Where Are All the Hit Soundtracks? Hollywood’s Music Magic Is Missing From the Charts
It’s been a quiet stretch for movie soundtracks on the music charts — eerily quiet. For the eighth consecutive week, not a single film soundtrack has cracked the top half of the Billboard 200 albums chart. In an era where pop music and cinema once regularly collided to produce culture-defining albums, this prolonged drought is raising eyebrows in the industry. The last time soundtracks were this absent from the upper ranks of the chart was back in 2021, when the pandemic took a major toll on the film and music industries alike.
Currently, the highest-ranking movie soundtrack is Twisters: The Album, sitting all the way down at No. 174 on the Billboard 200. It’s a sharp fall from grace for an album that debuted at No. 7 last August and featured notable contributions like Luke Combs’ “Ain’t No Love in Oklahoma.” Despite its low position on the main chart, Twisters is still dominating the Top Soundtracks chart, now marking its 24th nonconsecutive week at No. 1 in that category.
This long reign mirrors what we saw with Barbie: The Album, which spent a staggering 33 weeks atop Top Soundtracks between 2023 and 2024. The common denominator? Both albums faced little competition from other new or popular film soundtracks. In fact, during the final 10 weeks of Barbie’s chart-topping run, it didn’t even crack the top half of the Billboard 200 — a sign that the overall demand for soundtracks may be stagnating despite a few standout titles.
The soundtrack slump is particularly surprising given that just a few months ago, Wicked stirred excitement with its music debut, entering the Billboard 200 at No. 2. It stayed in the top 10 for eight straight weeks, briefly breathing life into a genre that has long been essential to the movie experience — think The Bodyguard, Titanic, A Star Is Born, and The Greatest Showman. But since Wicked, no soundtrack has stepped up to claim the spotlight.
There is, however, hope on the horizon. The upcoming Smurfs Movie Soundtrack (Music From & Inspired By) has fans buzzing thanks to Rihanna’s long-awaited return with the song “Friend of Mine.” If the hype holds, this could be the first soundtrack in months to break into the Billboard 200’s top 100. And that’s not all — F1: The Album is revving up for release on June 27 and could be a game-changer. Featuring heavyweights like Don Toliver and Doja Cat, as well as appearances from ROSÉ of BLACKPINK, Myke Towers, and Tate McRae, the album is expected to make a significant commercial impact.
Backed by Atlantic Records — the label behind major hits like The Greatest Showman, Barbie, and Twisters — F1: The Album is being positioned as a potential summer blockbuster, both on screen and in the headphones.
So while the screen may have gone dark recently for hit soundtracks, a new wave of releases could soon flip the script. The big question now is: which film will deliver the next chart-topping musical moment?