Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ Crowned 2025’s Top Billboard 200 Album

Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl shines as the No. 1 title on the 2025 year-end Billboard 200 Albums chart. This marks the fifth time she has topped the annual list, extending her record as the only artist to claim the year-end No. 1 album more than three times.

The achievement is even more extraordinary considering the album logged only a single week of activity during the 2025 chart year. The Life of a Showgirl debuted at No. 1 on the chart dated Oct. 18, which was the final week of the eligibility period. In its opening frame, it earned a modern-era record of 4 million equivalent album units in the United States, according to Luminate.

Swift also led the 2024 year-end Billboard 200 with The Tortured Poets Department. With Showgirl following one year later, she becomes the first artist to score back-to-back year-end No. 1 albums with two different titles since Elton John achieved the feat in 1974 with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and in 1975 with Greatest Hits. In the years between John and Swift, only two artists have repeated at year-end No. 1 with the same album: Michael Jackson with Thriller in 1983 and 1984, and Adele with 21 in 2011 and 2012.

Swift previously topped the year-end Billboard 200 with reputation in 2018, 1989 in 2015 and Fearless in 2009.

The Tortured Poets Department finishes 2025 at No. 6 on the year-end Billboard 200. Swift and Morgan Wallen each place two albums in the top 10, with Wallen’s I’m the Problem at No. 2 and One Thing at a Time at No. 7.

Billboard’s year-end charts are compiled using aggregated data from weekly performance on charts dated Oct. 26, 2024 through Oct. 18, 2025. Luminate-based rankings account for album units, airplay, sales or streaming earned during weeks in which an album appeared on the chart. Activity outside those charting weeks is excluded. This methodology, along with the October-to-October chart year, explains differences between Billboard’s year-end lists and the calendar-year reports issued separately by Luminate.