2019’s only two months in and has already proven itself the best year of Ariana Grande‘s career.
Beyond ringing it in with the first Hot 100 chart-topper of the year, ‘thank u, next,’ the songstress followed by earning another one in the form of the Victoria Monet-penned, ‘7 Rings.’ Both tunes, found aboard her fifth studio album (also titled ‘thank u, next’) certainly increased anticipation for the gems that would accompany them aboard their parent project.
Evidence of that was found by the mass consumption of the LP upon its debut on February 8th. As we reported here, the set was initially predicted to shift between 320,000-345,000 copies its first week alone. With its inaugural tallying week now in its rearview, Billboard’s not only confirmed ‘thank’ will reign atop the Billboard 200 this week, but that’s come on the back of some record breaking streaming figures.
The result? Ari’s nabbed the best first week sales of her career to date. Details inside:
Thank U, Next storms in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 360,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Feb. 14, according to Nielsen Music. The set launches with the biggest week for a pop album in over a year and garners Grande her fourth No. 1 — and second in less than six months. Of Thank U, Next’s starting unit sum, 116,000 were in album sales.
As it relates to its record breaking streams…
Of Thank U, Next’s starting unit sum of 360,000 units, 228,000 are in SEA units. That latter sum translates to a whopping 307 million on-demand audio streams for the album’s songs during the tracking week.
Thank U, Next easily sets the record for the largest streaming week for a pop album (beating the debut frame of Ed Sheeran’s ÷ [Divide] with 126.7 million on-demand audio streams for its songs; March 25, 2017) and the biggest streaming week for an album by a woman…