Bass Persuades Puts Miley Back at No. 1 on Sales

Bass Persuades opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 dated Oct. 3 with 61,000 equivalent album units in the United States, according to Luminate, the independent data firm that feeds the chart. Album sales were 47,000 of that total. Streaming equivalent albums were 14,000, from 14.22 million on-demand official streams of the songs.

It is Miley’s first leader on the albums chart since Bangerz in October 2013, her sixth No. 1, and her 16th top 10, counting work billed as Miley Cyrus and the Hannah Montana soundtracks. She now works as Miley. The 10th studio album, released Sept. 18 through Atlantic Records, still had to beat two country titles that finished within 1,000 units of her, and one of those titles reached more than twice as many streams.

Three Albums Finished Inside 1,000 Units

Jhené Aiko’s Westside Whimsy fell 1-8 in its second week with 35,000 units, down 53%, so the slot was open. What filled it was a pileup. Ella Langley’s Dandelion, last week’s No. 1, held at No. 2 with nearly 61,000 units, up 1%. Riley Green’s That’s Just Me debuted at No. 3 with 60,000, his best week. Morgan Wallen’s I’m the Problem sat at No. 4 with 58,000, up 1%.

Four titles, 61,000 down to 58,000. Olivia Rodrigo’s you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love slipped 3-5 with 55,000, down 8%. The rest of the top 10 was a second pile: Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide at No. 6 with 46,000, beabadoobee’s Pylon debuting at No. 7 with 35,000, Aiko at 35,000, Drake’s ICEMAN at nearly 35,000, and Kahan’s Stick Season at No. 10 with 34,000.

THE PHOTO FINISH AT THE TOP

Track equivalent albums were a negligible sum for Bass Persuades and 1,000 for That’s Just Me. Miley also opened at No. 1 on Top Album Sales. Green opened at No. 2 on that sales chart and at No. 10 on Top Streaming Albums. The albums chart still put her on top, because one album sold still equals one unit, and streams have to pile up by the thousand to match it.

Sixteen Vinyl Versions and a Cassette

Luminate tied the 47,000 sales to a wall of product. Bass Persuades shipped across 16 vinyl variants, one of them with a bonus track; nine CD variants, one with a bonus track; six download variants, most with bonus tracks; and a cassette. That is 32 distinct formats of one 10-song record.

WHAT FANS COULD BUY IN WEEK ONE

• Vinyl: 16 variants, including one edition with a bonus track.
• CD: nine variants, including one edition with a bonus track.
• Downloads: six variants, most of them carrying bonus offerings.
• Cassette: one tape, counted with the rest of the sale.

During the tracking week that closed Sept. 24, four editions sat inside the iTunes albums top 10 at once, including The Miley Edition, which adds the extra song Smile, plus separate a cappella and instrumental copies. Superfans who wanted every version were not buying one album. They were buying a set.

Green ran a smaller version of the same play, with 13 vinyl and CD variants, some with bonus tracks, two download editions, and a cassette. Beabadoobee’s first top 10, Pylon, arrived with 10 vinyl variants including signed copies, three CD variants, two cassettes, and a download, and still opened on 25,000 sales and 10.79 million streams. The tactic is no longer a Taylor Swift specialty. Luminate found that top 10 albums carried an average of 8.9 physical versions by the end of 2023, up from 3.3 in early 2019, after Billboard banned ticket bundles in 2020 and labels poured that energy into colored vinyl.

Mike Sherwood, formerly Capitol’s executive vice president of global commercial marketing, called the bundle ban a tipping point that opened the floodgates. “They had to be replaced by something, and that something became, well, this vinyl thing is happening over here, and you can make different colors and weights and packages,” he said. Adam Abramson, formerly Elektra’s head of sales and streaming, put the cost on the fan: people with limited money get asked to spend maybe 40 extra dollars for one extra song.

Riley Green Reached More Than Twice the Streams

That’s Just Me did 30.89 million on-demand official streams of its songs. Bass Persuades did 14.22 million. Green’s streaming total is more than twice Miley’s, and he still finished 1,000 units behind her, because she sold 47,000 albums to his 29,000.

