Four years ago, Lorde’s “Royals” ranked among one of the more universal singles of the decade. Now with an acclaimed sophomore album in Melodrama, the singer can stake claim as not only one of the best songwriters in the pop world, but one who also notched her first No. 1 album.
According to Billboard‘s weekly reports, Melodrama took the top spot on the Billboard 200 this week with 109,000 copies sold, and of that total, 82,000 were in traditional album sales. That tops her previous effort, Pure Heroine, which arrived at No. 3 in 2013 and remained on the charts thanks to “Royals” and “Team.”
Lorde reaching the summit of the Billboard 200 also sets a rather impressive feat for female artists as Melodrama becomes the third consecutive album from a female artist to reign atop the Billboard 200 following Katy Perry’s Witness and Halsey’s Hopeless Fountain Kingdom. The last time such that feat occurred on the chart was in 2012 when Rihanna, Alicia Keys and Taylor Swift all took turns at No. 1 in December of that year. Before that, the last trio of women to pull off the triple were Reba, Colbie Caillat and Whitney Houston back in September of 2009.
Behind Lorde, 2 Chainz charted at No. 2 with Pretty Girls Like Trap Music. The Atlanta rapper’s official solo follow-up to 2013’s B.O.A.T.S II #METIME sold 106,000 units, of which 57,000 came via traditional album sales, plus, Young Thug’s Beautiful Thugger Girls was in the No. 8 position with 37,000 units.
Jason Isbell also had a stunning chart performance as well, coming in at No. 4 with The Nashville Sound coming in at an impressive 54,000 units, beating his 2015 release Something More Than Free considerably, which was No. 6 when it came out with 46,000 units. Fleet Foxes also entered the top 10 for their gorgeous new album Crack-Up, coming in at No. 9 with 34,000 units. Congratulations to all the artists with top ten debuts this week, but of course — they’ll never be royals.
