Beyoncé’s just-released seventh album, ‘Renaissance’, has topped the Billboard 200 chart in the US, continuing her unbroken streak of albums debuting at Number One.All seven of the artist’s studio albums have peaked in the top spot, however, the release of ‘Renaissance’ is notably significant in that it’s already become Bey’s highest-charting album in every major market.
In addition to the US, it’s debuted at Number One in the UK, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand. It’s likely to top the Canadian chart as well, however data for that is yet to be released.‘Renaissance’ also came in at Number Two in Germany, beating her last album, 2016’s ‘Lemonade’, by one place.
The only downtick in sales between ‘Lemonade’ and ‘Renaissance’ happened in Switzerland – ‘Renaissance’ debuted at Number Three, one spot below where ‘Lemonade’ peaked.In its first week of domestic release, ‘Renaissance’ shifted 332,000 equivalent album units.
As Billboard reports, this makes it the year’s biggest week for any record released by a solo female artist – massively usurping Lizzo, who formerly held the record with 69,000 units of ‘Special’ shifted in its first week – as well as the second biggest sales week altogether; Harry Styles’ latest, ‘Harry’s House’, shifted 521,000 units in its first week.In terms of traditional album sales – whereby only full-album purchases (across both physical and digital platforms) are counted, with streaming numbers having no factor – ‘Renaissance’ shifted a total of 190,000 copies.
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