RS Charts: The Kid Laroi’s ‘F*ck Love’ Completes Long Climb to Number One

After topping the RS 100 with his single “Stay,” the Kid Laroi also reached the top of the Rolling Stone Top 200 Albums chart with F*ck Love, the latest edition of a mixtape that began its journey back in July 2020. That’s when the Kid Laroi released the first installment of the project, a 15-song set which featured Juice WRLD and Lil Mosey. F*ck Love (Savage) arrived in November 2020, including the 15 cuts from F*ck Love plus seven new songs. Then the Kid Laroi dropped F*ck Love 3, with seven additional tracks, and F*ck Love 3+, with six more, in quick succession, causing the original project to balloon to 35 songs and roughly 80 minutes of music. 

In its various iterations, F*ck Love has spent 53 weeks on the RS 200. The latest version climbed to Number One. It earned 104.1 million streams, 15,300 song downloads, and 1,600 album sales. Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour, a multi-week Number One, matched the Kid Laroi in song downloads and earned more album sales. But F*ck Love picked up many more streams (it also had many more songs), allowing it to jump to Number One. 

Streaming services are primarily set to deliver fans new music week of release; they are less adept at driving listeners to an album that’s seven days old or more. That means the music industry has been trying to figure out strategies to slow an album’s streaming decline in the second week or after. Releasing deluxe editions of a collection has become a popular tactic for boosting streams: Artists put out the same set with a few new tracks to get listeners to check out the whole package all over again. While many artists have released a single deluxe edition of a release, the Kid Laroi has gone further, adding a handful of songs to F*ck Love several times over the course of a year.

Doja Cat’s Planet Her, Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album, and Pop Smoke’s Faith rounded out the Top Five. (Both Planet Her and Faith also received the deluxe treatment in the past, while Dangerous was repackaged with three bonus songs.) Taylor Swift’s Folklore also reentered the Top Ten for the first time since March, climbing to Number Six thanks to 9,900 album sales — a vinyl version of the set was released on July 22nd — and 16.4 million streams.

The Rolling Stone 200 Albums chart tracks the most popular releases of the week in the United States. Entries are ranked by album units, a number that combines digital and physical album sales, digital song sales, and audio streams using a custom weighting system. The chart does not include passive listening such as terrestrial radio or digital radio. The RS 200 Albums chart is updated daily, and each week Rolling Stone finalizes and publishes an official version of the chart, covering the seven-day period ending with the previous Thursday.

The week’s biggest debut belonged to Paul McCartney’s McCartney III Imagined, on which Beck, Blood Orange, Dominic Fike and many more artists add to or re-work songs from the former Beatle’s 2020 album. McCartney III Imagined originally came out in April, but physical copies hit stores July 23. The album earned less than half a million streams, but it amassed more than 14,000 sales, launching at Number 11. 

After his first full week on the RS 200, EST Gee jumped into the Top Ten with Bigger Than Life of Death, picking up 31.2 million streams. (The 15-song set was released on a Wednesday, towards the end of a tracking week, so it debuted on last week’s chart on the strength of just two days’ worth of listening.) Meanwhile, John Mayer’s Sob Rock fell from Number One to Number 22 in its second week on the RS 200. 

Another rising rapper, Yung Bleu, landed at Number 15 with Moon Boy. Yung Bleu had previously grabbed a Drake feature for his hit “You’re Mines Still,” and he packed Moon Boy with more features from A Boogie wit da Hoodie, Gunna, Big Sean, Moneybagg Yo, and many more. The set amassed 24.3 million streams. Retro soul singer Leon Bridges debuted two spots ahead of Yung Bleu thanks to album sales: Bridges picked up 7.9 million streams, but he earned more than 11,000 sales, powering him to Number 13.

Next week, Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever is a shoe-in for Number One on the RS 200. Prince’s latest release from the vaults, Welcome 2 America, and Isaiah Rashad’s long-awaited The House Is Burning are also expected to perform well. 

See the full RS 200 here.