LANA DEL REY SCORES THIRD NO.1 WITH CHEMTRAILS OVER THE COUNTRY CLUB
Chemtrails shoots to No.1 on Top Contemporary Albums; becomes fastest-selling album of the year!
Queen of Alternative, Lana Del Rey’s just-released Chemtrails Over the Country Club soars to No.1 on Top Contemporary Albums, instantly earning the singer her third chart-topper (and eighth Top Ten).
- 2012 – Born to Die: Paradise Edition – No.2
- 2014 – Ultraviolence – No.8
- 2015 – Honeymoon – No.5
- 2015 – The Unreleased Collection – No.3
- 2017 – Lust for Life – No.1 (eleven weeks)
- 2019 – Norman Fucking Rockwell! – No.1 (seventeen weeks)
- 2020 – Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass – No.3
- 2021 – Chemtrails Over the Country Club – No.1 (one week to date)
Chemtrails debuts with sales of 160,000 units – comprising of 141,000 first-week sales and a further 19,000 copies from singles & pre-sales.
It nabs the biggest opening week of the year on L.dK Weekly, surpassing Joni Mitchell’s Blue (Catalogue) which sold 75,000 in its debut.
In addition: 160,000 marks the greatest haul since the chart dated 18 January when Taylor Swift’s evermore sold 172,000 in its fifth week of sales; and the largest debut since evermore racked up sales of 226,000 copies for the chart dated 21 December 2020.
Compared to Del Rey’s previous set – 2019’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! – it marks a dip of 18 percent (down from 194,000).
Overall: Chemtrails’s debut is the twenty-second greatest of all time, just ahead of Alanis Morissette’s The Collection (158,000).
Del Rey’s previous two records, 2017’s Lust for Life & NFR! rank at No.1 (639,000 – 29 July 2017) and No.15 (194,000 – 09 September 2019) among the fastest-selling albums of all time.
Already, Chemtrails has been certified Gold for selling over 100,000 copies. It is Del Rey’s eighth consecutive record to achieve at least a Gold badge.
- 12 x Platinum, Norman Fucking Rockwell! – 3.84 million
- 8 x Platinum, Lust for Life – 2.53 million
- 2 x Platinum, Born to Die: Paradise Edition – 789,000
- 2 x Platinum, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass – 749,000
- Platinum, Honeymoon – 304,000
- Gold, The Unreleased Collection – 189,000
- Gold, Ultraviolence – 187,000
- Gold, Chemtrails Over the Country Club – 160,000
Including Chemtrails, Lana Del Rey has sold a staggering 8.75 million albums across her catalogue, ranking her as the second bestselling artist of all time, behind only Stevie Nicks (10.63 million).
Just outside the Top Ten, Del Rey’s spoken-word poetry album – which peaked at No.3 last year – bursts 17-11 on sales of 14,000 units (up 75 percent).
Taylor Swift’s folklore retreats to No.2 after last week returning to No.1 for a sixteenth non-consecutive week following its Album of the Year win at the Grammys! The album sold 57,000 units this week (down 22 percent).
Interestingly, this marks the first time since its inception that Top Contemporary Albums has been topped by any artist other than Taylor Swift (she commanded the list for its first eleven weeks with evermore, and then last week with folklore).
evermore meanwhile steps down 2-3 after a thirteen-week command, selling 50,000 copies (down 21 percent). The album has now been certified 6 x Platinum for selling in excess of 1.8 million units.
Both of Swift’s most recent albums have been certified at least 6 x Platinum; folklore was certified Diamond last week, having topped 3 million sales!
Hayley Williams’s No.2-peaking FLOWERS for VASES / descansos reounds 5-4 on sales of 35,000 (down 3 percent); the singer’s No.3 hit Petals for Armor simultaneously bullets at No.10 with 15,000 sold (up 7 percent).
Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia backtracks 3-5 on sales of 34,000 units (down 20 percent), as it celebrates two major accomplishments!
Future has now charted for a whole consecutive year on L.dK Weekly, and the eight-week chart-topper has also just passed 2.4 million sales, making it just the fifth album in history to attain 8 x Platinum certification! The other such albums are as follows:
- Norman Fucking Rockwell, Lana Del Rey – 12 x Platinum
- A Star is Born, Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper – 11 x Platinum
- folklore, Taylor Swift – Diamond
- Lust for Life, Lana Del Rey – 8 x Platinum
- Future Nostalgia, Dua Lipa – 8 x Platinum
The Weeknd’s The Highlights falls 4-6 after peaking at No.3 (32,000 sold – down 14 percent) as the best-of set becomes the star’s second release to be certified Platinum, following the Quadruple Platinum smash After Hours.
Miley Cyrus’s two-week leader Plastic Hearts steps down 6-7 (28,000 copies – down 13 percent); Celeste’s No.3-peaking Not Your Muse stays put at No.8 for another week (25,000 copies – on par).
Finally: After debuting at No.3 two weeks ago, Zara Larsson’s Poster Girl descends 7-9 (20,000 units – down 26 percent).
