Rihanna’s Anti album vaults to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, marking the diva’s second leader. The set earned 166,000 units in the U.S. in the week ending Feb. 4, according to Nielsen Music, with pure album sales equating to 124,000 of that sum.
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 Feb. 20, 2016-dated chart (where Rihanna is tops) will be posted in full to Billboard’s websites on Tuesday, Feb. 9.
Anti jumps from No. 27 to No. 1 on the list, following the album’s arrival on the tally a week ago (chart dated Feb. 13, reflecting data in the tracking week ending Jan. 28).
Anti bowed at No. 27 after being available for only a fraction of the chart’s tracking week. The album was released through Tidal’s streaming service on the evening of Jan. 27, commercially released the next day (again, through Tidal), and became widely available to all digital retailers on Jan. 29.
A physical CD release followed on Feb. 5. Those sales are not part of the new chart’s tracking week, but will impact next week’s charts (which reflect the tracking frame of Feb. 5-11).
Anti‘s first full week of sales (124,000) was likely tempered by the album’s previous availability as a free download, supported by Samsung. It was given away beginning on Jan. 27 in a limited quantity and generated 1.47 million downloads globally in less than 15 hours. Those gratis downloads did not count toward the charts or Nielsen Music’s sales figures.
Rihanna previously led the Billboard 200 with her last studio effort, 2012’sUnapologetic. It launched with 238,000 copies sold in its first week.
Anti is also Rihanna’s eighth top 10 album — every one of her studio efforts has reached the region. She first hit the top 10 with her debut album, Music of the Sun, which bowed and peaked at No. 10 on the chart dated Sept. 17, 2005.
Chart fans may appreciate this trivia tidbit: As Anti jumps 27-1 on the Billboard 200, it scores the biggest jump to No. 1 in eight years. Radiohead’s In Rainbows was the last album to log a bigger leap to No. 1, when it moved from No. 156 to No. 1 on the Jan. 19, 2008-dated chart. (In Rainbows debuted at No. 156 due to early sales of its album in stores, before its official release date.)
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