Miley Cyrus’s Bass Persuades Fell 156 Places in One Week
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No. 1 on the Billboard 200 dated 3 October. No. 157 on the chart dated 10 October. That is the week-on-week path of Bass Persuades, the new album from Miley Cyrus, and it is a record. According to Consequence, citing Variety, it is the biggest second-week drop for a full-length release that debuted at the top of the chart.
The fall says less about the music than it does about how the first-week tally was built. Here is the ranking in numbers, how the debut was assembled, where the drop sits in chart history and what it does and does not tell you about the album.
The Week-on-Week Numbers
Bass Persuades was released on 18 September through Atlantic Records. It is Cyrus’s first album on Atlantic after she left Columbia earlier this year, and her first release under the mononym Miley. In its first tracking week it earned 61,000 equivalent album units and entered at No. 1. That made it her sixth chart-topper and her first since Bangerz in 2013.
One week later it was at No. 157. The drop is 156 places. The title track, meanwhile, debuted at No. 35 on the Hot 100 in the album’s opening week.
How the First-Week Tally Was Built
The 61,000 units split unevenly. Album sales accounted for 47,000. Streaming-equivalent units accounted for 14,000, representing 14.22 million on-demand streams. In other words, more than three-quarters of the debut came from purchases rather than listening.
The format strategy explains why. IBTimes reported that Atlantic released the album in 16 vinyl variants, nine CD versions, six download editions and a cassette, while also reducing the price of the digital album. Every purchase of every variant counts toward the tally, and a long list of variants gives committed fans reasons to buy more than one copy. That concentrates demand into the first week.
IBTimes framed the question directly: how much of the No. 1 debut “was driven by the label’s multi-format sales strategy, and how much reflected sustained consumer demand?” The second-week position is the clearest answer the chart can give. Once the first-week purchases had been counted, the remaining weekly demand placed the album at No. 157.
Where It Sits in the Record Books
Large falls from No. 1 are not new, but this one is the largest of its kind. Consequence noted that Bon Jovi’s This House Is Not for Sale dropped from No. 1 to No. 169 in 2018, but that came nearly two years after the album’s release, following a later return to the top, so it is not a second-week fall. It also noted that Travis Scott’s Days Before Rodeo left the chart entirely after reaching No. 1 in its fourth week.
Among recent second-week drops, IBTimes listed Madonna’s Madame X, which fell from No. 1 to No. 77 in 2019, and Céline Dion’s Courage, which fell from No. 1 to No. 111 the same year. Both were debuts by established artists with large, loyal fan bases. Bass Persuades fits that profile and goes further down the ranking than either.
The common thread is the same in each case. An album built on a concentrated first week, with bundles, variants or pre-orders, can top the chart and then fall sharply once that demand has been counted. It is a pattern of the chart’s counting method as much as of any single release.
The Pattern From Something Beautiful
The drop also has a precedent in Cyrus’s own catalogue. According to mxdwn, her 2025 album Something Beautiful debuted at No. 4, fell to No. 102 in its second week and was off the chart by its third.
That makes the new album’s path less surprising than the headline suggests. Two consecutive albums have opened high and then fallen quickly. The difference this time is the starting position: a No. 1 debut makes the second-week drop a record.
How a First-Week Total Is Actually Counted
The Billboard 200 ranks albums by equivalent album units, which add three things together. Each album sale counts as one unit. Ten sales of individual songs from the album count as one unit. And streams are converted at a fixed rate. Since 17 January 2026, according to Music Business Worldwide, 1,000 paid or subscription streams, or 2,500 ad-supported streams, equal one album unit.
That rate changed this year. Before January, the thresholds were 1,250 paid streams and 3,750 ad-supported streams. Billboard said the change was made “to better reflect an increase in streaming revenue and changing consumer behaviors.” The effect is that streams now carry more weight in the tally than they did a year ago, which makes a sales-heavy debut like this one stand out more, not less.
A first-week total combines two different kinds of demand. Sales measure how many people bought the album, often before hearing it in full. Streams measure how many times people chose to play it. An album whose units come mostly from sales tells you about the size and commitment of the core fan base. An album whose units come mostly from streams tells you about wider listening.
By that reading, Bass Persuades has a committed core and a narrower streaming base. Cyrus was openly pleased with the debut. “Bass Persuades being #1 transcends a win,” she wrote after the first week. The second week does not cancel that result; it shows what kind of result it was.
BestMusic.News has tracked other unusual chart runs this autumn, including how 18 straight weeks in the top 10 made Dracula a K-pop record for Jennie. That is the opposite shape: a long, steady run built on continuing demand rather than a single concentrated week.
The Album Behind the Numbers
The chart story can hide the record itself. Bass Persuades is a ten-track album that leans into dance music, according to Star Observer, which also noted that Rolling Stone gave it 3.5 stars and read it as a record shaped more by her home life than by a chase for big club hits. The title track was released ahead of the album, and the campaign has included videos for “Different Religion”, “Let’s Get Married” and the title track.
Demand for the live shows has been strong. According to mxdwn, both Hollywood Bowl dates sold out within ten minutes, with nearly 1.5 million fans queuing for presales. That is a different measure of audience from the album ranking: a large base wants to see the shows, while the weekly chart is measuring how many people bought or streamed the album in a given seven days.
What to Watch Next
The next test is live. Cyrus plays two shows at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on 16 and 18 October, and live dates can lift streams and sales for an album in the weeks around them. A re-entry or a climb back up the ranking after those shows would point to listening demand that the second-week position did not capture.
The other figure to watch is streaming. With 14.22 million on-demand streams in week one and a title track already on the Hot 100, the album’s long-term ranking will depend on whether listening grows as the campaign continues. For now, the tally is clear: one record week at No. 1, and one record fall to No. 157.
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