Traditional sales kept the singer’s “30” above “Fighting Demons,” the SoundCloud rapper’s second posthumous album, which dominated on streaming services.
Last week, songs from “Fighting Demons,” the second posthumous album by the melodic rapper Juice WRLD, were streamed three times more than those from Adele’s blockbuster new album, “30.” But Adele’s huge edge in traditional sales — 146,500 for “30” versus just 4,000 for “Fighting Demons” — was more than enough to keep the singer at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart for a fourth week running.
Combining its 47 million streams with downloads and sales for the album and its individual tracks, “30” ended its latest week with a total of 183,000 equivalent units by the industry’s current metrics, according to MRC Data, Billboard’s tracking arm, down just 6 percent from the week prior.
That marks the biggest week for an album in its fourth frame in more than three years, according to Billboard, and the first to log four straight weeks atop the chart since Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” at the start of the year. In all, “30” has sold more than a million copies as a full album since its release last month.
“Fighting Demons,” which comes in at No. 2, totaled 119,000 equivalent album units, mostly from its 155 million streams. Juice WRLD, who rose from SoundCloud to become a chart-topping pop star as a teenager, died of a drug overdose in December 2019 at the age of 21. The rapper was also the subject of a recent Amazon-sponsored concert celebration and an HBO documentary in the lead-up to the release of “Fighting Demons,” his fourth studio album, which features Justin Bieber and Suga of BTS.
Also this week, Taylor Swift’s rerecorded “Red (Taylor’s Version)” dips one spot to No. 3. Michael Bublé’s decade-old “Christmas,” a recurring favorite every winter, holds at No. 4 and Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” remains No. 5, with a slight bump in activity owing to holiday season vinyl sales.
Source: Music - nytimes.com
