After a week full of critical acclaim from fans and critics, Solange has landed her first no. 1 album of her career with her latest epic release ‘A Seat at the Table.’ After moving 72,000 album units in its first week (46,000 of those units were pure album sales), the set takes the top spot on this weeks Billboard 200 album chart.
Via Billboard, who published the article on Sunday, Oct. 9:
Solange earns her first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as her latest release, A Seat at the Table, arrives atop the tally. It beats out Bon Iver’s 22, A Million, for No. 1 — an album that wasinitially forecast to bow in the penthouse. It debuts at No. 2.
A Seat at the Table launches with 72,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Oct. 6, according to Nielsen Music — a stronger-than-expected start. Of that sum, 46,000 were in traditional album sales. Bon Iver’s 22, A Million, bows at No. 2 with 71,000 units (58,000 in traditional album sales).
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The new Oct. 22-dated chart (where A Seat at the Table bows at No. 1) will be posted in full toBillboard’s websites on Tuesday, Oct. 11.
On Oct. 4, industry prognosticators suggested that A Seat at the Table would earn around 60,000 units in its first week — perhaps 5,000 behind 22, A Million. Solange’s set continued to build steam as the tracking week came to a close, surpassing its first-week forecast.
As previously noted, traditional album sales comprised 46,000 of A Seat at the Table’s total equivalent album units earned in its first week. In addition, it brought in another 3,000 in track equivalent album units, and 24,000 in streaming equivalent album units. That latter sum translates to 35.7 million on-demand streams for the album’s songs on streaming services. (It was the second-most streamed album of the week on the chart, beaten only by Drake’s streaming powerhouse Views, with 51.9 million streams for its songs.)
As for A Seat at the Table, its release was only announced on Sept. 27, and it reached digital retailers and streaming services three days later on Sept. 30. It was released by Saint Records (Solange’s own label) through Columbia Records. A physical CD release of the album is scheduled for Nov. 18.
Solange made her Billboard 200 chart debut on the Feb. 8, 2003-dated list, withSolo Star, which debuted and peaked at No. 49 that same week. Five years later, she notched her first top 10 album, with Sol-Angel & The Hadley St. Dreams, which bowed and peaked at No. 9 on the Sept. 13, 2008 list. A little more than four years after that, her True album debuted and peaked at No. 157 on the Dec. 15, 2012.
Kudos to Solange for her #1 and for delivering such a unique and amazing body of work.
