Miley Cyrus’ new album fell from No. 1 to No. 157 on the Billboard 200 in its second week, the steepest drop Variety could find for a record in the week after a No. 1 debut.
“Bass Persuades” had opened at the top. When Billboard posted the top 10 of the next chart on Sunday, it was not there. The full list put it at No. 157, Variety reported Tuesday.
Miley Cyrus’ new album suffers one of the biggest drops from No. 1 in Billboard chart history https://t.co/Nv6CiWPzjM https://t.co/zYRwLthnWS
— New York Post (@nypost) October 7, 2026
“Bass Persuades” was a new release. Variety said the title track had peaked at No. 35 on the Hot 100, and that reviews found the rest of the album less of a dance record than the single suggested.
Cyrus has since released a video for a follow-up, “Different Religion.”
The debut itself was narrow. Parade reported that the album opened with about 61,000 equivalent units, only 70 more than Ella Langley’s “Dandelion,” after Atlantic issued 16 vinyl variants, nine CD versions, six downloads, and a cassette, and cut the digital price.
Before that push, the album had been projected to open outside the top five.
CONGRATS to Miley Cyrus for making bilboard HISTORY 👏 After 81 years of the Billboard 200, she now holds the biggest free fall by a solo artist EVER, dropping 156 spots in ONE week after her label used fraudulent tactics to inflate her sales and force a No. 1 debut https://t.co/h34Dd1Vcmt
— Transleytanked (@transleytanked) October 6, 2026
Three weeks before the chart fall, Cyrus had talked as if the audience were already settled. On Apple Music’s Zane Lowe show, she said two Hollywood Bowl dates, set for Oct. 16 and 18, were a dress rehearsal for a residency close to home.
She told Lowe her bed would be about a 10-minute drive from the venue after the show, People reported.
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Nearly 1.5 million people entered the presale queue for those two nights, People and Entertainment Weekly reported.
The Bowl holds about 17,500, so the pair of shows could seat about 35,000. Both sold out within 10 minutes, Variety reported. They are her first major dates since a Mexico City festival set in November 2022.
Lowe told her she would need something like 80 Bowl shows to meet that demand. Cyrus said that had been the idea. “I’ve learned now through the queue that my calculations are correct, and people will come to me. I don’t need to drive to you,” she said. Page Six quoted a longer version of the same remark: “Proven. That was a test. I win.”
Do you think Miley Cyrus’ political stance affects her music career?
Yes, negatively
94% (48 votes)
Yes, positively
4% (2 votes)
No effect
2% (1 vote)
Not sure
0% (0 votes)
Cyrus has also taken blunt political shots at President Donald Trump.
After Super Tuesday in 2016, Cyrus posted a screenshot of the results and wrote that she was going to “move out da country,” the Washington Examiner reported. She called Trump a “f***ing nightmare,” posted a photo of herself crying, and finished with, “Honestly f*** this s*** I am moving if this is my president! I don’t say things I don’t mean!”
Lizzo’s album failed Miley’s album failed
all these failing albums. I wonder why!
Miley Cyrus hit with devastating career blow as new album Bass Persuades suffers biggest chart fall in Billboard historyRead: https://t.co/DRZAdVQXST https://t.co/5xeMXaPNXz
— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) October 6, 2026
She did not move.
In a 2019 Vanity Fair interview, she called the leaving talk something “we all said” and did not mean, then asked whether she would feel proud “running away from, and leaving everyone else here to live under, a completely racist, sexist, hateful a**hole.”
She stayed, and the country she said she would flee is the one whose chart just recorded the fall.
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