On this week’s Billboard Top 200 albums chart, The Weeknd rakes in sky-high numbers in the debut week of Starboy. Several Christmas albums start their ascent on the chart as three holiday LPs land in the Top 10, knocking Drake’s VIEWS out of the Top 10 for the first time.
The Weeknd Lands Second #1 Album With “Starboy”
The Weeknd’s Starboy has a stellar debut, taking the top spot on the chart with nearly 348,000 equivalent album units. The LP sold more than 209,000 albums and was streamed 175 million times, clearly matching those “astronomical” projections as it broke Spotify’s record for most streams in one day. The Canadian singer’s last output, Beauty Behind the Madness, lands at #36 this week, a 17 percent jump as people were preparing for Starboy’s release. That album also debuted at #1 upon its September 2015 release and was still in the Top 10 in January.
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Drake’s “VIEWS” Falls Out Of Top 10
Drake’s VIEWS has been steadily slipping down the chart these past few weeks and the LP officially exits the Top 10 in its 31st week on the chart, landing at #12 with just under 31,000 sales units. The project was still the second-highest streamed project of the week, getting 31.5 million plays.
Top 10 Billboard Top 200 Rap & R&B Albums For The Week Ending 12/01/2016
Note: The first number below is this week’s “total album equivalent units” count, an intersection of album sales, single sales, and streams implemented by Billboard’s new rating system. A pure album sales figure is available in bold in parenthesis and information about each album’s streaming count is available in brackets.
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#1 The Weeknd — Starboy — 347,966 (209,466) [175,182,572]
#4 Bruno Mars — 24K Magic — 72,856 (51,932) [21,939,996]
#12 Drake – VIEWS – 30,936 (7,457) [31,493,925]
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#15 A Tribe Called Quest — We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service —27,935 (22,291) [7,781,928]
#16 Rae Sremmurd — SremmLife 2 — 27,549 (2,287) [24,284,000]
#18 Various Artists – Suicide Squad: The Album – 25,640 (12,964) [11,197,142]
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#27 Rihanna – ANTI – 18,023 (3,291) [16,106,771]
#32 Travis Scott – Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight– 16,772 (3,099) [18,718,011]
#35 Prince — 4ever — 16,223 (13,751) [83,889]
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#36 The Weeknd — Beauty Behind the Madness — 16,165 (4,269) [15,478,543]
