Thanks to Vinyl Release, Tyler, the Creator Returns to No. 1 on Album Chart After Nine Months; Morgan Wallen Has Top-Debuting Song

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticTyler, the Creator is back on top of the Billboard 200 album chart for the first time since premiering at No.

1 back in July of 2021, due to “Call Me If You Get Lost” very belatedly making its bow on vinyl 10 months after the digital release.The tally for “Call Me” in the LP format was 49,500 copies, which Luminate says is the most pieces of vinyl sold in a week for any hip-hop record since rolls began being kept in 1991. (Luminate, which tallied the data, is a descendant of Soundscan, which began collecting sales numbers 31 years ago.) It’s also the biggest one-week vinyl number for a male solo artist.The biggest total for any artist for a single week of vinyl remains Taylor Swift’s “Red (Taylor’s Version),” which sold 114,000 LPs upon its debut last November.

You may be thinking this was good news for record stores — and you’d be wrong. Tyler, the Creator chose to bypass retail altogether with the vinyl edition and only sell it as a direct-to-consumer product via his webstore.

In fact, retailers have never had any version of the album to sell in stores, as Tyler’s website has also maintained the exclusive on CD and cassette editions, according to Billboard.