The Year in Charts 2019: Billie Eilish’s ‘When We All Fall Asleep…’ Is Biggest Album of the Year
Billie Eilish rounds out 2019 on top, as the 17-year-old star scores the year's biggest album with "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" The set stands atop the year-end Top Billboard 200 Albums…
Billie Eilish rounds out 2019 on top, as the 17-year-old star scores the year’s biggest album with When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? The set stands atop the year-end Top Billboard 200 Albums chart.
Billboard’s year-end music recaps are based on chart performance during the charts dated Nov. 24, 2018, to Nov. 16, 2019. Data registered before or after a title’s chart run is not considered in these standings. That methodology detail, and the December-to-November time period, account for some of the differences between these lists and the calendar-year recaps that are independently compiled by Nielsen Music.
Eilish (who was born on Dec. 18, 2001) becomes the youngest artist to have the year-end No. 1 album. When We All Fall Asleep launched at No. 1 the weekly Billboard 200 chart dated April 13, 2019, collected three weeks atop the list, and spent the rest of the chart year in the top 10.
Explore All of Billboard’s 2019 Year-End Charts
Previously, just two acts under the age of 21 claimed the chart’s biggest album. Taylor Swift turned 20 on Dec. 13, 2009, the same year her Fearless set was tops. And, two decades earlier, Bobby Brown was 20 when Don’t Be Cruel reigned in 1989.
Following Eilish (also Billboard‘s 2019 Woman of the Year) at Nos. 2-4 on the 2019 year-end Billboard 200 Albums ranking are a trio of albums by leading ladies: Thank U, Next by Ariana Grande, the A Star Is Born soundtrack by Lady Gaga alongside her co-star Bradley Cooper, and Lover by Taylor Swift. It’s the first time the top four are all credited to female artists. The last time the top four was so female-fueled was in 1996, when three albums by women, along with a soundtrack comprised nearly entirely of women, were the top four: Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill, Mariah Carey’s Daydream, Celine Dion’s Falling Into You and the soundtrack to Waiting to Exhale.
Not only does Eilish nab the year-end top Billboard 200 album, but she’s also the year’s overall top new artist. Eilish is the first non-R&B or hip-hop act to be the year’s top new artist since pop vocal quintet One Direction in 2012. Also, Eilish follows 2018’s top new artist Cardi B, the first time solo women have been the year’s top new artist in consecutive years since Lady Gaga and Kesha in 2009 and 2019, respectively.