Billboard 200 3/5/16: Adele #1 (151k/125k)

[areyoureadytojump]

www.billboard.com/biz/articles/6882842/adeles-25-back-at-no-1-on-billboard-200-for-ninth-week

Adele's '25' Back at No. 1 on Billboard 200 for Ninth Week
By Keith Caulfield | February 21, 2016 3:00 PM EST

After a two-week vacation from the No. 1 slot on the Billboard 200 albums chart, Adele’s 25 is back on top for a ninth nonconsecutive week. The set rises 2-1 with 151,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Feb. 18, according to Nielsen Music (up 25 percent). It sold 125,000 in pure album sales (up 23 percent).

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The new March 5-dated chart (where Adele is No. 1) will be posted in full to Billboard’s websites on Tuesday, Feb. 23.

Justin Bieber’s Purpose climbs 5-2 with 84,000 units (up 15 percent), while Rihanna’s Anti is steady at No. 3 with 79,000 (down 18 percent).

Both Adele and Bieber, like many artists on the chart, profit from performances and wins on the Grammy Awards (Feb. 15). The show was broadcast live on CBS. During the broadcast, Adele performed the 25 album cut “All I Ask,” while Bieber sang a medley of “Love Yourself” and his Grammy-winning “Where Are U Now” (with Diplo and Skrillex).


Country duo Joey + Rory score a career high week with the arrival of their new inspirational album Hymns, at No. 4. The effort bows with 70,000 units (68,000 in pure album sales), logging their first top 10 album on the Billboard 200 and best sales week ever.

The album also crowns both Top Country Albms and Top Christian Albums -- their first leader on both tallies. Hymns was released on Feb. 12 through the pair’s own Farmhouse Recordings label.

Back on the Billboard 200, Chris Stapleton’s Traveller rides a Grammy win for best country album (and show performance by Stapleton) to an 11-5 gain (60,000 units; up 58 percent). The set sold 51,000 copies, up 60 percent.

The Weeknd, who also performed on the Grammys and won two awards, jets 12-6 with Beauty Behind the Madness (51,000 units; up 38 percent and 26,000 copies sold; up 55 percent).

Twenty One Pilots’ Blurryface rises 9-7 (45,000; up 7 percent) and Taylor Swift’s 1989 returns to the top 10 with a 20-8 gain (43,000 units; up 91 percent and 31,000 sales; up 109 percent). Swift opened the Grammy Awards with a performance of the 1989 single “Out of the Woods,” while 1989 itself won two awards, including album of the year.

Closing out the new top 10 are the Now 57 compilation (dipping 7-9 with 40,000 units; down 37 percent) and Future’s Evol (1-10 with nearly 40,000; down 70 percent).

[onebuffalo]

Very impressive achievement for Joey + Rory. I'm glad she got to see that.

[Caviar]

Solid gains this week. Really impressed Rihanna fended off the Grammy performances.

[Envoirment]

Great to see Adele at #1 again, but with way less than what I was expecting based off HITS. The grammy boost was a lot weaker this year it seems.

[renfield75]

Feb 21, 2016 16:15:54 GMT -5 Envoirment said:

Great to see Adele at #1 again, but with way less than what I was expecting based off HITS. The grammy boost was a lot weaker this year it seems.

I think it's because so many of the big winners and performers this year ("1989", "Uptown Funk", Ed Sheeran, Meghan Trainor) are older in terms of release and already had such massive success. There are only so many people left to buy 1989 or 25. If there had been newer or less exposed material this year we might have seen a bigger bump. Plus, honestly, the show was kinda dull this year. Not bad, but nothing that made people want to rush and buy or stream. Maybe the Hamilton soundtrack or if Demi Lovato had released her cover of Lionel Richie's "Hello".

[Zach]

Anti held up pretty well this week. Interesting.

[Glove Slap]

Rihanna would have probably been #2 had she performed, but as a post-Grammy week, this is isn't a strong effect and showing overall.

[c0ldasfire]

Feb 21, 2016 15:24:10 GMT -5 onebuffalo said:

Very impressive achievement for Joey + Rory. I'm glad she got to see that.

I am so happy for them!

[jenglisbe]

Yeah that boost for 25 is underwhelming. What are total sales now? Maybe 8.45 million? It's going to be a slow crawl to 10 million in that it's likely to start selling under 100k a week the next few months. Maybe the tour can give it a boost.

