On the Christian Albums chart, This Is Not a Test concurrently debuts at No. 1 -- the artist’s fourth chart-topper.
The week was a notable one for the music industry.
Luke Bryan celebrates his third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart as his new release Kill the Lights makes a smashing debut atop the list. The album moved 345,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Aug. 13, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 320,000 were pure album sales.
Thus, Kill the Lights tallies the third-largest week of 2015 for an album, both in overall units and album sales. Kill The Lights’ start is also the largest sales week for a country album in three years -- since Bryan’s last studio effort, Crash My Party in 2013.
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).
Bryan and Dre’s debuts are a welcome sight on the chart, following a woeful week at the top of the list. A week ago, the Descendants soundtrack opened at No. 1 with both the lowest overall unit total (42,000) for a chart-topping set, and the smallest weekly sales figure (30,000) for a No. 1 since Nielsen Music started tracking sale in 1991.
Combined, Bryan's Kill the Lights and Dre's Compton moved 640,000 overall units, and sold 596,000 albums. To put those numbers in perspective, the 640,000 sum is more than the combined total of Nos. 3-32 albums on the new Billboard 200. Further, the 596,000 sales tally -- which places the albums at Nos. 1 and 2 on the Top Album Sales chart -- is greater than the Nos. 3-65 titles on the Album Sales list.
Also, this week marks the first time two albums have sold at least 294,000 units in a week since the Billboard 200 transitioned to ranking popularity based on overall units earned in December of 2014.
And finally, this is the first week in eight months where two albums have sold at least 275,000 copies each. It last happened on the Dec. 27, 2014-dated chart (reflecting the sales week ending Dec. 14, in the thick of the Christmas shopping season).
The new Now 55 compilation debuts at No. 3 with 76,000 units (all from album sales). The arrival continues the long-running Now That’s What I Call Music series’ hit track record, as every one of the numbered Now titles have reached the Top 10.
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