ITZY Notches Third Top 10 on Album Sales Chart With ‘Cheshire’
ITZY notches its third top 10 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, as the South Korean quintet’s latest release Cheshire debuts at No. 4 (on the list dated Dec. 17). The act previously visited the top 10 with Checkmate: Mini Album (No. 2 in 2022) and Crazy in Love: The 1st Album (No. 1, 2021).
Also in the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart, Taylor Swift’s Midnights holds at No. 1 for a seventh consecutive week, the Bocelli Family Christmas set surges 5-3 with a 70% sales gain, Backstreet Boys’ A Very Backstreet Christmas vaults 44-6 after its vinyl configuration was released and BTS’ RM debuts at No. 10 with his solo album Indigo.
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Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. The new Dec. 17, 2022-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Dec. 13. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
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CD sales comprise 99% of Cheshire’s debut-week sales sum (all on CD; the album was not released on any other physical formats), with digital download album sales comprising a negligible sum. (The streaming and digital retail version of the album bowed on Wednesday, Nov. 30, while the CD edition dropped on Friday, Dec. 2. In the week ending Dec. 1, the album sold a negligible number of digital albums.)
Like many K-pop releases, the CD configuration of the four-song Cheshire EP was issued in collectible deluxe packages (13 total, including versions exclusive to Barnes & Noble, Target and the group’s official webstore) each with a standard set of items and randomized elements (such as photocards and a poster).
Taylor Swift’s Midnights logs a seventh consecutive week at No. 1 on Top Album Sales, with 67,000 copies sold (up 12%). The album has yet to depart the top slot after opening at No. 1 and has sold more than 50,000 copies in each of its first seven weeks of release. The last album to sell at least 50,000 in each of its first seven weeks was Swift’s own Reputation (Dec. 2, 2017 through Jan. 6, 2018-dated charts).
Harry Styles’ former No. 1 Harry’s House bolts 6-2 with 28,000 copies sold (up 105%) after a surge in vinyl LP sales.
Matteo, Andrea and Virginia Bocelli’s A Family Christmas rises 5-3 with a 70% gain to 24,000 – the largest sales week for a holiday album in 2022. The gain is owed to the continued impact of the trio’s appearances on CBS’ Sunday Morning (Nov. 27) and NBC’s Christmas at Rockefeller Center special (Nov. 30), along with publicity generated by the family’s ongoing concert tour and the premiere of their A Bocelli Family Christmas special (Dec. 4) on YouTube. (Matteo and Virginia are Andrea’s children, ages 24 and 10.)
On the Billboard 200, A Family Christmas bounds 53-22 for its first week in the top 40. It’s the 20th top 40-charting album for the senior Bocelli, and the first for both Matteo and Virgina.
Vince Guaraldi Trio’s A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack falls 5-7 with 14,000 copies sold (though up 5%).
Backstreet Boys’ A Very Backstreet Christmas returns to the top 10, as the set zoom 44-6 with a 159% sales gain to 13,000 sold. The surge comes courtesy of the album’s Dec. 2 release on vinyl LP across four different variants. On the Vinyl Albums chart, it launches at No. 8 with 7,000 sold.
Christmas debuted and peaked at No. 4 on the Oct. 29-dated Top Album Sales chart from digital download and CD sales.
Michael Jackson’s Thriller falls 2-7 with 13,000 sold (down 30%) and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours rises 10-8 with 12,000 (up 17%). Taylor Swift’s former No. 1 Folklore descends 8-9 with 11,000 (down 18%).
RM nets his second top 10-charting effort as a soloist on Top Album Sales as Indigo debuts at No. 10 with 10,500 sold. The BTS member previous hit the top 10 on his own with Mono (debuting and peaking at No. 5 in 2018). Indigo’s sales are driven entirely by purchases of its digital download album, as its CD configuration is not due out until Dec. 16.
In the week ending Dec. 8, there were 2.602 million albums sold in the U.S. (down 3.9% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 2.211 million (down 6.4%) and digital albums comprised 391,000 (up 12.6%).
There were 929,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Dec. 8 (up 7.8% week-over-week) and 1.267 vinyl albums sold (down 14.7%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 32.821 million (down 10.8% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 38.137 million (up 3.4%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 90.551 million (down 8.3% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 71.476 million (down 3.6%) and digital album sales total 19.075 million (down 22.6%).
