Reigning country artist Jelly Roll has recently made waves with claims that a fellow artist’s album allegedly received a last-minute boost of 40,000 sales from a third-party site in an effort to secure the number one position on the Billboard charts.
Fans speculate that this could be a thinly veiled callout at Charli XCX, following the chart battle between XCX’s album Brat and JR’s Beautifully Broken.
Speaking on The Pat McAfee Show, Jelly Roll shared that the projected sales forecast had him and fellow artist Rod Wave’s album Last Lap significantly ahead, with Brat not expected to come within 50,000-60,000 units.
However, he alleges just before the weekly sales count concluded on late Thursday, Brat received an unexpected increase of 40,000 units, attributed to a third-party aggregation.
“I won’t say the artist’s name because I know a lot of artists are disconnected from what’s happening in the business,” Jelly Roll said of the incident.
“HITS Daily Double projected they wasn’t even gonna be within 50-60,000 albums of me and Rod Wave. And then Thursday night, before the Friday count ends, 40,000 albums [from a] third party aggregated site. Now, Luminate who is in charge of counting record sales, rejected these sales, which is how I ended up with the #1 album.”
Luminate is responsible for tracking record sales, and is relied on by Billboard to compile data for chart selection. As of October 26th, Jelly Roll was crowned at the top of the Billboard 200 with 161,000 units of his latest album sold and/or streamed.
While Charli XCX didn’t end up taking the crown for this chart, the Apple singer still ended up in third place, and nabbed the top spot on Billboard’s UK album charts, as well as the Dance/Electronic charts.
Following the success of Brat, Charli XCX found great critical acclaim and fan adoration, locking in collaborations with Lorde, Billie Eilish, and Troye Sivan and keeping Brat summer going. Last month, she released the collaborative remix album, Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, which stars Robyn, The 1975, Ariana Grande, Julian Casablancas, and more.
Charli XCX will headline the 2025 edition of Laneway Festival in a festival exclusive. Other acts appearing at the festival include Clairo, beabadoobee, Remi Wolf, Eyedress, and Skegss.
Countrytown brings you Australia’s best country music news, interviews, charts and more every week! This post was authored by Countrytown and originally published on the Countrytown website. It has been re-published with permission.
