Niall Horan earns his third straight No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated June 24) – the entirety of his solo studio releases – as The Show debuts atop the tally. The set bows with just over 68,000 copies sold in the United States in the week ending June 15, according to Luminate.
Horan’s first two albums, Heartbreak Weather (in 2020) and Flicker (in 2018) both debuted at No. 1.
The Show was released on June 9 via Neon Haze/Capitol Records.
Also in the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Noah Kahan, P1Harmony, Janelle Monae and Extreme all make waves with their latest releases.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. The new June 24, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on June 21, one day later than usual, owed to the Juneteenth holiday in the United States on June 19. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of The Show’s 68,000 copies sold in its first week, physical sales comprise 62,000 (33,700 on vinyl; 22,900 on CD and 500 on cassette) and digital album sales comprise 6,000. That nearly-34,000 sum on vinyl represents Horan’s biggest week on wax, and the largest sales week for any vinyl album released by Capitol Records in the modern era (since Luminate began tracking data in 1991). Unsurprisingly, The Show debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Vinyl Albums chart – Horan’s first No. 1 on the list.
The Show’s sturdy sales start was bolstered by an array of available physical editions: eight deluxe boxed sets containing a CD and branded merch, a signed CD sold through Horan’s webstore, a Target-exclusive CD with an alternative cover and a poster packaged inside, a zine CD package sold through his webstore, six vinyl variants (including color variants for Target, Spotify, Urban Outfitters and his webstore) and a cassette.
Notably, Horan equals the No. 1 count of his One Direction bandmate Harry Styles, who also saw his first three solo studio efforts all debut at No. 1 on Top Album Sales (his self-titled release in 2017, Fine Line in 2019 and Harry’s House in 2022). One further member of One Direction has topped the tally: Zayn, with his debut set Mind of Mine in 2016. (One Direction itself notched four No. 1s on Top Album Sales.)
Stray Kids’ 5-STAR falls to No. 2 in its second week on Top Album Sales, with 46,000 copies sold (down 81%).
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit’s latest release, Weathervanes, bows at No. 3 on Top Album Sales with 28,000 sold. It’s the sixth top 10-charting title for Isbell on the tally.
Noah Kahan’s Stick Season re-enters Top Album Sales at No. 3 following its deluxe reissue with seven bonus tracks, and its first pressing on vinyl, on June 9. The set sold 23,000 copies in the week ending June 15 – up 3,080%. The album originally debuted and peaked at No. 57 on the list dated Oct. 29, 2022. Vinyl comprises most of Stick Season’s sales for the week – 20,500. It bows at No. 2 on the Vinyl Albums chart. It had a relatively slim vinyl release – just three vinyl variants were issued for the set.
Korean pop group P1Harmony makes its debut on Top Album Sales with Harmony: All In, 6th Mini Album, bowing at No. 5 with 20,500 sold. Effectively all of that figure is CD album sales, thanks to the six-track set’s availability across 21 different collectible versions of the album, including some that were signed by the act. All of the iterations contain a standard set of branded merchandise items, along with randomized merch (photo cards and post cards).
ENHYPEN’s Dark Blood falls 2-6 on Top Album Sales in its second week on the list, selling 19,000 (down 78%).
Janelle Monae returns to the top 10 of Top Album Sales for the first time in over five years, as her new studio release The Age of Pleasure premieres at No. 7. The album sold 19,000 copies. She last debuted on the chart in May of 2018 with Dirty Computer, which bowed and peaked at No. 3. In total, Pleasure is her third top 10-charting set on Top Album Sales.
Taylor Swift’s chart-topping Midnights dips 6-8 on Top Album Sales with 17,000 sold (down 29%) while Foo Fighters’ But Here We Are falls 4-9 in its second week with 13,000 (down 77%).
Closing out the top 10 on Top Album Sales is a band that’s been absent from the top 10 for over 30 years – Extreme. The rock group’s new album Six bows at No. 10 with 12,500 copies sold. The set marks the band’s first studio album since 2008. The act was last in the top 10 with III Sides to Every Story, which debuted and peaked at No. 10 on the Oct. 10, 1992-dated chart.
In the week ending June 15, there were 1.924 million albums sold in the U.S. (down 8.5% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.587 million (down 8.4%) and digital albums comprised 337,000 (down 8.9%).
There were 711,000 CD albums sold in the week ending June 15 (down 25.9% week-over-week) and 865,000 vinyl albums sold (up 13.5%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 16.192 million (up 4.5% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 21.963 million (up 24.5%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 46.956 million (up 9.2% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 38.403 million (up 15.1%) and digital album sales total 8.553 million (down 11.1%).