[areyoureadytojump]

8,132,000 last week + 125,000 this week = 8,257,000

[kanimal]

Feb 21, 2016 16:15:54 GMT -5 Envoirment said:

Great to see Adele at #1 again, but with way less than what I was expecting based off HITS. The grammy boost was a lot weaker this year it seems.

It looks like it overperformed the Hits numbers (124K/148K)? Or did they sneakily lower them over the weekend?

[Enigma.]

Yea awful for Adele. I wonder why she bothers in the first place....

[#LisaRinna]

The Grammys were sleep sleep, so I'm not surprised at the low boost.

[areyoureadytojump]

If you know where to look...

and...

With the new RIAA album requirements, this is kind of pointless now:

Albums on the Billboard 200 that have not been certified with the RIAA:

Sales estimates are from the 2/27 chart:

Coldplay 453k
Josh Groban 656k

Only albums over 450k and that have been on the chart for 4+ weeks are listed

[areyoureadytojump]

hiphopdx.com/news/id.37592/title.hip-hop-album-sales-the-weeknd-kendrick-lamar-future

Hip Hop Album Sales: The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar & Future
February 22, 2016 | 8:30 AM
by Victoria Hernandez

During Grammys week, Hip Hop album sales surged. The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar saw significant jumps in their standings on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart. Kanye West's The Life of deleted did not land on the chart. As of yet, it has only been released for streaming on TIDAL and will supposedly not be available for purchase.

The Weeknd Continues His Sales

The Weeknd's Beauty Behind the Madness charts at #6 this week after falling out of the Top 10 the past few weeks. It saw a 38 percent growth in sales. The Weeknd was nominated for seven Grammy Awards and took home the prize for Best Urban Contemporary Album. He also performed at the ceremony.

Kendrick Lamar Shoots Up The Charts

Kendrick Lamar saw a 229 percent leap in the album sales for To Pimp a Butterfly. The project lands at #16 this week. The Compton, California rapper led the field with 11 Grammy nominations. He took home five awards, sweeping the Rap categories including Best Rap Album. He performed at the ceremony as well.

Future Has Slight Dropoff

Future's EVOL has a slight dropoff in sales this week as it lands at #10. The album debuted at #1, making him the fastest rapper ever to have three projects at the top of the charts. What a Time to Be Alive, his joint project with Drake, lands at #32 and Dirty Sprite 2 is now #42 on the chart.

Top 10 Billboard Top 200 Rap & R&B Albums For The Week Ending 02/18/2016

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.

#3 Rihanna - ANTI - 79,072 (34,024) [43,215,673]

#6 The Weeknd - Beauty Behind the Madness - 50,638 (25,759) [20,358,145]

#10 Future - EVOL - 39,630 (18,068) [24,496,523]

#11 Kevin Gates - ISLAH - 36,298 (19,648) [15,607,870]

#12 G-Eazy - When It's Dark Out - 35,926 (12,621) [19,815,319]

#13 Bryson Tiller - Trapsoul - 35,450 (13,467) [25,876,209]

#16 Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly - 33,270 (24,450) [9,007,716]

#20 Fetty Wap - Fetty Wap - 24,847 (5,814) [16,994,810]

#24 Flo Rida - My House - 23,299 (2,160) [8,997,357]

#26 Chris Brown - Royalty - 22,288 (12,877) [9,101,938]

[areyoureadytojump]

roughstock.com/news/2016/02/39829-the-top-10-country-albums-chart-february-22-2016

The Top 10 Country Albums Chart: February 22, 2016
Posted By Matt Bjorke

CNTRY Artist Album Week Total Scans

1 -- NEW Joey+Rory Hymns 68,300 69,000
2 Chris Stapleton Traveller 51,300 913,800
3 Sam Hunt Montevallo 20,400 1,042,600
4 -- NEW Vince Gill Down To My Last Bad Habit 17,200 17,200
5 Carrie Underwood Storyteller 9,600 514,600
6 Eric Church Mr. Misunderstood 8,300 318,100
7 Thomas Rhett Tangled Up 7,800 303,800
8 Luke Bryan Kill The Lights 6,900 900,000
9 -- NEW Wheeler Walker Jr Redneck Shit 5,900 5,900
10 Little Big Town Pain Killer 5,400 444,300
11 Blake Shelton Reloaded: 20 #1 Hits 5,200 240,100
12 Charles Kelley The Driver 4,900 18,900
13 Cam Untamed 4,900 95,300
14 -- NEW Wynonna/Big Noise Wynonna & the Big Noise 4,700 4,700
15 Hank Williams Jr It's About Time 4,500 50,600

