Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers re-enter the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated Oct. 21) at No. 1 to become the top musical act in the U.S. The late rock icon and his longtime band rule the chart for the second time, following his death Oct. 2.
The Artist 100, which launched in July 2014, measures artist activity across key metrics of music consumption, blending album and track sales, radio airplay, streaming and social media fan interaction to provide a weekly multi-dimensional ranking of artist popularity.
Petty returns to the chart at the summit with a monstrous 10,413 percent surge in overall activity. He and the band previously topped the tally dated Aug. 16, 2014 (five weeks after the chart launched). They had last appeared on the chart on Sept. 6, 2014.
Petty is, sadly, the third act to lead the chart posthumously, following Prince on the May 7 and 14, 2016-dated charts after his death that April 21, and David Bowie on the Jan. 30, 2016-dated chart after his death on Jan. 10. Additionally this year, Linkin Park led the Aug. 12-dated list after frontman Chester Bennington's death on July 20.
Album sales account for the majority of Petty's Artist 100 points (54 percent), followed by digital song sales (32 percent), and streaming (11 percent). Petty boasts five albums on the Billboard 200, led by his and the Heartbreakers' Greatest Hits, which re-enters at a new No. 2 peak with 84,000 equivalent album units (up 2,231 percent).
Meanwhile, Shania Twain re-enters the Artist 100 at a new high of No. 2, as the country star earns her second No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with the debut of her new album, Now (137,000 units). (She previously peaked at No. 90 on the Artist 100 in 2015.)
Petty and Twain's returns mark the first time that two artists have re-entered at Nos. 1 and 2 simultaneously in Artist 100 history. Further, Petty's No. 1 resurgence marks the third consecutive week that an act has re-entered the list at the summit, also a first, as Petty follows Foo Fighters (on the chart dated Oct. 7) and The Killers (Oct. 14).
Rounding out the Artist 100's top five, Imagine Dragons dip 2-3, Demi Lovato leaps 14-4 (nearly matching her No. 3 peak), as her new album Tell Me You Love Me launches at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 (74,000 units), and Ed Sheeran falls 4-5.
Check out this week's full Artist 100 here.
