Another hip-hop performer takes the top spot on the Billboard 200 with a surprise album as A$AP Rocky and At.Long.Last.A$AP debuts with 146,000 equivalent units in its first week. That may seem like more than his last album, Long.Live.A$AP (which also debuted at no. 1), however that album opened with 139,000 actual copies sold, while the new Billboard metrics also take single downloads and streams into consideration. In that light, A.L.L.A. only sold 117,000 copies. Of course, week two could also be strong due to the surprise nature of the release.
The rest of the Top 10 was in for a fairly low-key sales week. Taylor Swift managed to stay at no. 2 as 1989 moved another 70,000 equivalent copies. She was followed by another new hip-hop album, as Boosie BadAzz premiered his Touchdown 2 Cause Hell at no. 3 with 64,000 albums moved. That was a legitimate boost of 10,000 albums from his previous high, 2009's Superbad.
Pitch Perfect 2's soundtrack has stayed in the Top 5 for its first three weeks, landing at no. 4 with 51,000 copies sold. We'll see if it can stay in that region (or even the Top 10) for another week, considering the slew of new albums that came out on Tuesday.
The final debut in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 this week comes from Hillsong United, which debuts at no. 5 with Empires. It's the church's highest sales total yet, marking the second time it's come into the Top 10 of the Billboard 200. It's a common name on the Christian charts however, where it's topped that list 12 times.
Last week's no. 1, Blurryface by Twenty One Pilots, comes in at no. 6 with a further 38,000 in sales.
Swift was one of the performers still taking in the benefits of a big showing at the Billboard Music Awards last weekend. The other two, Ed Sheeran and Megan Trainor, come in at nos. 7 and 8, respectively. Sheeran's x moved 35,000 more units while Trainor's Title got 34,000 more.
The Top 10 is rounded out by soundtracks this week. Fifty Shades of Grey comes back into the Top 10 by selling 30,000 more copies, and Furious 7 sold just a few hundred less than that.
