The biggest story from last week's charts is far-and-away Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly, which hit iTunes a week earlier than expected, which seems to have benefitted the LP, despite a rocky start to the release. K-Dot has earned his very first #1 album with TPAB, smashing Spotify streaming records over the first two days of its release, and pulling a feat Madonna could not a week earlier, unseating the Empire soundtrack. While Lamar couldn't match Drake's first week figures, it'll be interesting to see the two race toward platinum status, along with other big sellers like Nicki Minaj's The Pinkprint and J. Cole (who's currently leading the pack with 838,220 sold). Fan Of A Fan and Sremmlife experienced the biggest falls this week, sitting at number 33 and 34 respectively.
1) Kendrick Lamar—To Pimp A Butterfly: Kendrick earns his first #1 album, debuting at the top spot this week. Despite a slightly botched unveiling the album, he was able to move 324,403 units, and upping that figure to 362,687 with streams, setting a Spotify record in the process.
2) Empire Cast— Original Soundtrack From Season 1: Following a number 1 debut which bested Madonna, Empire could not hold up the lead with K-Dot in the running. The OST falls to number 2 this week, with 109,689 in sales and streams.
3) Drake—If You're Reading This It's Too Late: Drake's looking to put out his "mixtape" as a physical release soon, but the project is still selling as a download, actually rising from #7 to #6 this week with 52,288 combined sales, about half of which were achieved through streams.
4) Big Sean—Dark Sky Paradise: Sean's album drops a good 6 spots from 10 to 16 this week, he'll need another big single if he's looking to keep the momentum up. The LP sells 33,936 combined this week. It's currently sitting at a grand totals of 213,599 sales.
5) Nicki Minaj—The Pinkprint: Nicki's tour and impending single "The Night Is Still Young" should hopefully give her falling album a boost. She'll have to work fast if she wants to beat J. Cole and Drake to Platinum status. The Pinkprint sells 8,719 this week with 572,290 total sales. She falls from 13 to 19.
6) J. Cole—Forest Hills Drive: J. Cole is slowly but surely making his way towards a platinum album with FHD. This week he puts 18,575 more units towards his grand total of 838,220.
7) Chris Brown & Tyga—Fan of a Fan: The Album: The latest from Tyga and Breezy falls 8 spots this week from 25 to 33. The album raked in 13,147 in sales this week.
8) Rae Sremmurd—Sremmlife: The Sremm boys once again pull in the majority of their sales this week in streams with 12,646 sold combined, but only 3,781 purchased copies. They've now hit the 6-figure mark with 101,191 in all. This week they sit one below Chris and Tyga at #34, dropping 10 spots.
Much like Drake's post-IYRTITL invasion of the Hot 100, Kendrick has landed 6 records on the charts this week, with King Kunta placing the highest at 61, and "The Blacker The Berry, "Alright," "Wesley's Theory," "These Walls," and "Institutionalized" respectively squeezing in below it. Fetty Wap's "Trap Queen" is still ascending, moving from 10 to 8 this week, and making it the highest charting pure rap song since Bobby Shmurda's "Hot Nigga". Meanwhile The Weeknd's "Earned It" and Nicki Minaj's "Truffle Butter" stick it out at #6 and #14. Rae Sremmurd's "Throw Sum Mo" seems to have benefitted from it's new video, jumping from 61 to 51, we'll have to wait and see if it can do "No Type" numbers.