Frank Ocean is debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 chart this week with his new album, Blonde.
Blonde snags the number one spot away from Suicide Squad‘s soundtrack with a total of 276,000 equivalent album sales, earned in the week of August 25th. Equivalent album units are used to describe sales that include traditional purchasing as well as streaming. In Blonde‘s case, 232,000 units were album sales, while the rest were earned by streaming.
The total number sold in general is impressive, considering Blonde is currently only available for stream and purchase on Apple Music. As an Apple exclusive, the first week sales for the record were hindered by a massive amount despite the great debut, since it wasn’t able to be streamed or bought on additional services. However, it will only be an exclusive for two weeks before it’s available on other platforms, so you can expect Blonde to remain a juggernaut on the charts for a while after it reaches a wider audience.
Blonde‘s debut also makes it the third highest first week showing this year, behind Beyoncé’s Lemonade of 653,000 and Drake’s Views of 852,000.
Joining Frank Ocean on the Billboard 200 chart this week is Drake’s Views at number two, the Suicide Squad soundtrack at number three, and Tory Lanez’s I Told You at number four.
