Future Earns an Eighth No. 1 Album With ‘I Never Liked You’

For most of the year so far, sales of new music have been pretty unremarkable, with even the No. 1 album posting modest numbers week after week. But those doldrums may now be over, with a hit new LP by the rapper Future and a slew of high-profile releases coming — including a surprise release by the Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny that is poised to make a big splash on next week’s chart.

This week, “I Never Liked You” became the eighth chart-topping album by Future, an Atlanta rapper who has been a mainstay on the charts for a decade. With guest appearances by Kanye West (now known as Ye), Gunna, Young Thug, Drake, Kodak Black and others, the album had the equivalent of 222,000 sales in the United States, more than any release this year, according to the tracking service Luminate. That total is a composite number attributed mostly to streaming, with songs from the album getting nearly 284 million clicks in its opening week.

Those numbers may well be eclipsed next week by Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti,” which was released on Friday with little advance notice. Bad Bunny is a global streaming colossus — he has been Spotify’s top streaming artist for the last two years — and “Un Verano” broke that service’s record for the most clicks around the world for an album in a single day (topping Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy” last year). Another big new album released last week: “Come Home the Kids Miss You,” by Jack Harlow, the Kentucky rapper who joined Lil Nas X on last year’s No. 1 song “Industry Baby.”

Also this week, the Weeknd’s “Dawn FM” rises 33 spots to No. 2 after its arrival on vinyl, matching the album’s chart high from when it was released in January. Morgan Wallen’s “Dangerous” is No. 3, Miranda Lambert’s new “Palomino” is No. 4 and Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” is in fifth place.

Other major albums on the horizon include Kendrick Lamar (Friday), Harry Styles (May 20), Post Malone (June 3), BTS (June 10) and Luke Combs (June 24).