The first-week sales numbers for Chris Brown's Royalty are in, and though Breezy's seventh album performed even better than was expected -- selling 184,000 units -- it did not top the charts. In fact, for the week ending Dec. 24, Royalty made its debut at No. 3, behind Justin Bieber's Purpose, released on Nov. 13, and Adele's 25, which remains at No. 1 for the fifth consecutive week, reports Billboard.
The spike in sales for both Purpose (229,000) and 25 (1.15 million) was expected because of the holidays. Amazingly, Adele's 25 has now sold 7.13 million copies in the U.S. It was already the first album ever to sell 1 million or more in two different weeks, and now it holds a new record for moving seven figures in three separate weeks.
Elsewhere in hip-hop, Pusha T's King Push - Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude, had a relatively modest first week, landing at No. 16 with just under 38,000 in pure album sales, according to Hits Daily Double. The album's sales plus streaming (SPS) numbers have not yet arrived.