Here’s How Travis Scott May Beat Sabrina Carpenter In Another Billboard Chart Battle

19 Sep 2024 by Conor Murray · Forbes

Topline

Weeks after Sabrina Carpenter beat Travis Scott by a slim margin in a dramatic battle for No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, Scott could finally earn his own week at the top as thousands of his “Days Before Rodeo” vinyl albums are due to ship, which will likely propel him above Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet.”

Scott could top the chart with "Days Before Rodeo." (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The ... [+] Recording Academy)Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Key Facts

Scott sold regular and deluxe vinyl editions of “Days Before Rodeo,” a re-release of his mixtape originally released in 2014, which began shipping to fans this week—meaning those sales will count for next week’s Billboard chart.

Scott also sold box sets that included a vinyl album alongside merchandise like hoodies and T-shirts, which will also count for the chart, Billboard reported.

Billboard reported Scott could top the Billboard 200 chart with “Days Before Rodeo” on next week’s list, while music industry publication Hits Daily Double projected Scott would top the chart with 130,000 total album units (composed of streams and sales), above Carpenter’s projected 101,000 units.

Much of Scott’s projected total—about 125,000 units—are physical album sales because of his vinyl shipments, while much of Carpenter’s projected total comes from streaming, as several of her songs—like “Taste,” “Espresso” and “Please Please Please”—dominate the Spotify charts.

Scott’s album will likely rebound after tumbling down the Billboard 200: After it debuted at No. 2, it fell to No. 30, and again to No. 106 in its third week, while Carpenter has ranked No. 1 for all three weeks of her album’s release.

Key Background

Carpenter and Scott both pulled out all the stops to secure a No. 1 debut for their respective albums on the Billboard 200 when they were released on Aug. 23. Though Carpenter had an early lead—Hits Daily Double projected an opening week of 317,000 album units, above 217,000 projected for Scott—both artists raced until the final minutes of the sales tracking week to release exclusive digital versions of their albums in eleventh-hour efforts to boost sales. Scott dropped four “vault” editions of his album, each containing a bonus track, as well as a live edition and a “chopped and screwed” remixed version, with the last released just 30 minutes before the tracking week ended. Carpenter also released two editions with bonus tracks and another featuring a demo version of her song “Taste.” Fans believe Carpenter teased the chart battle, tweeting “this one’s for nicki” on the final night of the tracking week—a possible reference to Nicki Minaj’s similar chart battle with Scott in 2018, when his album “Astroworld” beat her “Queen” on the Billboard 200. Billboard announced on Sept. 3 Carpenter had just narrowly beat Scott with 362,000 album units to his 361,000. Carpenter and Scott earned the third and fourth-biggest sales weeks for an album debut in 2024, only behind Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” and Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter.”

Surprising Fact

Scott’s team reportedly disputed the chart’s “integrity,” alleging in a letter to music data company Luminate that about 1,300 units were not counted for Scott because they were sold in the final 15 minutes of the tracking week. Billboard told Rolling Stone in a statement it “stand[s]

behind our chart data and methodology.”

Tangent

Delayed shipments or releases of vinyl albums have propelled other albums to No. 1, particularly as vinyl album sales have continued to rise, Billboard reported. In 2021, Taylor Swift sent two months-old albums—”evermore” and “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” back to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart after a delayed vinyl release caused sales to spike.

What To Watch For

Billboard will announce the top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart on Sunday.