Onto Next Week: Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club should easily take out a second week at No.1, possibly with sales of over 100,000 units.
Notable Moves on Top Contemporary
No.18 – Piano Sketches / Birdy’s four-track EP, released in November last year, stays put at No.18 this week, selling 7,000 units (up from 6,000 the week before). The short-set peaked at No.13 earlier this year, and while currently being Birdy’s only release not to hit the Top Ten, it is now tied with her self-titled debut as her longest-charting record, with twenty weeks apiece on L.dK Weekly.
No.24 – Love Goes / Sam Smith’s third record Goes Gold this week. It is the singer’s second effort to achieve the certification, following 2017’s No.1 hit The Thrill of it All which is currently certified Platinum.
Top Contemporary Albums
Certifications: Silver (60,000) Gold (100,000) Platinum (300,000) Multi-Platinum (600,000 etc.) Diamond (3,000,000).
LANA DEL REY DOMINATES CATALOGUE ALBUMS
Joni Mitchell’s Blue leads for fourth week; Del Rey places five albums in Top Ten!
For a fourth consecutive week, Joni Mitchell rules Top Catalogue Albums with her iconic 1971 LP Blue. The album sold 44,000 copies this week (down 9 percent).
Lana Del Rey: The Indie-Queen bullets at No.2 with her Diamond-certified juggernaut Norman Fucking Rockwell! shifting 34,000 units this week (up 47 percent).
All of Lana Del Rey’s full-length studio albums preceding NFR! surge into the Top Ten this week!
Her major-label debut Born to Die: Paradise Edition (2012) rockets 15-4 on sales of 16,000 copies (up 128 percent). Born – which peaked at No.2 over three years ago – makes its first trip to the Top Five since September 2017 when it was at No.5; it ranked higher the previous August when it sat at No.4.
2015’s Honeymoon reaches the Top Five for the first time after originally peaking at No.6 in August 2017, flying 17-5! Including sales of 16,000 copies this week (up 128 percent), Honeymoon has sold just over 300,000 units, earning it a Platinum certification! The baroque-pop set last charted inside the Top Ten in late September 2017.
The fastest-selling album in history – and eleven-week number one – 2017’s Lust for Life bolts 20-6, also selling 16,000 units (166 percent). Lust last appeared in the Top Ten last February (at No.10) and last ranked higher than No.6 in September 2019 when it was at No.4.
Finally, 2014’s Ultraviolence elevates 13-10 with 11,000 sold (up 57 percent). The No.8-peaking album has not been present inside the highest bracket since August 2017.
History: By taking the No.2; No.4; No.5; No.6 & No.10 spots on this week’s Top Catalogue Albums Chart, Lana Del Rey becomes the first artist in history to command fifty percent of the Top Ten.
Previously, Stevie Nicks placed four records in the Top Ten on multiple occassions in 2017, and once earlier this year!
Surviving Del Rey’s onslaught, Carole King’s six-week number one A Beautiful Collection holds in the Top Five at No.3 with 16,000 sold (down 16 percent).
Outside the Top Five: Stevie Nicks’s five-week chart-topper Crystal Visions – the Very Best of Stevie Nicks slides 4-7 (16,000 – even with last week); Florence + the Machine’s one-week leader High as Hope drops 6-8 (13,000 – down 8 percent); Kate Bush’s No.3-peaking The Whole Story tumbles 5-9 (12,000 – down 15 percent).
Onto Next Week: Joni Mitchell’s Blue looks set to sell another 40,000 units in the upcoming tracking week, which could sustain her at No.1 for a fifth frame. Her closest competition could come from Annie Lennox’s third solo album Bare (newly retrospectively released) which looks set to sell upwards of 30,000 units; if not No.1, then the LP will jostle Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! which also could sell around 30,000 units, for the No.2 spot.
Top Catalogue Albums
Industry Sales
Contemporary Albums generated sales of 572,000 units this week (up 19.9%) while Catalogue Albums recorded sales of 344,000 units (up 6.1%). Contemporary accounted for 62.4% of all consumption this week; versus 37.6% for Catalogue.
572,000 represents the greatest sales figure this year for the Contemporary format, beating the 554,000 albums sold in the week dated 15 February.
Total industry sales are up to a year-high of 916,000 (up 14.3% from last week). Compared to the same week last year (when 958,000 albums were sold), consumption is down by 4.4%.
This week marks the first time in 2021 that a week has produced lower consumption than its equal in 2020. It is worth noting, that this week last year, the Covid-19 Lockdown began, causing consumption to jump to 958,000 from 673,000 the week before; sales would top 1,000,000 for the first time the following week.
Despite dipping below last year’s figures this week, overall industry has now surpassed 10,000,000 units in record time! Prior to this week, 2020 had been the fastest year to hit 10,000,000 consumption units, reaching the mark in the week dated 20 April.
Through the first quarter of 2021, 10,111,000 albums have been consumed. More than half of this figure comes from the Contemporary Albums format (6,615,000), with the remaining 3,496,000 units coming from Catalogue sales.
L.dK Music 