-- Chris Young I'm Comin' Over 4,000 158,400
-- Tim McGraw Damn County Music 3,700 116,000
-- Brothers Osborne Pawn Shop 3,500 39,300
-- Brantley Gilbert Just As I Am 2,600 961,400
-- Don Henley Cass County 2,500 238,700
-- Zac Brown Band Jekyll+Hyde 2,400 615,400
-- Old Dominion Meat And Candy 2,400 67,400
-- Chris Janson Buy Me A Boat 2,200 76,600
-- Kelsea Ballerini The First Time 2,100 105,900
-- Carrie Underwood Greatest Hits: Decade #1 2,100 478,400
-- Jason Isbell Something More Than Free 1,800 128,800
-- George Strait Cold Beer Conversation 1,700 224,000
-- Maddie & Tae Start Here 1,400 86,600
-- NEW Brett Young Brett Young EP 1,300 1,300
-- Kacey Musgraves Pageant Material 1,300 162,400
-- Jana Kramer Thirty-One 1,300 58,400
-- Joey+Rory Country Classics 1,100 28,700
-- Reba Love Somebody 800 192,700
-- NEW Lorrie Morgan Letting Go...Slow 800 800
-- Home Free Country Evolution 600 30,700
-- Ashley Monroe The Blade 600 35,600

[Enigma.]

Why didn't Kanye chart at all? Doesn't Tidal report their numbers to Soundscan in general or was this just a special case?

[areyoureadytojump]

Tidal is quickly becoming the place to go to if an artist doesn't care about the charts anymore.

www.businessinsider.com/kanye-west-the-life-of-deleted-not-in-charts-tidal-wont-release-streaming-data-2016-2

Kanye West's new album isn't in the charts because Tidal won't release streaming data
by Rob Price

Kanye West's latest album won't be appearing in the charts any time soon.

As The New York Times reports, streaming platform Tidal isn't giving out any data about how much it has been streamed — so Billboard can't include it.

"Billboard has been informed that Tidal is not currently reporting streams for tracks on Kanye’s album to Nielsen Music," Billboad's VP of charts and data development Silvio Pietroluongo said. "Therefore streams from Tidal for this title will not contribute to Billboard’s chart rankings at this time."

"The Life of deleted" (TLOP), released earlier in February, is Kanye West's seventh studio album.

The launch has been at times disorientating. Kanye — AKA Yeezy — jumped between multiple names for the album before finally settling on TLOP, and posted frequently updated track listings on Twitter as he worked.

On February 12, he debuted the album at a show at Madison Square Garden alongside his latest fashion line — but continued to change the track listing until its public launch two days later.

It did not go smoothly: Initially available to buy on his website, users encountered issues trying to buy it, and the download option has now been removed altogether. Yeezy now says the album will "never be for sale," forcing users to install Tidal, the Jay Z-owned streaming platform he has a stake in, to listen.

Throughout this all, Kanye has been tweeting a surreal stream-of-consciousness from this Twitter account — alternately picking fights with ex-girlfriends and asking Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for a billion dollars.

But even without Tidal's streaming data, we know TLOP is pretty popular. More than half a million people have pirated it.

[Gary]

Kanye and 'deleted' Didn't Hit the Charts, But They Will (When He Decides He Wants To)
News /
Digital and Mobile

By Dan Rys | February 24, 2016 4:05 PM EST


The stutter-stop semi-release of Kanye West's The Life of deleted on Feb. 14 eventually shook out with a "partial version" of the album streaming exclusively on Tidal, a stasis in which it still exists with an official commercial release, if at all, seemingly somewhere on the horizon. But Tidal's decision to not report its number of streams to Nielsen Music this week means that despite the fact that the album is out, TLOP is nowhere to be found on the Billboard charts.


The rollout strategy so far has been by all accounts unprecedented, and West's last-minute decision to hold the album back, regardless of his creative compulsions, seems certain to cut into his eventual sales and, by extension, chart position. Not helping matters is a report released last week by piracy watchdog TorrentFreak that estimated deleted had been illegally downloaded more than 500,000 times in its first 24 hours of availability, a situation that Trans World Entertainment exec Ish Cuebas tells Billboard will only get worse the longer West waits to release a finished product.

