Eight years ago, Nicki Minaj unlocked her first studio album ‘Pink Friday‘ and watched it open with pure sales of 375,000 units and go on to move a total of 1 million units by the end of its release month.
Since then, unbeknownst to her fans, the respected music industry body that is Billboard has been quietly tracking sales of each and every female artist who have impacted its Billboard 200 albums chart with debut sets to see if any could match or better Minaj’s record-setting numbers.
This year, it has unveiled its findings.
Good news below…
No other than female artist (from any genre) has been able to match the pure sales amassed by ‘Friday’ in its opening week making it the highest-selling debut offering from a newbie in the last decade.
Anyone hoping to snatch this record from Minaj has until 2020 t0 do so as that is the year in which ‘Pink’ will celebrate its tenth birthday.
A fusion of Hip-Hop, Pop & R&B, the album earned the #7 spot on Billboard’s 2011 Year-End Album chart by outselling Rihanna’s ‘Loud’, Katy Perry’s ‘Teenage Dream’, Bruno Mars’ ‘Doo Wops & Hooligans’ and The Throne’s ‘Watch the Throne’ in the year following its launch.
Why this is hitting the news cycle this week?
The album was hit the 1 million units sold marker eight years ago today (December 17th).