Logic gave fans a surprise gift with the drop of his boastful track "44 More" on Thursday night (Feb. 22). The record, with its booming 808 kick and growling synths, was equally filled by a thunderous lyrical storm from the Grammy-nominated MC.
One line from the song in particular caught fans' attention though -- about the first-week sales of his 2017 album Everybody being superior to Katy Perry's Witness and Harry Styles' self-titled solo debut.
"Talk all you want, we are not the same / Step in the spot, now they know the name / Sold more albums my first week than Harry Styles and Katy Perry / If that ain't a sign of the times then I don't know what is, man this shit is scary," is the lyric in question.
But do the stats back up his brags? The answer is: yes.
Logic did, in fact, have a better first week in 2017 than Perry and Styles. Everybodysold 196,000 copies in its debut frame, according to Nielsen Music, as compared to Styles' self-titled debut (193,000) and Perry's Witness (162,000).
In fact, only seven other albums in 2017 had better first-week sales totals than Logic's Everybody: Taylor Swift's Reputation (1.2 million), P!nk's Beautiful Trauma (384,000), Kendrick Lamar's DAMN. (353,000), Ed Sheeran's Divide (332,000), Drake's More Life (225,000), Kenny Chesney's Live in No Shoes Nation (217,000) and Chris Stapleton's From A Room: Volume 1 (202,000). (Swift's Reputation also outdid Everybody's first week in its second week, with 232,000 copies sold.)
And even if we tallied Logic’s claim by first-week equivalent album units earned (which is how the Billboard 200 ranks the most popular albums of the week), Logic’s Everybody still came out ahead of both Styles and Perry: 247,000 units for Everybody vs. 230,000 for Styles and 180,000 for Witness.
