In the midst of this global pandemic, The Weeknd decided to come through the other day and release his highly anticipated album After Hours, which looks to be on its way to being the #1 album in the country.
According to Hits Double Daily, After Hours is on track to move more than 400,000 album equivalent units in its first week. Of those units, more than 200,000 are expected to come from traditional album sales. If these projections hold true, After Hours could very well be the biggest debut of 2020, surpassing BTS' Map of the Soul: 7, which earned 422,000 units in its first week.
In comparison, The Weeknd’s last album, Starboy, moved 348k copies in the first week, meanwhile Beauty Behind The Madness sold 412K units in 2015. So Able looks to be right on track with what he’s done in the past, and even more than what he did on his last album.
In addition, After Hours garnered 100 million global streams on day one, occupied the top 12 slots on the Apple Music Global 100 chart, and claimed 14 of the top 15 spots on Spotify's U.S. chart. So it’s another smash home run for Abel.
Stream After Hours right here if you haven't already.
First Week Sales For Megan Thee Stallion’s “Suga” Are In
Meg sold under 50K units in her opening week.
Megan the Stallion is coming off the release of her new project Suga, which saw a rocky and tumultuous rollout thanks to legal woes with her label who was trying to stop it. However thankfully, Megan was granted the release by a judge and ended up releasing Suga last Friday, featuring Kehlani and Gunna.
Now a week after being out, the first week sales numbers are in and they’re a tad lower than what some may expect. According to Hits Double Daily, Suga sold just under 44K units with 43,882 copies in its opening week. But then again, she didn’t have any label support or backing, and pretty much dropped it out of nowhere so it’s not that bad. In comparison though, Lil Uzi Vert landed himself the #1 album of the week with Eternal Atake, selling a whopping 310K units in his opening week.
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For what it’s worth, Megan made it clear that Suga wasn’t her debut album, but just something to give to her fans while she continues to work on her debut. “This is not even my album. This is what I had to put out right now so my fans can have music from me… I was literally putting together an album that was longer. These are songs that I started to record that were gonna make the album but I’m not done recording my album. I have a lot of experiences that I’m going through still, places I’m visiting. I’m just catching different vibes” she said about the project.
