Beneath Puth’s debut at No. 6, Twenty One Pilots continue to have success with their breakout album Blurryface at No. 7 (43,000 units) and 2015’s country breakout act Chris Stapleton continues his big chart run with Traveller at No. 8. Through a deal with Samsung, a million copies were offered free to fans who signed up for Tidal membership, making “Anti” ineligible for Billboard charts rankings in the first week, since Billboard does not count sales of albums priced under $3.49.
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Despite the relatively small sales numbers, Rihanna easily beat out her fellow new album releases on the Billboard 200. After debuting at #27 with 460 album sales, Rihanna tops the chart in ANTI’s second week.
Tidal’s Director of Marketing, Grace Kim, said that despite the leak, “Anti” still moved 1.4 million units in just 15 hours, and industry insiders are attributing that number to sales outside the USA, as Tidal operates in dozens of countries around the world.
Rihanna just landed her second No. 1 album. (Billboard is scheduled to reveal the chart’s top 10 entries on February 7th.) The album is expected to reach approximately 170,000 equivalent album units, a figure that reflects both digital downloads and streaming totals. The numbers have officially pushed 25 past the eight-million mark. Her previous LP, 2014’s “1000 Forms of Fear”, was sold 52,000 copies in its first week to debut at the chart’s No. 1.
Rapper Kevin Gates debuts at #2 with Islah, his highest-charting release yet.
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Closing out the top 5 is Justin Bieber’s “Purpose” that falls from No. 1 with 73,000 units in its 12th week. Meanwhile, Bryson Tiller’s “T R A P S O U L” rises to No. 9 from last week’s No. 10 with 32,000 and G-Eazy’s “When It’s Dark Out” jumps two spots to No. 10 with 31,000.
