Nine days ago, Frank Ocean debuted Blonde. (I still don’t know if we’re dropping the “e” at this point and rolling with what it says on the album cover.)
Early reports said — based on streaming and iTunes purchases alone, given there were no physical copies sold — Blonde would move 250,000-plus in its first week, which is pretty damn impressive for a guy who hadn’t released an album in over four years and gave no sampling of what the album would sound like.
The final tally rang up at 276,000 sales, with 44,000 coming from streaming. It’s the third-largest debut for an album in 2016 behind Drake’s Views and Beyoncé’s Lemonade — both which are platinum-selling albums now — easily making it the No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 charts.
Tory Lanez’s I Told You came out a day before Blonde but still racked up 52,000 in sales for his debut album despite the obvious overshadowing from Frank.
Views, Suicide Squad, Adele and Rihanna are all still in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, and they’ll probably be there through most of the remaining four months of the year.
Check out the top 10 below.
1. Frank Ocean – Blonde (276,000 sales)
2. Drake – Views (77,000)
3. Suicide Squad OST (76,000)
4. Tory Lanez – I Told You (52,000)
5. Lindsey Stirling – Brave Enough (49,000)
6. Twentyone Pilots – Blurryface (33,000)
7. Adele – 25 (28,000)
8. Rihanna – Anti (27,000)
9. DJ Khaled – Major Key (27,000)
10. Hamilton soundtrack (23,000)
