Adam Lambert lands his fifth top 10-charting effort on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated March 11) as his new covers project, High Drama, debuts at No. 7. The set marks his highest-charting effort on Top Album Sales since 2015, when the studio set The Original High debuted and peaked at No. 2 (July 4, 2015-dated chart).
High Drama boasts renditions of such top 40-charting Billboard Hot 100 hits as Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero,” Duran Duran’s “Ordinary World,” Sia’s chart-topping “Chandelier” and Culture Club’s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me.”
Also in the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart, Gorillaz land their second No. 1 with the arrival of Cracker Island, Godsmack notches its eighth top 10 (and highest charting set since 2010) with the No. 2 bow of Lighting Up the Sky, Karol G clocks her first top 10 with Mañana Será Bonito and Dierks Bentley achieves his 10th top 10 with the No. 9 bow of Gravel & Gold.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
High Drama sold 8,500 copies in the U.S. in the week ending March 2, according to Luminate. Physical sales comprise 4,500 (effectively all from CD sales) and digital album sales comprise 4,000.
At No. 1, Gorillaz’s Cracker Island breezes in with 48,500 copies sold in its first week, the fourth-largest sales week of 2023 and the biggest for a rock album. Of its starting sum, 32,000 were vinyl sales – the largest sales week for a vinyl album in 2023 and the biggest debut week for a rock album on vinyl in nearly a year, since Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Unlimited Love sold 38,500 in its first week (chart dated April 16, 2022).
Godsmack’s Lighting Up the Sky enters Top Album Sales at No. 2 with 18,000 sold. P!nk’s Trustfall slips to No. 3 with 17,000 sold (down 71%) after its debut at No. 1 a week ago. TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s chart-topping The Name Chapter: Temptation falls 2-4 with 14,000 (down 37%) and Taylor Swift’s former leader Midnights dips 4-5 with 11,000 (down 23%).
Karol G nabs her first top 10-charting set on Top Album Sales as Mañana Será Bonito debuts at No. 6 with 10,000 sold (her best sales week ever). The set also enters atop the Billboard 200 – the first all-Spanish-language No. 1 by a female artist – largely powered by streaming activity.
Paramore’s chart-topping This Is Why falls 6-8 with 7,000 sold (down 43%).
Dierks Bentley collects his 10th top 10-charting set on Top Album Sales as Gravel & Gold – his first studio album in nearly five years –enters at No. 9 with 6,000 sold. All but two of Bentley’s charting efforts on Top Album Sales have reached the top 10 – he’s only missed the region with his self-titled debut (peaking at No. 26 in 2003) and a four-song EP titled Country & Cold Cans (No. 54 in 2012).
Closing out the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart is Stray Kids’ former No. 1 MAXIDENT, rising 11-10 with nearly 6,000 sold (down 6%).
In the week ending March 2, there were 1.852 million albums sold in the U.S. (down 2.4% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.474 million (down 4.4%) and digital albums comprised 378,000 (up 6.5%).
There were 606,000 CD albums sold in the week ending March 2 (down 5% week-over-week) and 856,000 vinyl albums sold (down 4.2%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 5.525 million (up 0.8% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 7.968 million (up 26%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 16.67 million (up 7.3% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 13.576 million (up 14.3%) and digital album sales total 3.094 million (down 15.3%).
