Luke Bryan’s ‘Kill the Lights’ Spends Second Week at No. 1 on Billboard 200
Luke Bryan scores a second week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with his Kill the Lights album.
Luke Bryan scores a second week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with his Kill the Lights album. The set shifted another 99,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Aug. 20, according to Nielsen Music. A week ago it debuted atop the list with 345,000 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 new Sept. 5-dated chart (where Bryan is No. 1) will be posted in full to Billboard’s Web sites on Tuesday, Aug. 25.
Kill the Lights is the first country album to spend more than one week at No. 1 in two years. The feat last occurred with Bryan’s own previous album, Crash My Party, which spent its second and final frame at No. 1 on the chart dated Sept. 7, 2013.
In two weeks, Kill the Lights has sold 403,000 in pure album sales.
Behind Bryan is a surging Ed Sheeran, who sees his X album jump 6-2 with 97,000 units (up 196 percent). It rallies thanks to publicity generated by his NBC TV concert special Ed Sheeran — Live at Wembley Stadium (which aired Aug. 16) and sales spurred by the album’s temporary 99-cent discount pricing in the Google Play store. The set’s album sales rose to 80,000 for the week (up 378 percent). Of that figure, download sales equated to 72,000 (up 607 percent).
This is the album’s highest rank on the Billboard 200 since the Feb. 14-dated chart, when it also placed at No. 2. The album debuted atop the list 61 weeks ago and has never left the Top 30. It has been in the Top 10 for the past 14 consecutive weeks.
Dr. Dre’s Compton slips to No. 3 with 51,000 units (down 83 percent) in its second week. Dre can also be found at No. 4 as a member of N.W.A, as the group zooms 30-4 with Straight Outta Compton (44,000 units; up 254 percent). The latter album reaches a new chart high and benefits from the opening weekend (Aug. 14-16) of the theatrical film of the same name.
N.W.A was last this high on the chart 23 years ago, when their No. 1 album Efil4zaggin was in the top three (charts dated June 15-29, 1991).
The Now 55 compilation descends 3-5 with 40,000 units (down 254 percent).
Singer Melanie Martinez (a former contestant on The Voice) starts at No. 6 with her debut full-length album Cry Baby (40,000 units). She had previously visited the Heatseekers Albums chart with her 2014 Dollhouse EP, which reached No. 4 on that developing artists tally.
Cry Baby also bows at No. 1 on the Alternative Albums chart.
Taylor Swift’s 1989 dips 5-7 with 32,000 units (down 4 percent). The album has spent all 43 of its chart weeks in the Top 10.
Rock band Bullet for My Valentine launches at No. 8 with its latest album, Venom, moving 28,000 units (of which 26,000 are pure album sales). It’s the second Top 10 album from the band, which also hit the region with 2009’s Scream Aim Fire (No. 4) and 2010’s Fever (No. 3).
Venom also starts at No. 1 on the Hard Rock Albums charts.
The Nos. 8-10 albums on the Billboard 200 chart are only separated by a few hundred units, but when their sums for the week are rounded to the nearest thousand, they all end up totaling 28,000.
That said, closing out the Top 10 are Future’s DS2 (7-9 with nearly 28,000 units; down 11 percent) and Sam Hunt’s Montevallo (9-10 with almost 28,000 as well; up 1 percent).
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