‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ Skates Back to Top 10 on Billboard 200

Vince Guaraldi Trio’s soundtrack to the A Charlie Brown Christmas animated TV special is back in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 chart (dated Dec. 13) for the first time in nearly three years. It surges 18-9 with 46,000 equivalent album units earned (up 68%) in the United States in the week ending Dec. 4, according to Luminate.

It was last in the top 10 on the Jan. 7, 2023-dated chart, when it ranked at No. 10.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.

Of the 46,000 units the album earned for the week, album sales comprise 20,000 — up 64% and largely owed to vinyl purchases; it jumps 10-4 on Top Album Sales. The album earns its biggest sales week in three years, since it sold 23,000 copies on the Dec. 31, 2022. chart.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is among a crowded top 10 on the Top Album Sales chart, which is jam-packed full of gaining titles thanks to sales gains generated by Black Friday promotions. Seven of the top 10 titles all post gains. Stray Kids’ DO IT leads the chart (60,000 sold, down 79% in its second week), Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl rises 4-2 (46,000, up 121%), the Wicked: For Good soundtrack dips 2-3 (43,000, down 49% in its second week), the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack is up 6-5 (19,000, up 32%), the Stranger Things: The WSQK Collection jumps 26-6 (18,000, up 268%), Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend ascends 13-7 (17,000, up 72%), Stray Kids’ KARMA falls 5-8 (16,000, down 9%), the Wicked soundtrack dips 7-9 (15,000, though up 11%) and KATSEYE’s Beautiful Chaos rises 12-10 (15,000, up 42%).

A Charlie Brown Christmas also holds at No. 1 on both the Kid Albums and Independent Albums charts. It additionally appears in the top 10 on a sleigh-ful of other rankings: Jazz Albums (No. 2), Traditional Jazz Albums (No. 2), Top Holiday Albums (No. 3), Catalog Albums (No. 3), Soundtracks (No. 3), Indie Store Album Sales (No. 3), Vinyl Albums (No. 4). It also climbs 43-13 on Top Streaming Albums.

The A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack was released in 1965, the same year that the Emmy Award-winning special premiered on CBS, but it did not reach any Billboard ranking until 1987. That year, it debuted on the Top Holiday Albums chart, where it later peaked at No. 2 (Jan. 27, 2007). On the Billboard 200 chart, the set visited the top 10 for the first time on the Jan. 2, 2021-dated list, later peaking at No. 6 on the Jan. 1, 2022-dated chart.