The seemingly unstoppable reign of The Tortured Poets Department has ended.
After sitting atop the Billboard 200 albums chart for 12 straight weeks, Taylor Swift’s album, which was released on April 19, was finally dethroned, as recorded via Billboard’s July 27 chart.
The 11th studio album from Swift, 34, was toppled by Eminem’s new album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce), which was released on Friday, July 12.
TTPD fell to No. 4 on the chart during its 13th week on the list, recording the sale of 82,000 units.
The latest project from Eminem, 51, whose real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, clocks up the rapper’s 11th No. 1 album on the chart, tying him with Bruce Springsteen, Barbara Streisand and Kanye West for the fifth-most No. 1 album rankings of all time.
Ahead of the pack are The Beatles, with 19 No. 1 albums, Jay-Z and Swift, with 14 No. 1 albums each, and Drake, with 13 No. 1 albums.
The release of TTPD provided Swift with a slew of record-breaking achievements, notching up 2.6 million equivalent album sales in the first week of its release, with 1.9 million traditional album sales (including digital downloads, Cds, vinyl LPs and cassettes).
TTPD had the third-largest sales week ever in the modern era, behind only ‘NSync’s No Strings Attached (2.4 million) and Adele’s 25 (3.37 million) in terms of most albums sold in a single week.
The album also proved to be a masterstroke for other reasons.
In April, the American Heart Association claimed that the title track of TTPD features 110 beats per minute, which is the correct tempo for Hands-Only CPR.
“A double album!?! So double the chances for songs with lifesaving beats!?!” the AHA wrote in an Instagram post on April 19. “If you see a teen or adult collapse, call 911, then push hard and fast in the center of the chest to the beat of ‘The Tortured Poets Department.’ Thanks, @taylorswift.”
In addition to serving as a life-saving essential, the title track is also rumored to have been written about Swift’s ex-boyfriend Matty Healy.
In the song, Swift, recounts bonding moments with her “tattooed golden retriever” — Healy, 35, is covered in tattoos —while referencing a conversation about how “Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist.” (Healy once tweeted his praise about Puth’s talent in a social media post resurfaced by fans following TTPD’s release.)
