Universal Music Group has a clean sweep of the top five albums on the Billboard 200 this week with Logic's No. 1 debut Everybody getting top honors followed in order by Chris Stapleton's From a Room: Volume 1, Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN., The Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2: Awesome Mix Vol. 2 and Drake’s More Life.
It's the first time any music company has monopolized the top five since Universal did it on the Nov. 28, 2015-dated list. That week, Stapleton was No. 1 with Traveller (on Mercury Nashville Records), while Nos. 2-5 were Eric Church’s Mr. Misunderstood (EMI Nashville), Ellie Goulding’s Delirium (Cherrytree/Interscope Records), The Weeknd’s Beauty Behind the Madness (Republic Records) and Tim McGraw’s Damn Country Music (McGraw/Big Machine Records)
This week's numbers broke down as follows: Logic's Everybody was released on May 5 through Visionary/Def Jam Recordings and earned 247,000 equivalent album units in the week ending May 11, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 196,000 were in traditional album sales. It also 4,000 in TEA sales and 47,000 in SEA. The latter figure translates to 70.2 million on-demand audio streams for the songs on the album (1,500 streams equals one SEA unit).
Chris Stapleton's From A Room: Volume 1 is his second solo studio album and marks his best sales week yet with sales of 219,000 units (and 202,000 in traditional album sales). Stapleton’s sales start is the largest sales week for a country album in more than a year-and-a-half. The last country set to sell more in a week was Luke Bryan’s Kill the Lights, which sold 320,000 copies in its first week (chart dated Aug. 29, 2015, reflecting the sales week ending Aug 13, 2015).
Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. (on Top Dawg/Aftermath/Interscope Records) falls from No. 1 to No. 3 (134,000 units; down 22 percent) on the new Billboard 200, after three weeks atop the list.
The Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2: Awesome Mix Vol. 2 soundtrack (Marvel/Hollywood Records) hits a new high, rising 8-4 (87,000 units -- nearly all from album sales; up 120 percent). The surge comes following the movie’s bow in U.S. theaters on May 5.
And Drake’s More Life (Young Money/Cash Money/Republic Records) rounds out the top five, slipping one rung to No. 5 with 62,000 units (down 10 percent).
