SZA’s ‘SOS’ Surpasses Adele’s ‘21’ for Most Weeks in Top 10 on Billboard 200 Among Albums by Women

On the latest Billboard 200 albums chart (dated April 26), SZA’s SOS surpasses Adele’s 21 for the most weeks spent in the top 10 among albums by women.

SOS, released in 2022, garners its 85th nonconsecutive week in the top 10 on the chart, where it climbs 4-3. Adele’s 21, released in 2011, was last in the top 10 for its 84th and final (nonconsecutive) week in the region on the Jan. 9, 2016-dated chart.

The new April 26, 2025-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website April 22.

Both SOS and 21 are former No. 1s, with SOS having spent 12 weeks atop the tally and 21 having logged 24 weeks at No. 1 (a record among albums by women). SOS collected its two most recent weeks at No. 1 in January following its SOS Deluxe: LANA reissue with additional songs.

Further, SOS now ties Peter, Paul and Mary’s self-titled album for the third-most weeks in the top 10 among albums by a singular artist. They both trail two albums by Morgan Wallen (Dangerous: The Double Album, with 158; and One Thing at a Time, with 106).

Since the Billboard 200 began publishing on a regular weekly basis, with the March 24, 1956-dated chart, the album with the most weeks in the top 10 is the original cast recording of stage musical My Fair Lady, with 173 weeks in the top 10 between 1956-60.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.

Albums With the Most Weeks in the Top 10 on the Billboard 200 Chart:
Weeks in Top 10, Artist, Title, Year First Reached Top 10
173, Original Cast, My Fair Lady, 1956
158, Morgan Wallen, Dangerous: The Double Album, 2023
109, Soundtrack, The Sound of Music, 1965
106, Morgan Wallen, One Thing at a Time, 2023
106, Soundtrack, West Side Story, 1962
105, Original Cast, The Sound of Music, 1960
90, Soundtrack, South Pacific, 1958
87, Original Cast, Camelot, 1961
87, Original Cast, Oklahoma!, 1956
85, SZA, SOS, 2022
85, Peter, Paul and Mary, Peter, Paul and Mary, 1962
84, Adele, 21, 2011
84, Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A., 1984
(From March 24, 1956, through the April 26, 2025-dated chart)

Because of how the Billboard 200 chart is now compiled, where streaming activity is blended with album sales and track sales, albums tend to spend a longer time on the list thanks to continued streaming activity. The chart only began utilizing streaming information in its methodology in December 2014. Before then, the chart was based solely on traditional album sales.

Also, a lengthy tracklist with multiple popular songs can help accrue large streaming totals, so albums like SOS, One Thing at a Time and Dangerous — each with more than 30 songs apiece — benefit from the continued weekly streams of their long tracklists.

Further, older albums (known as catalog albums; generally defined today as titles at least 18 months old) were mostly restricted from charting on the Billboard 200 from May 25, 1991, through Nov. 28, 2009. After that, catalog and current (new/recently released) albums have charted together on the Billboard 200. In turn, older albums now regularly spend hundreds of weeks on the chart. On the April 26, 2025-dated list, for example, there are more than 30 albums with least 400 total weeks on the chart. Before the rule change in December 2009, allowing catalog albums back onto the chart, only three albums had spent more than 400 weeks on the list – led by Pink Floyd’s chart-topping The Dark Side of the Moon. Today, it continues to hold the record for the most weeks on the list, with 990.