Eminem's 'Kamikaze' Heading for No. 1 Debut on Billboard 200 Chart With Over 360,000 Units
9/4/2018 by Keith Caulfield
Eminem performs onstage during the 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival Weekend 1 at the Empire Polo Field on April 15, 2018 in Indio, Calif.
Plus: Troye Sivan and Why Don’t We aiming for top 10 debuts.
Eminem’s surprise album Kamikaze is off to a blazing start, as the set could launch at No. 1 on next week’s Billboard 200 chart with one of the largest weeks of the year for an album.
Industry forecasters suggest the effort — which was released without warning on Aug. 31 via Shady/Aftermath/Interscope Records — may bow with over 360,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Sept. 6. That sum would land Kamikaze the fifth-biggest week of 2018 for an album, trailing only the debut weeks of Drake’s Scorpion (732,000 units; according to Nielsen Music), Travis Scott’s Astroworld (537,000), Post Malone’s beerbongs & bentleys (461,000) and J. Cole’s KOD (397,000).
Kamikaze's opening week is also on track to blow past the debut frame of Eminem's last album, 2017's Revival, which started at No. 1 with 267,000 units.
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 Sept. 15-dated Billboard 200 chart (where Kamikaze should debut at No. 1) is scheduled to be revealed on Billboard’s websites on Sunday, Sept. 9.
If Kamikaze launches at No. 1, it will secure Eminem is ninth leader on the list. He’s only missed the tally once, with his debut major label effort The Slim Shady LP, released in 1999. The album debuted and peaked at No. 2 on the list dated March 13, 1999.
Also heading for likely top 10 debuts next week are Troye Sivan’s Bloom and Why Don’t We’s 8 Letters.
Bloom could start in the top five, giving the singer-songwriter his fourth consecutive top 10 effort, with perhaps around 65,000 units earned. Bloom is Sivan’s second full-length studio effort, and fourth release overall. His previous full-length set, Blue Neighbourhood, peaked at No. 7 in 2015. Before that, he notched a pair of top five-charting EPs: Wild (No. 5 in 2015) and TRXYE (No. 5 in 2014).
As for Why Don’t We, 8 Letters could start near the edge of the top 10, with maybe 45,000 units. The set is the five-member boy band’s first full-length studio album, after releasing five EPs in 2016 and 2017.