OLIVIA RODRIGO COMMANDS CONTEMPORARY ALBUMS FOR SECOND WEEK!
SOUR rules again; Lana Del Rey & Birdy earn new certifications; Hayley Williams’s Petals for Armor climbs back up to No.10.
Olivia Rodrigo’s pop-centric hit SOUR logs a second week at No.1 on Top Contemporary Albums, selling 77,000 copies (down 31 percent).
Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club repeats at No.2 after a total of six weeks in the lead, and crosses the 900,000 sales mark! Chemtrails sold 57,000 units this week (down 11 percent) and has now sold a total of 925,000 copies since its release in late-March.
Del Rey’s highest-certified albums are as follows:
- 13 x Platinum – Norman Fucking Rockwell!
- 8 x Platinum – Lust for Life
- 3 x Platinum – Born to Die: the Paradise Edition & Chemtrails Over the Country Club
- 2 x Platinum – Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass
- Platinum – Honeymoon
- Gold – Ultraviolence
To date, Chemtrails ranks as Del Rey’s third bestselling album of all time, passing her 2012 debut Born to Die: the Paradise Edition. Her bestselling records are as follows:
- Norman Fucking Rockwell! – 4,093,000
- Lust for Life – 2,639,000
- Chemtrails Over the Country Club – 925,000
- Born to Die: the Paradise Edition – 914,000
- Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass – 865,000
- Honeymoon – 418,000
- Ultraviolence – 276,000
Birdy’s number-one-hit Young Heart remains at No.3 on sales of 46,000 units (down 6 percent) as it becomes Birdy’s second album to be certified Platinum for selling over 300,000 units; it follows her 2016 hit Beautiful Lies.
Three chart-topping Taylor Swift records follow in the Top Ten, maintaining their ranks from last week: Fearless (Taylor’s Version) is at No.4 with 34,000 units (down 6 percent); evermore is at No.5 with 33,000 sold (on par with last week); folklore is at No.6 on sales of 26,000 copies (down 10 percent).
London Grammar’s Californian Soil remains at No.7 after peaking at No.3 (25,000 copies – up 13 percent). Miley Cyrus’s former chart-topping Plastic Hearts ticks 10-8 (18,000 units – even with last week) as Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia: Moonlight Edition holds at No.9 (17,000 units – down 6 percent).
Hayley Williams’s Petals for Armor springs 12-10 (13,000 units – on par with last week) after climbing to No.3 over the Summer of 2020.
Onto Next Week: Olivia Rodrigo is gunning for a third week at the top spot. Currently, SOUR is predicted to sell over 60,000 units in its third term.
Top Contemporary Albums
Certifications: Silver (60,000); Gold (100,000); Platinum (300,000); Multi-Platinum (600,000 etc.); Diamond (3,000,000)
JONI MITCHELL STILL NO.1; KELLY CLARKSON DEBUTS AT NO.2
Plus: Lorde places two albums in the Top Ten!
Joni Mitchell’s Blue tallies a fourteenth consecutive week at No.1 on Top Catalogue Albums, moving 42,000 units (down 7 percent).
Blue has now spent a staggering fourteen consecutive weeks at No.1, tying it as the longest-running consecutive chart-topper in L.dK Weekly history.
To date, three albums have logged fourteen straight weeks in pole position:
- Lana Del Rey – Norman Fucking Rockwell! (09 September 2019 – 09 December 2019)
- Taylor Swift – folklore (03 August 2020 – 02 November 2020)
- Joni Mitchell – Blue (08 March 2021 – 07 June 2021)
So far, Blue has sold 753,000 copies, and is by far the bestselling album of 2021 on the Catalogue format.
Greatest Hits – Chapter One from Kelly Clarkson debuts at No.2 on Top Catalogue Albums with a first-week haul of 33,000 copies. It is Clarkson’s second Top Five hit, following 2017’s chart-topping Meaning of Life.
Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! steps down 2-3 selling 20,000 units (down 10 percent) as it nabs a record-extending fifty-fifth week in the Top Five and record-padding eighty-fifth week in the Top Ten. Del Rey also drops 6-9 with her No.2-peaking Born to Die: the Paradise Edition selling 11,000 copies (down 21 percent).
Florence + the Machine’s chart-topping High as Hope descends 3-4 selling 16,000 units (even with last week).
As rumours swirl of Lorde’s impending return, her two studio albums re-enter the Top Ten on Catalogue Albums. Pure Heroine is back at a new high of No.5 (passing its previous No.9 high) with sales of 16,000 copies (up 700 percent); it also goes Gold and has sold 110,000 to date.
Melodrama – which ruled L.dK Weekly for five weeks in 2017, and has sold 1.58 million units to date – returns at No.10 selling 11,000 copies (up 175 percent).
Just outside the Top Five: Kate Bush’s The Whole Story slips 5-6 moving 15,000 copies (on par with last week). The greatest hits collection has now spent one-hundred weeks on L.dK Weekly!
Finally: Stevie Nicks dives 4-7 with Crystal Visions – the Very Best of Stevie Nicks (14,000 copies – down 7 percent); Annie Lennox’s Diva dips 7-8 (12,000 units – on par with last week).
Onto Next Week: Joni Mitchell’s Blue could make history with a fifteenth consecutive week at No.1!
Notable Moves on Top Catalogue Albums
No.23 – Sweetener / Ariana Grande’s fourth studio album Sweetener is far-and-away her biggest hit on L.dK Weekly, and is one of three number-one hits from the singer. Sweetener has spent 124 weeks on the charts to date, and as of this week has become the ninth album in history to sell more than two million copies!
Top Catalogue Albums
Industry Sales
Contemporary Albums recorded sales of 477,000 units this week (down 22.2%) while Catalogue Albums generated sales of 380,000 units (up 1%). Contemporary accounted for 55.7% of all consumption this week; versus 44.3% for Catalogue.
This week marks the greatest haul to date for the Catalogue format, surpassing the week dated 15 March when 377,000 albums were sold.
Total industry sales stand at 857,000 for the week, dipping 6.8% from the previous week. Compared to the same week last year (when 1,182,000 albums were sold – the largest sales week in L.dK Weekly history!) consumption is down by 27.5%!
Note
This chart reflects my own personal music consumption; 1 song = 1,000 units. Top Contemporary Albums measures the performance of albums released within the past 18 months; Top Catalogue Albums ranks the performance of albums released prior to the past 18 months.
L.dK Music 