Ten years ago, when Justin Bieber landed his first No. 1 album, “My World 2.0,” he was a 16-year-old with the voice of an R&B angel and a full-time swagger coach. Like every teen phenom, he faced a brutal question about his career prospects: Would he last longer than a few hits?
This week, Bieber — nearly 26, married, tattooed and (until recently) mustachioed — returned to the top position on the Billboard chart for a seventh time with “Changes.” After a break following tours for his 2015 album, “Purpose,” he made the returning victory lap of a confident star, with an all-out marketing campaign that included a 10-part YouTube documentary.
“Changes” had the equivalent of 231,000 sales in the United States, according to Nielsen Music, which included 135 million streams and 126,000 copies sold as a full album, although many of those sales were part of deals that bundled the LP with concert tickets or merchandise. It is the second-biggest opening for an album so far this year, after Eminem’s “Music to Be Murdered By.”
Can Bieber hold No. 1 for more than a single week? Hot on his trail is the latest from the K-pop group BTS, a chart juggernaut with legions of ultra-dedicated fans around the world.
Also this week, two new albums reached high on the chart but could not surpass Bieber. The Bronx-born rapper A Boogie Wit da Hoodie reached No. 2 with “Artist 2.0,” which had the equivalent of 111,000 sales — including 149 million streams, more than “Changes,” though only 3,000 copies of “Artist 2.0” were sold as a full album — while Tame Impala, the neo-psychedelic rock project of the Australian musician Kevin Parker, is No. 3 with 110,000 of “The Slow Rush.”
Roddy Ricch, last week’s chart-topper, fell to No. 4 with “Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial,” and the South Korean group Monsta X opened at No. 5 with “All About Luv,” its first all-English album.
Source: Music - nytimes.com
