Ariana Grande achieves her sixth No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart as Eternal Sunshine bows atop the list (dated March 23), launching with 227,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending March 14, according to Luminate. Eternal’s opening frame also marks the largest week of 2024 for any album.
Grande previously led the tally with Positions (in 2020), Thank U, Next (2019), Sweetener (2018), My Everything (2014) and Yours Truly (2013).
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, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new March 23, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on March 19. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of Eternal Sunshine’s 227,000 units earned in the tracking week ending March 14, SEA units comprise 148,000 (equaling 194.92 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs), album sales comprise 77,000 and TEA units comprise 2,000. Eternal’s first-week start is the largest of 2024 so far, surpassing the debut of Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 1, which bowed with 148,000 (chart dated Feb. 24).
Eternal’s first-week sales were bolstered by the set’s availability across 12 physical configurations (six vinyl and six CD offerings, all with the same tracklist), a standard digital download (in clean and explicit versions) and a “slightly deluxe” digital download (clean and explicit, which added four bonus tracks – all remixes and alternative versions of songs on the standard album).
All six of the vinyl editions were ruby red-colored, and five offered alternate cover art. (Of the latter five editions, four were sold exclusively through Grande’s official webstore, and one of them was exclusive to Target.) Combined, her vinyl sales totaled 33,000 — her largest week on vinyl ever, surpassing the 32,000 first-week sales of Positions in 2021. As for the CD editions, there was a widely available standard CD, four variants (all with alternate cover art) sold in Grande’s webstore, and a signed edition (also sold via her webstore).
Eternal was released March 8 and led by the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Yes, And?,” which debuted atop the tally dated Jan. 27. Grande announced the new album on Jan. 17 and ushered in the set’s release as the musical guest on NBC’s Saturday Night Live (March 9) and appeared as a presenter at the Academy Awards (March 10).
Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time is pushed down to No. 2 on the new Billboard 200, despite a gain (less than 1%) to 68,000 equivalent album units earned. Noah Kahan’s Stick Season dips 2-3 (48,000; down 9%), Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s chart-topping Vultures 1 falls 3-4 (45,000; down 14%) and SZA’s former No. 1 SOS descends 4-5 (nearly 45,000; down 3%).
The rest of the top 10 on the new chart comprises former No. 1s: Zach Bryan’s self-titled set rises 8-6 (41,000 equivalent album units; up 8%), Drake’s For All the Dogs slips 5-7 (39,000; down 6%), Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) falls 6-8 (38,500; down 2%), Swift’s Lover drops 7-9 (nearly 38,500; down less than 1%) and Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album falls 9-10 (just over 38,000; up 2%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
This story originally appeared on Billboard