He also had the better airplay story on his own turf. Think as You Drunk held at No. 11 on Country Airplay, and Don’t Mind If I Do, his last album, has spent 99 weeks on the Billboard 200 after a No. 25 start in 2024. Miley’s lead single, the title track released Sept. 3, debuted at No. 35 on the Hot 100 dated Sept. 19, her 24th top 40 hit, and is not the kind of ubiquitous radio record that used to drag an album up the list on its own.

So the listening went one way and the ranking went the other. Green converted 30,000 streaming equivalent albums and 1,000 track equivalent albums. Miley converted 14,000 streaming equivalent albums and a negligible track sum. The 18,000-sale gap between 47,000 and 29,000 was enough, barely, to buy the No. 1. In Britain the same album opened at No. 13 on the Official Albums Chart, her first traditional studio album to miss the top 10 there, while the title track No. 31 on the UK singles chart as its peak. Australia sent it to No. 2. Wallonia sent it to No. 1. Canada stopped at No. 7. The American chart was the one the formats were built to move.

What a No. 1 Cost in 2013

Bangerz opened at No. 1 in October 2013 with 270,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the tracking service that later became Luminate. That was a sales chart in a sales year. Can’t Be Tamed, her previous studio album, had debuted and peaked at No. 3 in 2010 with 102,000. Breakout remains her largest week, at 371,000 copies in 2008.

Bass Persuades’ 47,000 album sales are a fraction of that Bangerz frame, and the 61,000 total units would not have been a conversation in 2013. They are a No. 1 in 2026 because the rest of the list is just as compressed. Miley is the third act this year to wait at least 10 years between No. 1 albums, after Bruno Mars with The Romantic on the March 14 chart, 13 years after Unorthodox Jukebox, and A$AP Rocky with Don’t Be Dumb on the Jan. 31 chart, a little more than 10 years and six months after At.Long.Last.A$AP.

The thank-you post treated the ranking as bigger than the unit count. Some listeners went the other way and treated 61,000 as a punchline, the sort of total that used to be a quiet mid-list week. Both readings can sit on the same print. The chart did what the chart does now. It counted every qualifying sale of every qualifying version, then divided a modest stream total by a thousand.

Something Beautiful, released May 30, 2025 on Columbia, had already shown the other side of that math. It debuted and peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 dated June 14, 2025, with 44,000 units, including 27,000 album sales and 17,000 streaming equivalent albums from 22.18 million on-demand streams. That album streamed more than Bass Persuades and sold 20,000 fewer copies. It also spent only two weeks on the chart, falling to No. 102 in week two. The new one sold more, streamed less, and cleared the last three feet.

1,000 Paid Streams Still Equal One Sale

The Billboard 200 ranks albums on multi-metric consumption compiled by Luminate. Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from the album, or 2,500 ad-supported or 1,000 paid subscription on-demand official audio and video streams of songs from the album. Bass Persuades’ 14.22 million streams became 14,000 units because they sat close to that 1,000-stream paid ratio. Green’s 30.89 million streams became 30,000 units on the same scale.

HOW A UNIT GETS ON THE CHART

• Album sale: one CD, LP, cassette, or paid download of the full album equals one unit.
• Track sale: 10 individual tracks from the album equal one unit.
• Paid streams: 1,000 subscription on-demand official streams of the album’s songs equal one unit.
• Ad-supported streams: 2,500 official streams equal one unit.

That ratio is why a colored LP still outruns a week of casual listening, and why labels keep adding versions after Billboard closed older loopholes. Tom Corson, Warner Records’ co-chairman, has called variants a revenue play with solid margins, with the chart bump as a bonus. Annual LP sales in the United States jumped from 18.8 million to 49.6 million across the same years Luminate watched the variant count climb. Miley’s first Atlantic album used that market at full size. The 10-track album running 37 minutes is the listening copy. The other 31 formats are how it topped a week that four other albums also could have taken.

