Coldplay Tops Artist 100 Chart for 1st Time Thanks to ‘Moon Music’

Coldplay jumps from No. 37 to No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 (dated Oct. 19), becoming the top musical act in the U.S. for the first time in the chart’s 10-year history, thanks to the group’s new album, Moon Music.

The Artist 100 measures artists’ activity across key metrics of music consumption: album sales, track sales, radio airplay and streaming. Using a methodology comprising those metrics, the chart provides a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.

Released Oct. 4 on Parlophone/Atlantic Records, Moon Music launches at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 120,000 equivalent album units earned in its opening week, according to Luminate. The group earns its fifth leader, following Ghost Stories (2014), Mylo Xyloto (2011), Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008) and X&Y (2005).

Coldplay also debuts a song from the set on the Billboard Hot 100: “We Pray” featuring Little Simz, Burna Boy, Elyanna and Tini at No. 87. The band adds its 25th career entry on the chart, and second this year, after the new LP’s lead single, “feelslikeimfallinginlove,” hit No. 81.

Coldplay is the third group to top the Artist 100 chart this year, after TOMORROW X TOGETHER in April and Stray Kids in August. The last non-K-pop group to hit No. 1 was Slipknot in October 2022.

Rounding out the Artist 100’s top five, Sabrina Carpenter dips to No. 2, following four weeks on top; Taylor Swift holds at No. 3; Chappell Roan drops 2-4; and Morgan Wallen falls 4-5.

Also on the chart, Milli Vanilli debuts at No. 88 thanks to renewed interest in the duo’s catalog as three of the pair’s songs appear in Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix anthology series, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. Their EP 4, which comprises four of the act’s four seminal hits, including three Hot 100 No. 1s, concurrently debuts at No. 197 on the Billboard 200, marking their first appearance on the chart since 1990.