Beyonce earns first number-one record with RENAISSANCE!
Plus: Rihanna’s ANTI hits No.2 following SuperBowl performance, and Paramore’s This is Why debuts at No.3!
Beyonce rises to the summit of the L.dK Weekly Top 50 for the first time ever, as RENAISSANCE rises 3-1. It re-entered last week following the 65th Grammy Awards, selling 45,000 copies in the aftermath. This week, the album surged 75 percent to sell a further 79,000 units. RENAISSANCE is Beyonce’s first chart-topper after both Lemonade and her self-titled set peaked in the runner-up spot in 2017.
79,000 units also marks the greatest sales week of the year to date, and the largest haul since the chart dated December 19th 2022, when Taylor Swift’s Midnights moved 96,000 copies.
RENAISSANCE additionally enters the list of the ten bestselling hits of the year so far, at No.10 with 126,000 sold since the start of the year. It sits just behind Joni Mitchell’s Hejira which has moved 151,000 in the same period.
Rihanna pays her first visit to the Top 50 in the wake of her SuperBowl performance on Sunday night. ANTI (2015) debuts at No.2 on sales of 64,000 copies. With over 60,000 sold in its first week, the album has already been certified Silver.
Paramore likewise score their first showing on the Top 50 as This is Why – the outfit’s first release in five years – bows at No.3 on combined sales of 57,000 copies (comprising of 56,000 pure sales, and 1,000 pre-sales derived from singles released prior to the album’s release).
Two previous albums from the band also enter the chart this week: After Laughter at No.13 with 20,000 sold, and their eponymous collection at No.24 with 12,000 sold.
Rounding out the Top Five: Joni Mitchell’s twelve-week-leader Court and Spark drops 2-4 with 44,000 sold (down 4 percent), and Elle King’s Come Get Your Wife slides to No.5 after two weeks at number-one, moving 42,000 copies (down 30 percent).
Outside the Top Five: First Aid Kit’s No.2-peaking Palomino descends 5-6 (38,000 units – down 2 percent); Adele’s seventeen-week-ruler 30 reverses course 4-7 (31,000 units – down 22 percent); Taylor Swift’s Midnights drops 6-8 after twelve weeks in pole position (26,000 units – down 13 percent); The Kooks’s The Best of … So Far slips 8-9 after reaching No.3 (24,000 units – on par with last week); and Swift’s evermore moves 9-10 (22,000 units – even with last week).
Onto Next Week: Beyonce’s RENAISSANCE could be bound for a second week at the top spot, currently tracking to sell anywhere between 60-80,000 copies. However, it faces fierce competition from Caroline Polachek’s newly released Desire, I Want to Turn Into You. The album, which debuts this week at No.50 after an abridged first week of sales, could prove to be the singer’s breakout hit, and is currently pacing to sell over 70,000 in its first full week. It could also break the record for the largest single-week movement in chart history – currently held by Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love which roared 50-3 in June 2022.
L.dK Weekly Top 50
Notable Moves in the Weekly Top 50
No.20– Plastic Hearts / Miley Cyrus’s biggest hit has now become her first release to sell over 2.4 million copies, earning it 8 x Platinum status. Only fifteen other albums in history have achieved this.
No.40 – Glasshouse / While this album only peaked at No.4 in 2018, it would become the defining smash hit of Jessie Ware’s career, having charted for 167 weeks to date. It has sold exactly two million copies to date, becoming the twenty-sixth album to sell as many units.
No.46 – Blue Banisters / Lana Del Rey’s latest album picks up three spots to No.46 in its 67th charting week, selling 6,000 copies to bring its total lifetime sales to a whopping 1.803 million. It marks Del Rey’s fourth album to be certified at least 6 x Platinum, following Norman Fucking Rockwell! (19 x Platinum); Lust for Life (9 x Platinum); and Chemtrails Over the Country Club (7 x Platinum).
L.dK Weekly Top Artists
Note
Certifications: Silver (60,000); Gold (100,000); Platinum (300,000); Multi-Platinum (600,000 etc.); Diamond (3,000,000).
L.dK Music 