She Plays the Hollywood Bowl on Oct. 16

The album was announced Sept. 1, 17 days before street date, with a teaser of Miley on electric guitar in a white jumpsuit. Let’s Get Married, the second single, arrived with the album on Sept. 18. Kid Harpoon, Michael Pollack, Maxx Morando, Aldae, and Model/Actriz are among the producers. Wayne Coyne adds vocals on Aftermath. Andrew Wyatt of Miike Snow is on Neon Signs. The record is billed as dance-pop and pop rock, and as her first album promoted under the single name Miley after she posted that shift on Aug. 31.

FROM ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE BOWL

1. Sept. 1, 2026: Announces Bass Persuades for Sept. 18 and books the Hollywood Bowl.
2. Sept. 3, 2026: Releases the title track, which debuts at No. 35 on the Hot 100.
3. Sept. 18, 2026: Album and Let’s Get Married arrive on Atlantic.
4. Sept. 24, 2026: Tracking week closes on 61,000 units and 47,000 sales.
5. Sept. 29, 2026: She posts her thanks after the Oct. 3 chart is locked.
6. Oct. 16 and 18, 2026: Plays the Hollywood Bowl with Model/Actriz opening.

She has said the Bowl is her favorite place to hear music, that she has sat in those seats and has never taken the stage, and that Los Angeles is home. Night one is listed at 7:30 p.m. The dates are her first full concerts in four years, not a tour announcement, just two nights at the Hollywood Bowl after a chart week her formats already won.

Bass Persuades being #1 transcends a win. This process has been some of the best times for me. Everyone involved made it possible and more importantly fun and memorable.

Miley, on X, Sept. 29, 2026

Bass Persuades being #1 transcends a win. This process has been some of the best times for me. Everyone involved made it possible and more importantly fun and memorable.

Thank you Atlantic, my team, and everyone who walks beside me with conviction. I love you.

To the fans you… pic.twitter.com/bh8Z0xzosp

— MILEY (@miley) September 29, 2026

She thanked Atlantic, her team, and fans in the same post. Fan accounts answered by naming Dead Petz, Plastic Hearts, Endless Summer Vacation, and Something Beautiful, the studio albums that never got this far. The Spanish vinyl chart, run by Promusicae, put Bass Persuades at No. 1 there on the format that did the work in the United States too. On Oct. 16 she walks out at the Bowl with the ranking already on the books, earned the way 2026 No. 1s get earned: 32 ways to buy the same 10 songs, and just enough of those copies to stay 1,000 units ahead of a country album that more people actually streamed.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Many Billboard 200 No. 1 Albums Does Miley Have?

Six, counting the Hannah Montana titles. The list is the first Hannah Montana soundtrack in 2006, Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus in 2007, Breakout in 2008, the Hannah Montana movie soundtrack in 2009, Bangerz in 2013, and Bass Persuades in 2026. Breakout is still her largest week, at 371,000 copies.

Where Did Bass Persuades Chart Outside the United States?

It reached No. 1 in Wallonia and on Germany’s pop albums chart, No. 2 in Australia and Austria, No. 3 in Spain and Switzerland, No. 4 in Germany’s main albums chart and in New Zealand, No. 7 in Canada, the Netherlands, and Scotland, No. 10 in Italy, and No. 13 on the UK Official Albums Chart. Ireland stopped at No. 50.

What Is the Difference Between Album Sales and Streaming Units?

An album sale is one purchase of the full album on CD, vinyl, cassette, or download. Streaming equivalent albums convert listening: 1,000 paid streams or 2,500 ad-supported streams of the album’s songs equal one unit, and 10 individual track sales equal one track equivalent album. That is why 14.22 million streams became 14,000 units while 47,000 copies became 47,000 units.

When Does Miley Play the Hollywood Bowl?

Friday, Oct. 16, 2026, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026, at the Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Avenue in Los Angeles, with Model/Actriz as the special guest. The nights are billed as Bass Persuades live dates, not the start of a posted arena tour.