Ava Max notches her first top 10 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated Feb. 11) as her latest release, Diamonds & Dancefloors, debuts at No. 8. The set sold 7,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending Feb. 2, according to Luminate. The new effort is her second charting title, following the No. 12-peaking Heaven & Hell in 2020.
Also capturing her first top 10 on Top Album Sales is Elle King, as her new Come Get Your Wife starts at No. 9 with nearly 7,000 sold. She previously topped out at No. 15 in 2018 with Shake the Spirit.
Also in the top 10, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, Grateful Dead, Sam Smith and Bob Dylan all arrive with new releases, while Avril Lavigne’s Let Go re-enters the chart in the top 10 after its 20th anniversary reissue on vinyl.
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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.
TOMORROW X TOGETHER snags its fourth No. 1 on Top Album Sales – and biggest sales week yet – as The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION enters with 152,000 copies sold.
The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION scores the largest sales week for any album since Taylor Swift’s Midnights debuted at No. 1 with 1.14 million copies sold on the Nov. 5, 2022-dated chart. Of The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION’s 152,000 sold, 98% were CD sales (148,500), while 2% were digital album sales (3,500). The set was not available to purchase in any other configuration (such as vinyl or cassette).
The CD configuration of The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION was issued in collectible packages (14 total, including exclusive editions for Barnes & Noble, Target and the Weverse webstore), each with a standard set of internal paper items and branded randomized mystery elements (photo cards, photo books, post cards). CD sales were also enhanced by autographed editions sold via the act’s webstore.
Grateful Dead’s latest archival live set, Dave’s Picks, Volume 45: Paramount Theatre, Portalnd, OR 10/1/77 & 10/2/77 debuts at No. 2 with 19,000 sold.
Dave’s Picks is the act’s continuing live archival release series, named for the group’s archivist, David Lemieux, that has been going strong since its first release in 2012. Releases in the series are issued exclusively on CD and in limited quantities.
On the Billboard 200 chart, Dave’s Picks, Vol. 45 debuts at No. 18, marking the band’s 55th top 40-charting album on the list. The act continues to have the most top 40 albums among groups since the chart began regularly publishing on a weekly basis in March of 1956. The band also surpasses Barbra Streisand to become the overall act with the third-most top 40-charting albums. The acts with the most top 40 albums on the Billboard 200 are: Frank Sinatra (58), Elvis Presley (58), Grateful Dead (55), Barbra Streisand (54) and Bob Dylan (51). (37 of Grateful Dead’s 55 top 40-charting albums are from the Dave’s Picks series.)
Taylor Swift’s former No. 1 on Top Album Sales, Midnights, falls 2-3 on the latest chart, with 18,000 sold (though up 4%). Sam Smith notches their fourth top 10-charting effort as Gloria bows at No. 4 with 14,000 sold.
Bob Dylan’s Fragments: Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996-1997) debuts at No. 5 on Top Album Sales with 11,000 sold. The effort is part of Dylan’s ongoing “Bootleg Series.” With this archival project, he revisits his 1997 album Time Out of Mind, presenting alternative versions and outtakes of songs from that album, in addition to other rare cuts and live performances.
Avril Lavigne’s debut album Let Go returns to the chart for the first time since 2004, and to the top 10 for the first time since 2003, as the set re-enters at No. 6 with 9,000 sold (up 3,586%). The album was originally released in 2002 and peaked at No. 2 that September. It bounds back onto the tally after it was reissued for its 20th anniversary on vinyl (nearly all of its sales for the week were from its vinyl LP configuration).
A charity effort A Philly Special Christmas vaults 24-7 (a new peak) on Top Album Sales with 9,000 sold (up 182%), largely owed to vinyl LP sales. Across all of its formats, the album has now sold 26,000 copies (15,000 on vinyl and 11,000 on digital download). The Philly album is led by Philadelphia Eagles players Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata, the seven-track set includes renditions of holiday favorites like “White Christmas” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” All profits from the album benefit Philadelphia’s Children’s Crisis Treatment Center.
Rounding out the top 10 is Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which falls 6-10 with 6,000 sold (though up 10%).
In the week ending Feb. 2, there were 1.883 million albums sold in the U.S. (up 13.9% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.552 million (up 18.2%) and digital albums comprised 331,000 (down 2.7%).
There were 723,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Feb. 2 (up 38.3% week-over-week) and 820,000 vinyl albums sold (up 4.9%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 3.053 million (up 0.4% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 4.499 million (up 28.2%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 9.260 million (up 7.4% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 7.595 million (up 15.3%) and digital album sales total 1.664 million (down 18%).