The Fab Four reach a new high, while Bruno Mars returns to No. 1.
The Beatles re-enter the Billboard Artist 100 chart (dated June 17) at a new peak of No. 5, powered by the 50th-anniversary re-release of their classic album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which returns to the Billboard 200 at No. 3.
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.
The Beatles hit a new high thanks largely to Sgt. Pepper's, which re-enters the Billboard 200 at No. 3 with 75,000 equivalent album units in the week ending June 1, according to Nielsen Music. The No. 3 ranking is the album's highest since the Dec. 30, 1967-dated chart, when it also placed at No. 3, and the highest rank for a Beatles album in more than 16 years. Album sales contribute nearly all the Artist 100 points (99 percent) for The Beatles, who previously peaked at No. 14 (Oct. 1, 2016).
Atop the Artist 100, Bruno Mars returns to No. 1 (3-1) to become the top musical act in the U.S. for the first time in more than three months. Despite the gap, he has spent the most time in the chart's top five (23 weeks, of 24 total) of any act in 2017. Ed Sheeran, at No. 4, follows with 21 top-five frames so far this year. Mars earns an 8 percent gain in overall activity, with radio airplay marking his greatest contributor (30 percent), as his "That's What I Like" rules the Radio Songs chart for a fifth week (165 million in audience in the week ending June 4).
Among other Artist 100 action, Kendrick Lamar keeps at No. 2 and Bryson Tiller re-enters at a new high of No. 3, as the R&B singer's True to Self debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 107,000 units. Plus, The Allman Brothers Band debuts at No. 44 after frontman Gregg Allman died on May 27.
Check out this week's full Artist 100 here.