Who said Cher couldn’t mix it up with a bunch of rappers?
Last year when the ageless Queen of Comebacks teamed with trap-style rapper Future in a series of diversity-flavored ads for The Gap, who knew that a year later the living legend would be hamming it up with hip-hop artists in a different way?
Except for a posthumous release by late rocker Tom Petty, Cher – at No. 3 on the newly released Billboard album chart – is the only non-hip-hop artist in the top ten.
And she does it with a bunch of ABBA covers!
With what one critics called a “guided missile of pure atomic pop,” her new album Dancing Queen comes on the heels of her role in this summer’s ABBA-esque movie, “Mamma Mia II: Here We Go Again,” and is completely comprised of ABBA songs.
Here’s what the top ten of this week’s Billboard 200 chart looks like:
- Tha Carter V – Lil Wayne
- YSIV – Logic
- Dancing Queen – Cher
- Luca Brasi 3 – Kevin Gates
- Scorpion – Drake
- Kamikaze – Eminem
- Astroworld – Travis Scott
- Beerbongs and Bentleys – Post Malone
- An American Treasure – Tom Petty
- ? (question mark)) – XXXTentacion
So that’s eight hip-hop artists, the late Tom Petty and Cher, who is also the only woman in this week’s top 10.
For those naysayers who think Cher’s latest accomplishment is a chart fluke, consider these finer points:
- At No. 3, Dancing Queen matches Cher’s highest charting solo album yet (it ties another comeback bid from the “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” singer in 2013: the album Closer To The Truth).
- Of the 153,000 units she registered the past week to get this début, 150,000 are due to traditional album sales. That means only 3,000 were from either song streaming or single track downloads.
- That 150,000 figure is the highest yet for any Cher album released after 1991, when Nielsen Soundscan started electronically (and more accurately) tracking sales. Her previous biggest came in 2003 (The Very Best of Cher, 122,000 copies sold).
- If streaming were eliminated from the Billboard 200 formula, Cher would have the No. 1 album in the country. Her 150,000 copies exceed the 141,000 traditional albums sold by Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter V, whose total consumption is mostly composed of points from streaming (an additional 325,000 units).
And they’re calling Lil Wayne an elder statesman on this week’s charts?
Maybe among rappers. But at 36 years and two weeks, he’s seen less than half of Cherilyn Sarkisian’s 72 years and five months on this earth. The only other artist in the top ten older than Lil Wayne is Eminem, who will be 46 next week.
To further put this in perspective, the average age of the seven living rappers in this week’s top ten (XXXTentacion died in June) is 32 years and one month. Cher, who claims she can still do a five-minute plank, has that beat by over 40 years!
All of this just goes to show that you can NEVER count Cher out. Years from now when Eminem, Lil Wayne and Drake have put down their mics for good, you can bet Cher will be right there on the charts, hamming it up in the top ten with whomever or whatever the newest thing happens to be.
I only hope that djrobblog will still be around to cover it.
Congrats to Cher on yet another phenomenal accomplishment and career milestone!
DJRob
