A trio of divas are aiming for high debuts on next week’s Billboard 200 albums chart: Shania Twain, Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus. Industry forecasters suggest Twain’s new Now album will be the biggest of the bunch and could start at No. 1 with more than 120,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Oct. 5. Lovato’s new Tell Me You Love Me and Cyrus’ Younger Now could bow with 70,000 and 50,000 units, respectively, in the top 10.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The top 10 of the new Oct. 21-dated Billboard 200 chart (where Twain and company are heading for high debuts) is scheduled to be revealed on Billboard’s websites on Sunday, Oct. 8.
Twain’s Now is her first studio effort in nearly 15 years, since the bow of Up! in November of 2002. That set became her first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and launched with 874,000 copies sold in its first week (according to Nielsen Music). Up! spent five weeks atop the chart. Two years later, Twain released Greatest Hits (which reached No. 2) and then didn’t return to the list until 2015 with the live album Still the One: Live From Las Vegas (No. 55).
For Lovato, her latest effort could mark her sixth consecutive top 10 album (out of six tries). Tell Me You Love Me follows 2015’s Confident, which debuted and peaked at No. 2 (98,000 units earned in its first week). Lovato has so far claimed one chart-topper, 2009’s Here We Go Again.
Cyrus’ Younger Now is her first traditionally-released studio effort since 2013’s Bangerz bowed at No. 1 with 270,000 copies sold in its first week. (In 2015 Cyrus issued the then-streaming-only set Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz for free via Soundcloud. The album was eventually commercially released through digital retailers in 2017.) Younger Now could give Cyrus her 11th top 10 effort, dating back to the first Hannah Montana soundtrack in 2006.
Also in the mix are A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie’s The Bigger Artist, which may start with 50,000 units and the late Tom Petty, whose Greatest Hits album (with The Heartbreakers, released in 1993; it hit No. 5 in 1994), may re-enter the chart inside the top 10 with more than 45,000 units. The latter title’s forecast could grow through the week, following the continued reaction to Petty’s death on Monday.
Petty’s Greatest Hits is one of a number of albums by the rocker that could surge back onto the chart next week, alongside Wildflowers, the 2000 compilation Anthology: Through the Years, Full Moon Fever and Damn the Torpedoes.
Rapper A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie has charted twice previously with the mixtapes Artist (No. 70) and TBA (No. 63), but his latest album is his debut full-length studio effort. He’s currently enjoying a top 20 hit on the Hot Rap Songs chart with “Drowning,” featuring Kodak Black, which is included on the new album.
