Meghan Trainor's Debut Album Arrives at #1
Four months after Meghan Trainor's debut single, “All About That Bass,” reached #1 on Billboard's Hot 100, her debut album, Title, enters The Billboard 200 album chart at #1. Trainor is the first artist in nearly five years to reach #1 with both his/her first single and his/her first album. Just two other artists have achieved this feat so far in the 2010s. Ke$ha scored in January 2010 with “TiK ToK” (her first single as a lead artist) and Animal. B.o.B followed suit in May 2010 with “Nothin’ on You” (featuring Bruno Mars) and B.o.B Presents: The Adventures Of Bobby Ray.
Title moved 238K “equivalent units” this week (which includes 195K in actual album sales). (The rest of the tally reflects digital track sales and streaming activity.) That 195K sales tally is the highest first-week sales tally for a debut album since 5 Seconds of Summer's first full-length album opened in July with 259K. It's the highest for a debut album by a female artist since Nicki Minaj's Pink Friday bowed in November 2010 with 375K.
Title has spawned back-to-back top five hits on the Hot 100. “All About That Bass” logged eight weeks at #1 (and received Grammy nominations for Record and Song of the Year). “Lips Are Movin’” has climbed as high as #4.
Title is one of the most minimalist album titles in pop history. It echoes the titles of Filter's 1999 album Title of Record and deadmau5's 2012 album > album title goes here <.
Title knocks Taylor Swift's 1989 out of the #1 spot. This marks the first time that female solo artists have appeared at #1 back-to-back on this chart since late 2012, when Rihanna's Unapologetic, Alicia Keys' Girl on Fire and Swift’s Red were #1 in successive weeks. (The Fine Print: I didn’t count the Tony Bennett/Lady Gaga collabo Cheek To Cheek as an album by a female solo artist, because it was as much his album as hers. It was #1 in September 2014 back-to-back with Barbra Streisand's Partners.)
1989 dips from #1 to #2 in its 12th week. It has spent nine weeks on top. It moved 131K “equivalent units” this week (which includes 92K in actual album sales). 1989 reaches the 4 million mark in (actual) U.S. sales in this, its 12th week. That’s the fastest that any album has reached 4M since Usher's Confessions in 2004. I wrote about this in a blog we posted on Friday. If you missed it, here’s a link.
Kidz Bop Kids' Kidz Bop 27 debuts at #3. This is the 20th Kidz Bop album to make the top 10. It’s the 14th Kidz Bop album (and the 10th in a row) to make the top five. It moved 80K units this week (which includes 77K in actual album sales).
Ed Sheeran's x drops from #2 to #4 in its 30th week. The album, whichdebuted at #1 in June, moved 77K units this week (which includes 36K in actual album sales). (Sheeran also has this week’s #1 Catalog Album. His 2011 debut album, +, inches up from #48 to #47 in its 127th chart week. This is its second week at #1 on Top Catalog Albums. It first topped that chart nearly one year ago.)
Mark Ronson's fourth studio album, Uptown Special, debuts at #5. This tops the debut position of Amy Winehouse's Back to Black, which Ronson co-produced. That album debuted at #7 in March 2007. It peaked at #2 in March 2008, the week after the Grammys, where Winehouse won five awards and Ronson won three. It returned to the top 10 for two additional weeks following Winehouse’s death in July 2011. Uptown Special moved 77K units this week (which includes 30K in actual album sales).
Nicki Minaj's The Pinkprint, which debuted and peaked at #2, drops from #3 to #6 in its fifth week.The album moved 54K units this week (which includes 30K in actual album sales).
Sam Smith's In the Lonely Hour, which has climbed as high as #2, drops from #4 to #7 in its 31st week. The album moved 50K units this week (which includes 28K in actual album sales).
Maroon 5's V, which debuted at #1 in September, rebounds from #15 to #8 in its 20th week. The album moved 48K units this week (which includes 19K in actual album sales). Look for the group’s new single, “Sugar,” to be the top new entry on this week’s Hot 100.
Hozier's Hozier, which debuted and peaked at #2 in October, drops from #6 to #9 in its 15th week. The album moved 42K units this week (which includes 18K in actual album sales).
J. Cole's 2014 Forest Hills Drive, which debuted at #1 last month, drops from #7 to #10 in its sixth week. The album has had a longer run in the top 10 than either of Cole’s previous albums. The new album moved 38K units this week (which includes 28K in actual album sales).
Ella Henderson's debut album, Chapter One, debuts at #11. The album reached #1 on the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart in October. The title song is a current top 30 hit on the Hot 100.
Jazmine Sullivan's third studio album, Reality Show, debuts at #12. It’s her third album in a row to crack the top 15.
Sam Hunt's first full-length album, Montevallo, which debuted and peaked at #3 in November, dips from #12 to #13 its 12th week. It logs its third week at #1 on Top Country Albums. That’s the longest run at #1 on this chart for a debut album by a male solo artist since Scotty McCreery's Clear as Day spent six weeks on top in 2011.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix, Vol. 1, which spent two weeks at #1 in August,drops from #8 to #14 in its 25th week. This is the 61st consecutive week that at least one soundtrack has appeared in the top 20. Guardians holds at #1 on Top Soundtracks for the 16th week.
Coming Attractions: Fall Out Boy's American Beauty/American Psycho is set to debut at #1 next week (220K in overall consumption/190K in actual sales). Also due: Joey Bada$$'s B4.DA.$$ (55K/50K), Marilyn Manson's The Pale Emperor (45K/40K), the Decemberists'sWhat a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World (45K/40K), Grammy Nominees 2015 (40K/40K) and Lupe Fiasco's Tetsuo & Youth (35K/30K).
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