and personal with Madge as she strummed an acoustic guitar, grinded up against a column while singing 1987’s “La Isla Bonita” and crooned “Dark Ballet” (sans Auto-Tune) to an all-smiles Batiste as the Oscar winner tickled the ivories during that beautifully bonkers Madame X standout.

When a trio of gospel singers came out and the Queen got down on her knees, the audience – which included her daughter Lourdes Leon, Drag Race winner Aquaria, Pose star Dyllon Burnside and choreographer and longtime associate Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza – collectively skipped a heartbeat, knowing which song was coming next. But never content with business as usual, Madonna didn’t let the venue contain her – she led the pop-up show’s crowd out onto the streets of Harlem for an unlikely late-night street party.

Megaphones in hand, M and Batiste had the crowd singing “Like a Prayer” (surprisingly in tune for 2 a.m.) down the middle of 126th Street, with an amiable tuba keeping time and a freestyling saxophone elevating the joyous, jazzy rendition of the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1. Periodically, everyone in the crowd looked at each other as if to say, is this really happening, grateful that in the era of smartphones there would at least be proof of an event that sounds like the raving fever dream of an obsessive pop Stan.

Due to the lateness of the hour, there wasn’t that much traffic for the street party to disrupt. In fact, when a man and woman driving by the crowd realized what was happening, they full-on ditched their car in the middle of the street to hop out and join in the once-in-a-lifetime experience. As the glorious sing-along came to a close in front of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, however, one less-than-thrilled driver made a point of reminding everyone that we were still in New York City by honking dolefully at the crowd slowing down his late-night commute. But as Madonna said of the city that never sleeps in 2005’s “I Love New York,” “If you can’t stand the heat – then get off of my street.”