CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – AUGUST 04: Ariana Grande performs at Lollapalooza at Grant Park on August 04, … [+]
Ariana Grande is used to hitting No. 1 on the Billboard charts. She’s been doing so for more than a decade now across the company’s various rankings. At this point, it would seem that she has already dominated all the rankings she is eligible for with her brand of pop, but that’s not quite the case. This week, the singer reaches the No. 1 rung on a tally she’s never even appeared on before.
Eternal Sunshine debuts at No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart. The set gives Grande her first appearance on the list of the most-streamed full-lengths in the U.S. Impressively, she reaches the summit in her first frame on the tally.
While she has found incredible success on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music in the past, Billboard only introduced the Top Streaming Albums chart a few months ago. Many major players in the music industry, like Grande, are just catching up, earning their first hits on the ranking with new releases or special comebacks.
Somewhat amazingly–and surprisingly–Eternal Sunshine is the only new entrant on this week’s Top Streaming Albums chart. That means there weren’t many major releases in the past tracking period that appealed primarily to younger audiences, who largely power the streaming rankings. Past successful projects from stars like The Weeknd, and Fleetwood Mac find their way back to the tally as well.
Eternal Sunshine debuts atop several of Billboard’s albums rankings this week. In addition to the Top Streaming Albums chart, it also launches at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Top Album Sales, and Vinyl Albums tallies, as it performed well across all important metrics in its first full tracking frame.
Streams did most of the work in sending Eternal Sunshine to the top of the Billboard 200–Billboard’s all-encompassing ranking of the most-consumed full-lengths in the country–so it’s not shocking that it opens at No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart. The set shifted 148,000 streaming equivalent units in its first seven days of availability. That’s just under 195 million streams in one week.
Grande’s latest effort was so powerful on streaming platforms when it first arrived that it would have debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 even if it had only been made available to stream. Of course, thousands of fans purchased the collection as well–it sold 77,000 copies in its debut frame–but nearly 200 million plays of its songs in the U.S. alone would have been enough to make it the biggest title in the country.
