Aretha Franklin tallies her highest-charting album on the Billboard 200 in 46 years, as 30 Greatest Hits re-enters at No. 7 following her death on Aug. 16.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units are comprised of traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The new Aug. 25-dated chart -- where 30 Greatest Hits returns at No. 7 -- will be posted in full on Billboard's websites on Tuesday, Aug. 21.
30 Greatest Hits re-enters the chart at No. 7 with 35,000 units earned in the week ending Aug. 16 (with 13,000 of that sum in album sales). The Hits package is up 13,048 percent in units earned, while the album’s sales soared 12,693 percent. The album’s surge comes largely from one day of reaction to Franklin’s passing, as she died on the final day of the tracking week. In turn, we’ll likely see further gains next week following the first full chart tracking frame after her death.
30 Greatest Hits is Franklin’s highest-charting album since 1972, when her landmark gospel release Amazing Grace peaked at No. 7 on the July 22, 1972-dated tally. All told, 30 Greatest Hits is Franklin’s seventh top 10 effort on the Billboard 200, and first since Amazing Grace. Franklin has gone as high as No. 2, twice, with I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967) and Aretha: Lady Soul (1968).
30 Greatest Hits was released in 1985 but didn’t chart until 2012, when it spent two weeks on the list (then-peaking at No. 117).