Yet no matter how long he waits, West has one ace up his sleeve that could prevent TLOP from being his first album since The College Dropout to miss out on the top spot on the Billboard 200. Each ticket purchased for his Madison Square Garden Yeezy 3 fashion show Feb. 11 was bundled with a digital download of the album, set to be delivered contingent upon "Def Jam's official release" of The Life of deleted, meaning somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 fans are currently in a suspended pre-order situation. In addition, fans who purchased tickets to the simulcast at nearly 400 movie theaters in the U.S. and 800 worldwide were given the option of buying a ticket for admission ($25 in the States) or a ticket bundled with an album download ($35) for each screening. Those downloads will be counted as sales during the chart week when the album is eventually delivered.

That means whenever West does release The Life of deleted, he can count on thousands of sales already in the bank on top of any additional sales or streaming numbers accrued during the week. If deleted does arrive as some sort of deluxe physical edition or bundle, as multiple sources have indicated is on the table, it could also help combat piracy by enticing fans who already have the "partial" version to spend money on the "finished" product. And any release wider than a Tidal streaming exclusive -- whether to retail or to other streaming services -- would as well.

Currently, BY Experience and Fathom Events, the companies responsible for presenting and distributing the MSG show, respectively, to domestic theaters, declined to provide information on ticket sales, number of theaters sold out, or how many fans bundled admission with the album download code, while a representative for Def Jam told Billboard the label does not have those numbers, either. But the live event at Madison Square Garden sold out in 10 minutes, according to West's Twitter account, despite tickets starting at $50, and 20 million people logged on to Tidal's live stream, volume that sunk the stream's video quality. Simply put, the demand for West's first album in almost three years was through the roof, and with theater capacity averaging around 200 people according to a Fathom Events rep, it's reasonable to assume that thousands more are also awaiting the album's delivery.

One retail executive told Billboard that with a conventional release (and the hype surrounding the album), deleted could have sold between 350,000-400,000 copies in its first week, which Billboard estimates would pay out to $3.6 million in sales revenue at standard wholesale pricing. That number is likely out the window now, though West wouldn't have to reach that high to make a decent chart debut; on the current Billboard 200 chart, Adele's 25 returns to No. 1 with 151,000 equivalent album units (125,000 in pure sales) in its 11th week, while Future's Evol rounds out the top 10 at just under 40,000 units. With approximately 400 U.S. theaters at an average capacity of 200 people, only a quarter of the maximum number of attendees per theater would have had to purchase the album bundle to push deleted past the 40,000 mark.

That makes a top 10 debut practically a slam dunk, even if Tidal never reports any streaming numbers (a rep for the service did not respond to this inquiry as of press time). A No. 1 album would be tougher; setting aside the record-breaking success of Adele's 25, the average one-week sales of a No. 1 album over the past year stands at 145,000. Without the help of streaming equivalent albums (and based solely on these download numbers), it would be an uphill -- though by no means impossible -- task to top the chart.

Of course, this is all contingent on when West deems the album, once again, to be ready for release. Until then, Kanye West and his fans will have to keep the faith.

[Raccoon]

Any chance Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' "This Unruly Mess I Made" could top "25" next week? The Heist sold 78,000 copies in its first week, I understand there isn't much momentum, but it seems like it could happen.

[Deleted]

Feb 24, 2016 18:52:22 GMT -5 Raccoon said:

Any chance Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' "This Unruly Mess I Made" could top "25" next week? The Heist sold 78,000 copies in its first week, I understand there isn't much momentum, but it seems like it could happen.

Sadly, I don't think it has a chance. Due to the uproar over White Privelege 2 and Downtown underperforming compared to his Heist singles, I'm pretty sure he's lost quite a few fans. Even as one of the people who thinks he gets way too much hate, I'm expecting 40k at best first week.

[areyoureadytojump]

www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/6890321/billboard-200-chart-moves-deadpool-debuts-top-40

Billboard 200 Chart Moves: 'Deadpool' Soundtrack Debuts in Top 40
2/25/2016 by Keith Caulfield

Now, let’s take a closer look at some of the action on the latest Billboard 200 chart:

— Taylor Swift, 1989 - No. 8 — Following Swift’s multiple Grammy Award wins on Feb. 15, including album of the year for 1989, the set vaults from No. 20 to No. 8 with a 91 percent gain in units for the week (rising to 43,000). It sold 31,000 in pure album sales -- an increase of 109 percent.

