Jack White’s ‘No Name’ Nabs Top 10 Debut on Album Sales Chart
Jack White scores his seventh solo top 10-charting set on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart as his latest release, No Name, debuts at No. 8 on the chart dated Aug. 17. The effort was initially secretly released on July 19 as a free, unlabeled vinyl to unsuspecting customers at Third Man Records stores in Detroit, Nashville and London. It was then commercially released on Thursday, Aug. 1 as a blue-colored vinyl LP, exclusive to independent record stores, and then widely as a digital download album on August 2.
In the tracking week of Aug. 2-8 (all Billboard album charts reflect a Friday-Thursday tracking week), No Name sold 7,000 copies – with nearly 4,500 on vinyl. (In the week ending Aug. 1, the album sold about 1,000 copies – all on vinyl.)
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No Name will garner a wider release on Sept. 13 when a standard black vinyl and a CD are due out.
Also in the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department returns to No. 1 for a seventh nonconsecutive week, Ye (formerly Kanye West) and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 2 debuts at No. 2, Red Velvet’s Cosmic starts at No. 6, Orville Peck’s Stampede gallops in at No. 9 and X’s Smoke & Fiction launches at No. 10.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
The Tortured Poets Department jumps 6-1 on Top Album Sales with a 606% gain to 84,000 copies sold. The set’s sales were bolstered by a number of drivers during the tracking week. It was released in five new digital album variants via Swift’s official webstore for a limited time, each containing the standard album’s 16 songs, along with one exclusive bonus track for $4.99 each (one album contained a “first draft phone memo” version of “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” while the other four contained one live track each from recent stops during her The Eras Tour). In addition, for a limited time, the store restocked three previously available digital album variants with exclusive bonus cuts, and a signed CD edition. Her store also staged a brief sale pricing promotion, whereby 16 previously available physical variants of the album were all discounted by 13% (as 13 is Swift’s favorite number).
At No. 2 on Top Album Sales, Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s delayed Vultures 2 lands with 60,500 sold in its first week. The set’s opening-week sales were aided by its availability across a widely available standard explicit edition, and a late-in-the-week-released clean edition (on Aug. 8), but no physical formats. Vultures 2 was originally slated for release on March 8, but was released with little advance warning on Saturday, Aug. 3.
Ye’s official webstore also issued five additional explicit digital album variants of Vultures 2 on Wednesday (Aug. 7) and Thursday (Aug. 8), each containing the standard album’s 16 tracks, along with one exclusive studio bonus track per album. All digital albums on Ye’s webstore sold for $5 each. The Vultures 2 album, both clean and explicit, was also discounted to $4.99 in the iTunes Store in the tracking week.
Stray Kids’ ATE falls 1-3 on Top Album Sales in its third week after spending its first two weeks atop the chart. ATE sold a little more than 26,000 copies in the latest tracking frame (down 41%). ENHYPEN’s Romance: Untold is a non-mover at No. 4 with just over 12,000 sold (down 20%).
Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft climbs 11-5 with nearly 10,500 sold and a 35% increase – the set’s first weekly sales gain in its 12 weeks of release. (The gain is largely owed to sales generated by non-traditional retailers, inclusive of Internet-based sellers like Eilish’s official webstore.)
Red Velvet claims its first top 10-charting effort on Top Album Sales as Cosmic debuts at No. 6 with 8,500 sold – the group’s best sales week yet. The Korean pop ensemble previously got as high as No. 40 in 2020 with The Reve Festival: Finale. Cosmic was released as a digital download album, and through streaming services, on June 24. Its physical release, across five CDs, came on Aug. 2. The CD variants include collectible paper ephemera, including a photocard, sticker and a poster (some randomized).
Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess returns to the top 10 after three weeks, as the album bolts 17-7 with nearly 8,500 (up 34%). The album’s ascent comes after Roan’s rousing reception at Lollapalooza on Aug. 1.
Orville Peck notches his second top 10 on Top Album Sales as his new studio effort Stampede bows at No. 9 with 6,500 sold in its first week. The set’s sales were bolstered by its availability across eight vinyl variants, which collectively sold nearly 4,500 – enabling its debut at No. 4 on the Vinyl Albums chart.
Closing out the top 10 on the new Top Album Sales chart is X’s new studio album Smoke & Fiction, debuting at No. 10 with the veteran band’s best sales week in the modern era (since 1991, when Luminate began tracking sales), nearly 6,500 sold. It’s also the first top 10 for the act on the Top Album Sales chart. The new set is promoted as the final studio album from the band, which first dented a Billboard chart in 1981 when Wild Gift reached No. 165 in June of that year on the Billboard 200. Smoke & Fiction’s first-week sales were aided by the set’s availability across five vinyl variants, which collectively sold a little over 4,000 copies (enabling its debut at No. 6 on the Vinyl Albums chart).
