Billie Eilish‘s second full-length album, “Happier Than Ever,” proved to be one of the big recorded music events of the year, as expected, even with five of the tracks already previously out as singles. The album release easily landed at No. 1 on the Rolling Stone album chart with 271,500 album-equivalent units.
The breakdown of Eilish’s figures included 128,400 in full album sales — a blockbuster number as those go, nowadays, helped out by strong demand for the vinyl edition of the album — and 103.6 million individual song streams.
Of the songs from “Happier Than Ever” that had not already been released as singles prior to the album, the title track proved the most immediately popular, entering the Rolling Stone songs chart at No. 3. It was streamed 19.7 million times in its first week.
The No. 2 album for the week, somewhat surprisingly, was Prince‘s “Welcome 2 America.” Although there have been other posthumous Prince albums released, this is the first complete unreleased full-band album, conceived as such, to be pulled out of the vault for individual release. It debuted with 79,800 album equivalent units, of which a strong 49,900 were in full album sales. It didn’t register so much in streaming, with only 1.9 million song streams.
A third album bowed in the top 10 — “The House Is Burning,” from Tennessee rapper Isaiah Rashad, in at No. 7 with 40,600 album-equivalent units. Nearly all of its strength came from streaming, not sales — 43.8 million streams, to be exact.
Bleachers’ “Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night” debuted outside the top 10, with the Jack Antonoff project landing at No. 14 and 20,900 album-equivalent units. Album sales were at 11,600, and streams for its tracks added up to 4.7 million.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the week was the low entry for Logic‘s “Bobby Tarantino III,” entering at No. 20 with just 18,700 album units. That’s in comparison to Logic’s release last year, “No Pressure,” which debuted with more than 10 times that number, 229,000 album units. (That previous album entered the chart at No. 2, but would have been an easy No. 1 if not for the simultaneous release of Taylor Swift’s “Folklore.”)
How to explain the discrepancy between the two back-to-back albums? Maybe it’s that Logic announced that he was retiring and that “No Pressure” would be his final album; more casual fans may have taken him at his word and not gotten the news that he was un-retired a year later.
Rounding out the top 10 albums were holdover releases by the Kid Leroi (falling from first to third place in week 2, with 64,100 album units), Olivia Rodrigo. Doja Cat, Morgan Wallen, Lil Durk/Lil Baby, Pop Smoke and Dua Lipa.
On the Rolling Stone songs chart, the top two tunes remained in place — “Stay” by the Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber on top, followed by the Lil Nas X/Jack Harlow collab “Industry Baby” at No. 2. Following Eilish’s new entry in the third spot were the enduring “Good 4 U” by Rodrigo at No. 4 and BTS’ “Butter” at No. 5. In pure sales, “Butter” remained the top song of the week.
Silk Sonic’s “Skate” did not make quite as immediately huge an impression as the previous song from the duo of Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak did. Their second single entered at No. 11, with 9.5 million streams in its first week.
If anyone is wondering how the homophobia controversy is affecting DaBaby’s streaming strength, the answer may be: just a little. Since his album has been out for more than a year, it wasn’t commanding the charts anyway. This week his collection fell from No. 84 to No. 93, with its streams dropping off from 12.6 million to 11.9 million for the week. The bigger threat is to his still-popular collaboration with Dua Lipa on her “Levitating.” The single had only a modest drop-off, from 14.4 million streams to 13.2 million. But those numbers include fans of Lipa’s who may have switched to her solo version of the song from the dual one with DaBaby, as radio stations started playing the original in place of the duet.
For the complete list of the week’s top 200 albums, click here. To see the top 100 songs, click here.
