Short summary — 170 characters maximum: Miley’s Bass Persuades beats Ella Langley’s Dandelion by only 70 units in what may be the closest documented Billboard 200 race in decades. LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – DECEMBER 04: Miley Cyrus attends the Avatar: Fire and Ash Ross House Q&A at Ross House on December 04, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for 20th Century Studios)
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Miley returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week for the first time in 13 years, but she almost didn’t make it. Bass Persuades narrowly beats Ella Langley’s Dandelion for the throne, and the difference between the two albums is considerably smaller than the rounded figures published by Billboard make it seem. Based on other famously close races from the SoundScan and Luminate era, that could be the narrowest documented battle for No. 1 in more than three decades.
Miley Won By Only 70 Units
Billboard reports both Bass Persuades and Dandelion at roughly 61,000 equivalent album units, which makes the two projects look tied when the figures are rounded. The underlying numbers reveal just how little separated Miley from Langley.
According to the Luminate’s totals, Bass Persuades shifted just over 60,900 equivalent album units, while Dandelion managed almost 60,850. Miley wins the race by just only a few dozen units — a margin of roughly one-tenth of 1%.
The final, tiny 70-unit advantage is all Bass Persuades needed to become Cyrus’s sixth No. 1 album and her first since Bangerz in 2013.
Aerosmith Once Claimed a No. 1 By Fewer Than 200 Copies
For years, one of the most famous razor-thin Billboard 200 races belonged to Aerosmith and the Space Jam soundtrack. On the chart dated April 5, 1997, Aerosmith’s Nine Lives debuted at No. 1 with roughly 140,000 copies sold, while Space Jam surged to second place.
The Los Angeles Times, citing then-Billboard chart director Geoff Mayfield, narrowed the difference between the two competitors to fewer than 170 sales. That finish was long treated as one of the closest No. 1 battles of the SoundScan era – when purchases were all that mattered – but even the upper end of that tiny margin is still more than twice the distance separating Miley and Langley this week.
Joe Perry (L) and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith perform at Shoreline Amphitheatre on October 16, 1997 in Mountain View, California. (Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)
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Green Day Beat Eminem By 178 Copies
Another microscopic race on the tally took place in 2005 when Green Day’s American Idiot reclaimed the Billboard 200 throne over Eminem’s Encore. American Idiot sold 100,167 copies, beating Eminem by exactly 178. Even that extraordinarily close contest was more than 100 units larger than the one Miley just won.
Alicia Keys Has Been In Two Extremely Close Races
Alicia Keys appears twice when looking at the closest Billboard 200 finishes from the past quarter-century, once as the runner-up and another time as the winner.
In 2001, D12’s Devil’s Night returned to No. 1 in its third week on the chart with approximately 173,956 copies sold. Keys’ Songs in A Minor finished only 306 copies behind.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 02: Honoree Alicia Keys accepts the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award onstage during the 67th Annual GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on February 02, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
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Two years later, Keys came out on the other side of another photo finish. The Diary of Alicia Keys returned to the highest rung on the chart following the final sales week of 2003 with about 370,000 copies. She bested country artist Toby Keith’s Shock’n Y’all by fewer than 500 sales.
Miley May Claim The Closest No. 1 Race of the Modern Era
All of those finishes were considered extraordinarily narrow when they happened, with margins measured in only a few hundred copies, despite weekly totals that often reached well into six figures. Miley and Langley have now cut that difference down to only double digit equivalent album units.
Because Billboard publishes rounded totals, similarly microscopic margins are not always visible in the public record, and declaring any contest to be the closest ever requires caution. Luminate – which gathers sales and streaming data which then powers the charts in America – does not allow for exact numbers to be published, but they are available to music industry professionals.
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