On the Charts: A$AP Rocky Locks Up Second Straight Number One
The premature arrival of A$AP Rocky‘s sophomore set At.Long.Last.A$AP did little to diminish its debut week sales as the Harlem rapper captured his second consecutive Billboard 200 Number One on the strength of 146,000 total albums sold. The much anticipated album slightly improved on the opening week sales of 2013’s Long.Live.A$AP, which moved 139,000 copies in its debut, Billboard reports.
Taylor Swift’s 1989 clung to Number Two for a second straight week as the Kendrick Lamar remix of “Bad Blood” continued to sustain that album’s sales. Downloads of that track have resulted in a boost in track equivalent album (TEAs) sales, notching another 70,000 1989s to Swift’s ledger. Boosie BadAzz, formerly Lil Boosie, scored Number Three as Touch Down 2 Cause Hell sold 64,000 copies in its debut week.
Only one more new release managed to crack the Top 10: Christian group Hillsong United’s Empires claimed Number Five with 50,000 units sold. Last week’s Number One, Twenty One Pilots’ Blurryface, dropped to Number Six. Many albums that have practically resided in 2015’s Top 10 – Ed Sheeran’s X, Meghan Trainor’s Title and the soundtracks for Furious 7 and Fifty Shades of Grey – spent yet another week in the upper echelon of the Billboard 200.
A$AP Rocky’s reign should be short-lived, however, as it would take an act of God — or out-of-nowhere surprise release — to keep Florence and the Machine’s How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful out of next week’s Number One spot.