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Noah Kahan’s ‘The Great Divide’ Holds Billboard 200 Crown for a Second Week
Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide stays No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for a second week, while Kacey Musgraves and Michael Jackson move up.
Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide remains at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for a second straight week, according to the chart dated May 16. The album earned 163,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the tracking week ending May 7, down 58% from its 389,000-unit debut a week earlier, per Luminate.
That puts Kahan’s album in a fairly notable lane. It’s the first rock album to spend at least two weeks at No. 1 in nearly three years. The last to do it was Zach Bryan’s self-titled set in September 2023. Billboard classifies rock albums by whether they qualify for, or have appeared on, the Top Rock Albums chart, which is a reminder that the category still carries its own strange rules even when the broader pop conversation blurs them.
Elsewhere in the top 10, Kacey Musgraves lands another milestone with Middle of Nowhere, which debuts at No. 3 for her sixth top 10 album. Every one of those six has started in the top five. Meanwhile, the continued afterlife of the Michael Jackson biopic Michael is still rippling through the chart: Thriller climbs from No. 7 to No. 5, and Number Ones jumps from No. 13 to No. 6, giving Jackson two albums in the top 10 this week.
The Billboard 200 ranks the week’s most popular albums in the U.S. using equivalent album units, a blended measure that includes album sales, track equivalent albums and streaming equivalent albums. Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual track sales, or 2,500 ad-supported or 1,000 paid/subscription on-demand audio and video streams generated by songs from the album. The full May 16, 2026-dated chart will be posted on Billboard’s website on May 12.
For The Great Divide, streaming continues to do most of the work. Of its 163,000 units this week, 137,000 came from streaming equivalent albums, equal to 139.5 million on-demand official streams of its songs. That’s down 35%, but still enough for the album to remain No. 1 on Top Streaming Albums for a second week. Album sales account for 26,000 units, a steep 85% drop that sends it from No. 1 to No. 2 on Top Album Sales, while the rest comes from track equivalent album units.
Ella Langley’s former chart leader Dandelion holds at No. 2 with 103,000 equivalent album units, down 8%. Musgraves’ Middle of Nowhere arrives just behind it with 100,000 units, which is her best week by units yet. The album’s first-week haul includes 64,500 sales, enough to debut at No. 1 on Top Album Sales, along with 35,000 streaming units, which translate to 35.54 million on-demand streams, plus 500 TEA units.
Musgraves’ sixth studio album, announced in early March, was led by “Dry Spell,” which peaked at No. 15 on Hot Country Songs in March. The record, released May 1, includes collaborations with Gregory Alan Isakov, Miranda Lambert, Willie Nelson and Billy Strings. Her Middle of Nowhere arena tour begins Aug. 21 in Chicago and runs through the end of October.
Its first-week sales were helped along by 16 physical variants, including signed editions, plus a deluxe download version with two bonus tracks. That kind of packaging has become so standard in the current album economy that it barely reads like a gimmick anymore; it just reads like part of the release strategy.
There’s also a small historical footnote: this is only the second top 10 album to carry the exact title Middle of Nowhere. Hanson’s album of the same name reached No. 2 in 1997.
Morgan Wallen’s former No. 1 I’m the Problem slips from No. 3 to No. 4 with 83,000 equivalent album units, though it actually edges up 3% in activity. Jackson’s chart resurgence continues to dominate the back half of the top 10. Thriller rises to No. 5 with 62,000 units, up 36%, while Number Ones climbs to No. 6 with 62,000 units, up 65%. It’s the first time the 2003 best-of has cracked the top 10, and it becomes Jackson’s 11th top 10 album overall.
That placement also extends a remarkable solo-chart streak. With Number Ones, Jackson has now landed at least one new top 10 album in every decade since the 1970s, a feat matched by only four other acts: Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and James Taylor. Jackson first did it in the ’70s with Ben and Off the Wall, then with Thriller and Bad in the ’80s, Dangerous and HIStory: Past, Present and Future Book 1 in the ’90s, Invincible and the posthumous This Is It soundtrack in the 2000s, and Michael and Xscape in the 2010s.
The lower reaches of the top 10 remain relatively stable. BTS’ ARIRANG falls from No. 5 to No. 7 with 49,000 equivalent album units, down 13%. Olivia Dean’s The Art of Loving stays put at No. 8 with 42,000 units, down 3%. Wallen’s One Thing at a Time remains at No. 9 with 40,000 units, up 3%. Bad Bunny’s former No. 1 DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS rounds out the top 10 after moving from No. 12 to No. 10 with 37,000 units, down 3%.
Luminate, the data provider behind the Billboard charts, reviews and authenticates submissions before the rankings are finalized. Any data considered suspicious or unverifiable is removed under established criteria before publication.
