NEW YORK, NEW YORK - FEBRUARY 21: (L-R) Singers Shownu, Hyungwon, Kihyun, I.M. and Minhyuk from ... [+]
For the seventh time in his career, Justin Bieber rules the Billboard 200 with a brand new album that fans couldn’t wait to buy and stream in huge numbers. The Canadian musician’s new set Changes opens atop the list with 231,000 equivalent units, which is by far the largest frame for any title of the year in the States.
Bieber leads a top 10 featuring four just-released studio efforts from a group of artists who couldn’t be less like one another.
Coming in a very respectable second place is rising hip-hop star A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, who sees his third proper album Artist 2.0 open with 111,000 equivalent units. That sum only includes 3,000 actual sales, while streams, 149 million of them (or 106,000 streaming equivalent album units), make up much of the rest.
Had the rapper released his latest just a week earlier, he’d have grabbed a second consecutive chart-topper, as his opening sum would easily have been enough to best the competition last time around.
Artist 2.0 is the rapper’s third top 10, following 2017’s The Bigger Artist (peaked at No. 4) and 2018’s Hoodie SZN (No. 1). Three singles have been pushed from the third album, and all of them have reached the Hot 100, at least for a short time. First up was “Mood Swings,” which peaked at No. 76. That was followed by the Lil Uzi Vert collab “Reply,” which once rose to No. 49. The most recent tune spun off the record, “King of My City,” has so far stalled at No. 69.
Alternative rock outfit Tame Impala is back with their first album in five years, The Slow Rush. The set blasts onto the Billboard 200 at No. 3, giving the group a new best placement. The title, which starts with 110,000 equivalent units shifted (80,000 actual purchases), also represents their largest one-week sum in the U.S. 2015’s Currents became their first top 10 when it rose to No. 4, and they now claim just two such wins. Had the group managed just 2,000 more copies, they’d have reached the runner-up rung, but they’ll have to wait for their next project to try again.
The Slow Rush hasn’t been able to send any songs onto the Hot 100, though three singles have already broken into the top 10 on the Hot Rock Songs tally, two of which are now their highest-charting on the list.
After returning to the summit last week, Roddy Ricch’s Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial falls to fourth place this time around.
The fourth and final new title that finds itself inside the Billboard 200’s top 10 comes from South Korean pop group Monsta X. The band got their start in K-pop, but their just-released album All About Luv is their first complete collection not performed in either Korean or Japanese. The release launches at No. 5 with 52,000 units shifted, with all but 2,000 of those being actual sales. This latest item is the vocal group’s first top 10 on the Billboard 200, and it shows that they are quickly becoming incredibly popular in the United States.
Not many tracks from All About Luv have made a commercial impact, but lead cut “Who Do U Love?,” which features French Montana, became their first top 40 hit on the Pop Songs chart some time ago.
The five remaining spots inside this week’s top 10 on the Billboard 200 are filled by Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding (No. 6), Billie Eilish’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (No. 7), Pop Smoke’s Meet the Woo 2 (No. 8), Eminem’s Music to Be Murdered By (No. 9) and Halsey’s Manic (No. 10).
