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Kendrick Lamar lands his fourth #1 album on the Billboard 200 as his latest release. Mr. Morale & the big steppers, starts at the top of the list (from May 28). He has debuted at number 1 with each of his last four albums.
Mr. Morale & the big steppers earned 295,500 equivalent album units in the US in the week ending May 19, according to Luminate – the busiest week of the year for an album. It’s the third week in a row this benchmark has been broken. A week ago, Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti did it with his No. 1 debut of 274,000 and the week before Future’s i never liked you bowed at number 1 with 222,000.
Mr. Morale & the big steppers was announced on April 18th and released on May 13th. It’s Lamar’s first album in just over five years. His last project was DAMN IT.published in April 2017. DAMN IT. spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 (his longest run at No. 1), was the No. 1 album on the chart as of year-end 2017, and won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Mr. Morale & the big steppers‘ 18 tracks on the album are split evenly into two parts of nine tracks each. The first half is named Big steppers and the second half is named Mr Morale. The album was not preceded by any pre-release singles (although Lamar did release the non-album track “The Heart Part 5” on May 8, along with a flashy music video). Following the album’s release, Lamar released the official music video for “N95,” a song included on the album.
Also in the new Top 10 on the Billboard 200, TOMORROW X TOGETHER scores its highest-charting album of all time with its debut at No. 4 Minisode 2: Thursday ChildFlorence + The Machine conquers its fourth Top 10 album by arriving at No. 7 from dance fever and The Black Keys land their sixth top 10 appearance with an 8th seed Dropout Boogie.
The Billboard 200 chart lists the week’s most popular albums in the United States based on multimetric consumption measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. The units include album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA), and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equates to one album sale, or 10 album tracks sold, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscribed official on-demand audio and video streams generated from tracks on an album. The new chart, dated May 28, 2022, will be published in full on billboard‘s website on May 24th. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Mr. Morale & the big steppers295,500 earned equivalent album units, SEA units are 258,500 (equivalent to 343.02 million official on-demand streams of the set’s 18 tracks), album sales are 35,500, and TEA units are 1,500.
Mr. Morale & the big steppers claims the biggest week, by equivalent album units, for any album since Adele’s 30 debuted with 839,000 units in the week ended November 25, 2021 (chart of December 4, 2021).
Mr. Morale & the big steppers logs the largest streaming week of 2022 for an R&B/Hip-Hop album and the second largest streaming week of 2022 for an album. The biggest streaming week of the year right now belongs to the debut frame of Bad Bunny’s 23 tracks Un Verano Sin Ti: 261,000 SEA units; That equates to 356.55 million official on-demand streams of his tracks.
Above all, Mr. Morale & the big steppers claims the highest weekly album unit of the year over Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, although five fewer tracks (18 vs. 23) contribute to his SEA unity total. (Mr. Morale & the big steppers‘Total unit totally missed Un Verano Sin Ti largely thanks to his traditional album sales.)
Mr. Morale & the big steppersThe initial sales figure of 35,000 came solely from digital album sales, as the set will not be released on CD until May 27th. That sales total marks the biggest sales week for a digital album in 2022, and the biggest for any album since Adele’s 30 with 205,000 digital album sales in the first week (chart as of December 4, 2021).
#2 on the new Billboard 200, Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti falls from the #1 spot in its second week (182,000 album equivalent units earned; down 34%). The former No. 1 of the future i never liked you slipped from 2nd to 3rd place with 89,500 units (minus 23%).
TOMORROW X TOGETHER scores its second Top 10 album and highest charting record to date on the Billboard 200, as Minisode 2: Thursday Child Bows at No. 4. It surpasses No. 5 debut and climax of The Chaos Chapter: Freezingin June 2021. (Total Minisode 2: Thursday Child is the sixth chart position on the Billboard 200 for the South Korean pop quintet.)
Minisode 2: Thursday Child starts with 68,500 earned equivalent album units. Of this, 65,500 are accounted for by album sales; SEA units are 3,000 (equivalent to 4.37 million official on-demand streams of the set’s five tracks) and TEA units are a negligible total.
Minisode 2: Thursday Child enters the top album sales chart with the third-biggest week of sales of any album in 2022 – 65,500 albums sold. In fact, the entire sum was sold via CDs, while only about 500 were sold via digital download. The album was not available in any other configuration (e.g. vinyl LP or cassette).
Like many K-pop releases, the album’s CD configuration was issued in collector’s packs (eight total, including exclusive versions for Target and Barnes & Noble), each with a standard set of internal paper items and random items (like photocards and postcards).
Morgan Wallen’s chart topper Dangerous: The double album slips down one spot to #5 despite a 5% gain (55,500 album equivalent units earned). Jack Harlows Come home, the kids miss you falls three notches to 6th (down 51%) in the second week with 55,000 units.
Florence + The Machine collects its fourth Top 10 album on the Billboard 200 dance fever debuts at number 7 with 54,000 earned equivalent album units. Of this, 42,500 are accounted for by album sales, 11,000 by SEA units (equivalent to 14.5 million official on-demand streams of the set’s 14 tracks) and 500 by TEA units.
dance fever was heralded by the single “My Love”, which spent two weeks at No. 1 on the adult Alternative Airplay chart (the group’s sixth No. 1) and climbed into the top 10 on the Alternative Airplay list of the most recently released charts (dated May 21). On the latter chart, “My Love” is the act’s fourth top 10 and first since 2015’s “Ship to Wreck.”
The Black Keys round out the weekly quartet of top 10 debuts on the Billboard 200 Dropout Boogie bows at number 8. The set starts with 33,000 earned equivalent album units. Of this, 27,500 are accounted for by album sales; SEA units are 5,000 (equivalent to 6.5 million official on-demand streams of the set’s 10 tracks) and TEA units are 500 units. In total, Dropout Boogie is the duo’s sixth Top 10 album on the Billboard 200 and comes just a year after its last release. Delta Kremwhich debuted and peaked at number 6 on the May 29, 2021 chart.
Dropout Boogie it was preceded by the single “Wild Child”, which topped both the Adult Alternative Airplay and Alternative Airplay charts and reached the Top 15 on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart.
The Billboard 200’s new top 10 closes out two former No. 1s: Olivia Rodrigos Sour falls 5-9 with 32,000 equivalent album units earned (although up less than 1%) and Lil Durks 7220 slips 7-10 with 29,000 units (down 7%).
shine that independent data provider for the Billboard charts, conducts a comprehensive and thorough review of all data submissions used to compile the weekly chart rankings. Luminate verifies and authenticates data and removes any suspicious or unverifiable activity based on specified criteria before performing the final chart calculations and publishing them. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious and unverifiable will be disqualified prior to the final calculation.
