Lady Gaga is Queen of the Charts, Again

30 Oct, 2016

Lady Gaga claims her fourth No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, as Joanne arrives in the pole position. The set earned 201,000 equivalent album units — a better-than-expected start — in the week ending Oct. 27, according to Nielsen Music.

Joanne was released on Oct. 21 through Streamline/Interscope Records.

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 Nov. 12-dated chart (where Joanne bows at No. 1) will be posted in full to Billboard’s websites on Tuesday, Nov. 1.

Joanne follows Lady Gaga’s previous chart-toppers Cheek to Cheek (with Tony Bennett, in 2014), Artpop (2013) and Born This Way (2011).

Joanne‘s bow of 201,000 units is larger than what industry forecasters estimated. On Oct. 25, sources had pegged the album to start with around 180,000 (and that was an upgrade from 140,000 a few days earlier).

The album’s 201,000 launch is the fourth-largest debut of 2016, and the second-biggest for a woman. Ahead of it are Drake’s Views (1.04 million), Beyonce’s Lemonade (653,000) and Frank Ocean’s Blonde (276,000 units).

In terms of traditional sales, Joanne sold 170,000 — the seventh-largest bow of the year, and the second-biggest for a woman. The only larger starts were registered by Drake’s Views (852,000 copies sold), Beyonce’s Lemonade (485,000), Frank Ocean’s Blonde (232,000), David Bowie’s Blackstar (174,000), Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool (173,000) and  Blink-182’s California (172,000).

Lady Gaga was in full-on promotion mode during the album’s debut week. She performed on NBC’s Saturday Night Live (Oct. 22), sat down for an interview with SiriusXM’s Howard Stern (Oct. 24), took part in James Corden’s popular “Carpool Karaoke” segment of his CBS show The Late Late Show (Oct. 25) and concluded her Bud Light-sponsored dive bar tour in Los Angeles on Oct. 27.

Also notable: Gaga is the first woman with four No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 in the 2010s. She passes Beyonce and Taylor Swift, each with three during the decade. Among all acts, Justin Bieber and Drake lead with six Billboard 200 No. 1’s each since 2010, while One Direction and Kanye West each boast four.

Billboard

Image Lady Gaga twitter

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