Artists With the Most Billboard 200 No. 1 Albums in the 21st Century

“I wasn’t about to make the same album twice,” Taylor Swift once mused of the process of crafting LPs. “I wanted to challenge myself. “I tend to write for the entire two-year process,” Swift said ahead of the arrival of 1989.

From her self-titled debut in 2006 through 1989 in 2014, Swift released her first five studio albums spaced in every even-numbered year.

“Usually things I write in the first six to eight months get thrown out,” Swift shared. “Not because they weren’t great songs, but because they don’t fit my idea of what the new album should be.”

By the close of the first quarter of the 21st century, Swift had perfected the art of making albums better than anyone, per the tally of artists with the most No. 1s on the Billboard 200 chart. Swift scored 14 leading collections in that span, one-upping both Drake and Jay-Z.

Below, run down the artists with the most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart over the first 25 years of the 21st century.

Plus, browse highlights of Billboard’s Top Artists of the 21st Century chart and the entire 100-position ranking in Billboard’s charts menu, as well as the leading titles on Billboard’s Top Billboard 200 Albums of the 21st Century chart and Then, check back tomorrow (Jan. 10) for the premiere of Billboard’s Top Hot 100 Songs of the 21st Century chart.

Billboard’s Top Artists, Top Billboard 200 Albums and Top Hot 100 Songs of the 21st Century recaps reflect performance on weekly charts dated Jan. 1, 2000, through Dec. 28, 2024. The Top Artists category ranks the best-performing acts in that span based on activity on the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100. (Titles released prior to mid-1999 are excluded, although such entries that appeared on the Billboard 200 or Hot 100 in that span contribute to the calculation of the Top Artists chart.)