The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming Billboard 200 dated Oct. 11, we look at new sets by several major artists, all getting in before the biggest pop star in the world sounds perhaps the final buzzer for 2025 next week.
Doja Cat, Vie (Kemosabe/RCA): Doja Cat has become one of the defining pop stars of the 2020s without a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200: Her career-best to date is still the No. 2 peak of 2021’s Planet Her, blocked from the top spot by Tyler, the Creator’s Call Me if You Get Lost. Still, she’s scored two No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100, and nine top 10 hits — including a pair from her previous album, 2023’s more hip-hop-focused Scarlet: the chart-topper “Paint the Town Red” and the No. 7-peaking “Agora Hills.”
Doja’s latest set, Vie, eschews the rap focus of Scarlet a bit for a brighter, more ‘80s-hued pop sound — exemplified by the lead single “Jealous Type,” which she opened the MTV Video Music Awards with in September. Released on Friday (Sept. 26), the 15-track set is light on special guests, but does include one big-name feature in pop/R&B superstar SZA, who appears on “Take Me Dancing,” a sort of unofficial sequel to the pair’s Planet Her teamup, the Grammy-winning crossover smash “Kiss Me More.” (Another big name, Jack Antonoff, is a major presence in the album’s writing and production credits.)
The album is available for purchase in eight vinyl variants and two CDs — with one signed option in each format — as well as in a CD boxed set (with a signed CD and branded T-shirt), standard and deluxe iTunes versions (the latter with bonus videos), and a cassette.
It will need to do robust sales numbers to challenge for the No. 1 spot, because the streaming tallies its songs have posted so far have not been massive: As of posting, Doja only has one song in the top 100 on the Spotify Daily Top Songs USA chart, and zero in the top 100 on Apple Music’s real-time lasting. With the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack still pulling weekly numbers in the low six digits — and Scarlet bowing with 72,000 units two years ago — it may be tough for Vie to get over the top.
Young Thug, UY Scuti (YSL/300/Atlantic): The rapper born Jeffery Lamar Williams II was a regular presence atop the Billboard 200 albums chart at the turn of the 2020s, even topping it twice in 2021 alone (with his solo Punk set and his Young Stoner Life: Slime Language 2 full-label effort). But in the four years since then, he’s gone to jail, fallen out with his former partner-in-rhyme Gunna and made more headlines for being at the center of public messiness than for anything he’s done with his music.
Young Thug is looking to change the narrative with the release of UY Scuti, his first full-length since 2023’s Billboard 200 No. 2-peaking Business Is Business. The set is consumable in 20- and 21-track editions on streaming and digital retailers, with a pair of digital-only 22-track archive editions also offering an exclusive bonus track each. Multiple vinyl, CD and CD boxed set editions are also available.
The set features such big names as Lil Baby, 21 Savage, Travis Scott, Future and even current Billboard 200-topper Cardi B as guests. However, like Doja’s Vie, Scuti has yet to produce a major breakout streaming hit – after a strong Friday start, only opener “Ninja” ranks in the top 100 on Apple Music’s real-time chart (as of Wednesday), and it’s only No. 104 on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA — and the set has also been attracting as many headlines for its controversial album cover as for any of its songs.
Mariah Carey, Here for It All (Mariah/gamma.): The most chart-accomplished artist with a new album out this week is certainly Mariah Carey, who has topped the Billboard 200 six times — although not since 2008, when she last visited No. 1 with her E=MC2 album. Still, Mariah has at least hit the top 10 with every studio album, and has reached the top five with each of her four full-lengths since ‘08.
That last streak may be in slight jeopardy with the release of Here for It All, her first new album of the 2020s, which will have to do most of its damage in sales, without much to talk about in the way of big streaming numbers. But it should sell fairly well, with help from a trio of alternate variants each on CD and vinyl (two with different covers, one signed), as well as two cassette editions and a deluxe download edition, the latter with an exclusive bonus track.
IN THE MIX
Olivia Dean, The Art of Loving (Capitol/Polydor): One artist who is doing just fine on streaming — and better every week — is U.K. singer-songwriter Olivia Dean, whose global breakthrough single “Man I Need” climbs to No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week. It should shoot up even higher next week following the release of The Art of Loving, which is also available on seven CD variants, and already appears on its way to a second breakout hit, “So Easy (To Fall in Love).”
P1Harmony, Ex (FNC Entertainment/Hello82): South Korean pop group P1Harmony has already visited the Billboard 200 once this year, reaching No. 23 on the chart with May’s Duh! EP. The sextet is on track to do even better with September’s five-track Ex EP, helped by a whopping 17 CD variants, as well as six vinyl variants, all with collectible items (some randomized) inside the packaging.