Billboard 200 Chart Moves: Cheap Trick Returns to Top 40 After 27 Years

On the most recent Billboard 200 albums chart (dated April 23), Kanye West claimed his seventh consecutive No. 1, as The Life of Pablo arrived atop the list. Lukas Graham, Weezer and Twenty88 also debuted in the top 10 with their new efforts.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the week’s most popular albums based on their overall consumption. That overall unit figure combines pure album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).

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

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— Original Broadcast Cast, Hamilton – No. 18 — Hamilton has spent more weeks in the top 40 of the chart (17 and counting) than any cast recording since 1969’s Hair. The latter lingered in the region for 59 weeks, and was also the last cast set to hit No. 1. It spent 13 weeks atop the list.

— Cheap Trick, Bang Zoom Crazy…Hello – No. 31 — The rock band returns to the top 40 for the first time since 1988, as the act’s new set, Bang Zoom Crazy…Hello arrives at No. 31. The album earned 14,000 units in its first week, with nearly all of that sum coming from pure album sales. Further, that’s the band’s best sales week since Nielsen Music began tracking sales in 1991. The new album was released one week before the group’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (on April 8) — which no doubt helped drive interest in the new album. It’s also the band’s Big Machine Records debut, and the group’s highest charting title since Lap of Luxury peaked at No. 16 on Sept. 24, 1988. Lap of Luxury — which hung out in the weekly top 30 for six months that year — contained the band’s only No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart: “The Flame,” in addition to another top five smash, a cover of “Don’t Be Cruel.” (Lap of Luxury spent its last week in the top 40 on the chart dated Nov. 26, 1988.)

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— Pet Shop Boys, Super – No. 58 — The pop/dance duo debut at No. 58 with their latest studio effort, Super, arriving nearly 30 years after the act first arrived on the chart with Please. The latter bowed on the list dated April 19, 1986 at No. 38, on its way to a No. 7 peak (June 21).

— Soundtrack, Star Wars: The Force Awakens – No. 89 — The soundtrack blasts back onto the list with 7,000 units (up 136 percent) and nearly 7,000 copies sold (up 154 percent) thanks to the film’s home video release. The blockbuster movie was issued on digital download on April 1, and a DVD and Blu-ray release followed on April 5.

— Kelly Clarkson, Greatest Hits: Chapter One – No. 130 — After the first American Idol winner bid farewell to the show on its finale episode (April 7), her greatest hits album returns to the tally (6,000 units — up 44 percent, 2,000 copies sold — up 81 percent). On the show, Clarkson performed a medley of her hits, including smashes like “Since U Been Gone” and “Miss Independent,” and her Idol coronation single (and first Hot 100 No. 1) “A Moment Like This.”