— Future, Evol - No. 10 — With a slide from No. 1 to No. 10 in its second chart week, Evol logs the largest positional drop from the top slot since Sept. 19, 2015. That week, Disturbed also fell 1-10 with Immortalized. (What was the last album to fall from No. 1 straight out of the top 10, you might ask? Muse’s Drones, on the July 4, 2015-dated list, when it descended 1-19.)

— David Bowie, Blackstar - No. 22 — Blackstar racks up a fifth week in the top 40 (rising 42-22), making it Bowie’s first studio effort to do so since 1984’s Tonight logged 12 weeks in the region.

— James Bay, Chaos and the Calm - No. 23 — After Bay performed on the Grammy Awards (Feb. 15) alongside Tori Kelly, he sees his album zoom 99-23 to its highest rank since its No. 9 debut on April 11, 2015. The album shifted 23,000 units in the week ending Feb. 28 (up 234 percent).

— Soundtrack, Deadpool - No. 30 — The hit film, starring Ryan Reynolds as the title character, sees its companion soundtrack arrive at No. 30 with 20,000 units (18,000 in pure album sales). It’s the fourth soundtrack to reach the top 40 in 2016, following Star Wars: The Force Awakens (which peaked at No. 5), Straight Outta Compton (No. 39) and Grease Live! (No. 37).

— Wynonna & The Big Noise, Wynonna & The Big Noise - No. 162 — After a nearly six-year absence from the chart, Wynonna returns with Wynonna & The Big Noise. The country star notched her first solo entry back on April 18, 1992 with her self-titled album (which debuted and peaked at No. 4). As one-half of the mother-daughter duo The Judds, she first visited the list on Dec. 1, 1984 with Why Not Me.

[areyoureadytojump]

www.metalinsider.net/columns/metal-by-numbers/metal-by-numbers-224-the-holy-grail-of-album-sales

Metal By Numbers 2/24: The holy grail of album sales
Posted by Matt Brown on February 24, 2016

Metal By Numbers is a weekly column in which we look at the top metal sellers and debuts of the week.

If you’re at all familiar with Metallica, then you know that The Black Album is one of the best-selling albums of all time. What you might not have known is that for the past couple weeks, The Black Album has been selling really well. I’m talking around 5,000 to 6,000 copies a week kind of well. It’s #63 on the Billboard 200 and was sitting in the top 50 not too long ago. While this all might seem like just a drop in the bucket for an album that has sold over 16 million copies in the US, when you think about how an album (not a greatest hits mind you, an original LP) from 1991 is selling like this today, you can understand why it’s so noteworthy. For the record, Master of Puppets sold 4,300 this week, …And Justice for All about 4,000 and Ride the Lightning about 2,700.

Notable Debuts:

Holy Grail, Times of Pride & Peril (Prothetic) 1,400 sold

Holy Grail’s third album has a debut on par with their previous album.



Rotting Christ, Rituals (Season of Mist) 1,100 sold

The band’s latest manages to top their previous record’s debut.


Notable Sales:

Disturbed, Immortalized (Reprise) #44, 7,100 sold

A small 5% boost.



Megadeth, Dystopia (UMe) #51, 6,200 sold

Dys dropped by 20%.



Five Finger Death Punch, Got Your Six (Prospect Park) #70, 4,550 sold

Got your 19% boost.



Dream Theater, The Astonishing (Roadrunner) #92, 3,200 sold

A 41% drop is astonishing, but not in a good way.



Shinedown, Threat To Survival (Atlantic) #95, 3,150 sold

This holds the same position as last week.



Various Artists, Now That’s What I Call Rock (Sony) #113, 2,600 sold

A 16% drop now.



Red, Of Beauty and Rage (Essential) #144, 2,050 sold

Over 100,000 copies sold.



Breaking Benjamin, Dark Before Dawn (Hollywood) #153, 1,975 sold

This sold nearly the same as last week.



Hollywood Vampires, Hollywood Vampires (UMe) #163, 1,950 sold

The band’s debut album rockets back up following their tribute to Lemmy at the Grammys.



Bring Me The Horizon, That’s The Spirit (Columbia) #177, 1,775 sold

If you’re wonder what standing on Coldplay table at the Grammys nets you, apparently it’s a 14% boost.