HITS 12/15: Nicki Minaj 170-190k, Tate McRae 40-50k

[Mayman]

New Releases: Pink Power

"With the biggest female rap debut of 2023, Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday 2 (Young Money/Republic) will open with an impressive 170-190k, easily #1 on next week’s HITS Top 50. RCA’s Tate McCrae is trending toward a first week of 40-50k, which would be largest opening of her career.

Nicki Minaj (Young Money/Republic) 170-190k
Tate McRae (RCA) 40-50k

If you take a swig of holiday cider for every week Republic logged a #1 this year, you actually turn into Santa."

[Wavey✨️]

GAG.🩷
Let's go up!

[fridayteenage]

around queen numbers
pretty decent

[NeRD]

Those are great numbers. I think it'll trend upward with her marketing plan next week.

[Caviar]

Incredible numbers.

[think pink.]

Fantastic numbers! She’ll also become the first female rapper with 3 #1 albums.

She has HITS on this album to carry it. Hopefully they play it smart.

[iHype.]

McRae*

Nicki's numbers are fine, they'll probably end past 200k+ knowing how chart observant her base is. 

Although for me personally this album was not worth the wait. Crazy with Queen & PF2 she took 5~ years each to put together her weakest albums that ended up still being rushed out last second anyways. One of her biggest career mistakes imo is she should've released albums more frequently. Yearly releases would suit her, she'll always get a decent first week with her fanbase and her relevance/collab draw will always guarantee her 1 or 2 decent sized hits. At this point it's also clearly not about quality or trying to create a classic that is causing these long waits between albums. 

[Choco]

On paper, decent numbers. Doesn't seem to be the huge moment she was hyping it to be though.

There's technically no current hit on it so she's still moving a lot of units on her name which is always great.

[Eloqueen™]

Good numbers IMO!

[Future Captain]

So she do have physicals. Great number considering just a few days ago I thought she would do half the number

[Enigma.]

Nicki's sales must be huge because no way the album is streaming enough to reach 150k.

[shayonce]

Pink Friday 2
Standard CD
Signed CD
Standard Vinyl
Vinyl (Alternative Cover)
Vinyl (Alternative Cover #2)
Vinyl (Target exclusive)
2 fan packs bundle (CD album $5)


yeah. it will be interesting to see next update.

[think pink.]

Dec 10, 2023 6:44:26 GMT -5 Enigma. said:

Nicki's sales must be huge because no way the album is streaming enough to reach 150k.

It’s dominating Apple Music.

[jesseda]

Dec 10, 2023 6:44:26 GMT -5 Enigma. said:

Nicki's sales must be huge because no way the album is streaming enough to reach 150k.

It’s literally dominating the entire top8 on AM. 15 songs in top20. It’s doing at least 20M+ streams daily on AM alone

[eagle27]

1989TV is back in contention for #1. It really depends on how strong Apple Music is which makes it harder to estimate for Apple reliant albums. Nicki meltdown over #2 again (1989 blocked Pinkprint also) would be the funniest thing ever though. Especially if Taylor drops a limited edition birthday vinyl variant or something.

[Forever Winter]

Dec 10, 2023 13:05:52 GMT -5 eagle27 said:

1989TV is back in contention for #1. It really depends on how strong Apple Music is which makes it harder to estimate for Apple reliant albums. Nicki meltdown over #2 again (1989 blocked Pinkprint also) would be the funniest thing ever though. Especially if Taylor drops a limited edition birthday vinyl variant or something.

I don't think it is. Pretty sure a good chunk of Nicki's SPS units are pure sales 

[rideordie]

Can someone confirm if this is still a chart rule and will it apply to nicki seeing that the vinyls only have 10 tracks while the digital copies have 22

x.com/chartdata/status/1512900610194083842?s=46&t=ebj4mmcBA-bBmUmQ0P2ONQ

[Ryan]

Dec 10, 2023 14:11:43 GMT -5 rideordie said:

Can someone confirm if this is still a chart rule and will it apply to nicki seeing that the vinyls only have 10 tracks while the digital copies have 22

x.com/chartdata/status/1512900610194083842?s=46&t=ebj4mmcBA-bBmUmQ0P2ONQ

Interesting. I guess it's different for PF2 as both 10-track physical version and 22-track digital version came out at the same time? You could call the former version "the original" and the latter "digital deluxe." Whereas, the original Encanto soundtrack has 32 tracks (44 on digital platforms) and then they released a condensed 10-track vinyl version after 5 months of its original release, which was labeled as "highlights" by Billboard.

[laislabonita]

“Speaking of vinyl, the LP version of Encanto hit stores this week. Since it consists of highlights from the original album and excludes the score, however, it's ineligible to be counted as a single chart entry with the CD and digital iterations.”
-HITSDD on encanto.



I honestly think they won’t do anything and dare to remove her pure sales for the sake of her mental health. especially since HITSDD (or any industry professional) didn’t say anything yet.

[laislabonita]

I’m actually VERY interested in this.

Some might argue that this might be just like bonus tracks which artists often do, but it’s clearly not. This is very weird 😃 did something similar ever happen before?

[s9983]

I'm not so sure the digital deluxe excuse can be used, as there is only 1 version of the album available for streaming & digital platforms. HDD already included the sales in the predictions so it's likely that it will be included but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of it not being included since the pure sales account for 10/22 tracks, not even 50%...

[magik]

You would think Republic would be aware of these drawbacks before engaging in them. For Nicki and Barb's mental sakes, let's hope Billboard counts whatever sales there are. I would hate the impending rants that "corporate giants" are trying to take her down.

[HolidayGuy]

Where does it mention 1989(TV) being in contention for No. 1? Has she released new versions/variants of the album or something?

[areyoureadytojump]

^Just a person's opinion here.

[Mayman]

Dec 10, 2023 13:05:52 GMT -5 eagle27 said:

1989TV is back in contention for #1. It really depends on how strong Apple Music is which makes it harder to estimate for Apple reliant albums. Nicki meltdown over #2 again (1989 blocked Pinkprint also) would be the funniest thing ever though. Especially if Taylor drops a limited edition birthday vinyl variant or something.

1989 did 100k last week and this is predicted to get close to 200k. Wtf are you even talking about??

[fridayteenage]

When we see Pink Friday 2
& Pink Friday 2: The Highlights
both making the top 10.

[Baby Yoda Hot100Fan]

I just noticed that Nicki's CD also have only 10 songs. Based on the track listing, the CD could have contained all 22 songs.

[shayonce]

Dec 10, 2023 21:16:51 GMT -5 Baby Yoda Hot100Fan said:

I just noticed that Nicki's CD also have only 10 songs. Based on the track listing, the CD could have contained all 22 songs.

for some weirdo reason, she rushed the release. just sake for release.
some had theory that she did it to battle with Cardi who announced album this year but later canceled.

[think pink.]

Dec 11, 2023 2:48:03 GMT -5 shayonce said:

Dec 10, 2023 21:16:51 GMT -5 Baby Yoda Hot100Fan said:

I just noticed that Nicki's CD also have only 10 songs. Based on the track listing, the CD could have contained all 22 songs.

for some weirdo reason, she rushed the release. just sake for release.
some had theory that she did it to battle with Cardi who announced album this year but later canceled.

Cardi has been announcing an album every year for the last 5 years 😂. Republic simply rushed her to turn something in to meet the deadline.

[Choco]

Cardi has nothing to do with it. She just wanted it out bc another delay wouldn't have been cute and after this week there's no good week until late January to release.