MUMBAI: Five years ago, Shawn Mendes was a fresh-faced 11th-grader from Pickering, Ontario, who had ridden a wave of six-second videos on the defunct app Vine — the proto-TikTok — into a surprise No. 1 debut album.
Now, at 22, he is a veteran hitmaker whose four studio LPs have all gone to the top of Billboard’s album chart. His latest, “Wonder,” opened with the equivalent of 89,000 sales in the United States, according to Nielsen Music, including 47 million streams and 54,000 copies sold as a complete package.
Mendes reached No. 1 just in time before Taylor Swift’s “Evermore,” her second quarantine album, which came out on Friday with less than a day’s notice and is expected to have a huge opening on next week’s chart.
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The rest of this week’s Top 10 is dominated by recurring hits and holiday albums.
Bad Bunny’s “El Último Tour del Mundo,” last week’s No. 1, fell to second place in its second week out, while Ariana Grande’s “Positions,” another recent chart topper, is No. 3.
Michael Bublé’s “Christmas,” a steady seasonal hit since 2011, is No. 4, and Carrie Underwood’s Christmas album “My Gift,” which had peaked at No. 8 when released in September, rose to No. 5. Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” is No. 7, Pentatonix’s “The Best of Pentatonix Christmas” is No. 8 and Mariah Carey’s “Merry Christmas” is No. 10.
According to Billboard, it is the first time in seven years that five holiday-themed albums were in the Top 10.
