On the Charts: J. Cole Scores Best-Selling Week of 2018 With ‘KOD’

J. Cole recorded the biggest sales week of 2018 so far as the rapper’s surprise new LP KOD debuted at Number One, marking the fifth straight J. Cole album to top the Billboard 200.

KOD opened with 397,000 total copies, including 174,000 traditional albums and 215,000 streaming equivalent albums (SEAs). Only Justin Timberlake’s Man of the Woods sold more debut week traditional copies than KOD this year, but KOD‘s first-week streaming totals, the third-best ever since the Billboard 200 began measuring streams, pushed the album to 2018’s best sales week, Billboard reports.

J. Cole previously topped the album charts with 2011’s Cole World: The Sideline Story, 2013’s Born Sinner, 2014’s 2014 Forest Hills Drive and 2016’s 4 Your Eyez Only, which sold 492,000 total copies in its debut week.

A Perfect Circle‘s Eat the Elephant, the Maynard James Keenan project’s first album since 2004, opened at Number Three and 68,000 total copies; the band previously peaked at Number Two with both 2004’s Emotive and 2003’s Mer de Noms. Only one more new release, Lord Huron’s Vide Noir, cracked the Top 10 as that LP debuted at Number 10 and 31,000 copies.

Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy led the returnees at Number Two and 91,000 more copies. Long out of theaters, the soundtrack for The Greatest Showman spent its 18th straight week in the Top 10, remaining at Number Four. Jason Aldean’s Rearview Town, last week’s Number One, fell to Number Five ahead of XXXTentacion’s ? (Number Six), Migos’ Culture II (Seven), The Weeknd’s My Dear Melancholy (Eight) and Black Panther: The Album (Nine).

A throng of new releases should bring some upheaval to next week’s charts with the arrival of Post Malone’s Beerbongs & Bentleys, Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer, Keith Urban’s Graffiti U, Godsmack’s When Legends Rise and more.