Blink-182 Debut Dethrones Drake From Billboard No. 1 Spot
Traditional album sales just found a trio of heroes in Blink-182.
California, the band's first LP in five years and first with Alkaline Trio co-vocalist Matt Skiba, has debuted atop the Billboard 200 by moving 186,000 album equivalents. Of those, 172,000 were pure album sales — it's the third-biggest sales showing for a rock group in 2016 and Blink's most impressive sales week in 13 years, when their self-titled album moved more than 300,000 copies.
Blink's big week comes at the expense of 2016's unofficial Billboard King, Drake, who would have otherwise spent a tenth week at the No. 1 spot. Drake's Views, which dropped in April, had to settle for second place after moving 117,000 album equivalents, up six percent from last week. Views has now officially had the third most successful run at No. 1 for a hip-hop project behind Vanilla Ice's To The Extreme, which had a 16-week tenure in 1990 and 1991, and M.C. Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em, which had a 21-week run at top spot in 1990.
Maxwell's blackSUMMERS’night debuted just below the competition at No. 3 with 59,000 units moved, Beyonce's Lemonade dropped from No. 2 to No. 4 with 39,000 units and Twenty One Pilots’ Blurryface rounded out the Top 5 with 38,000 moved.
Recent album debuts from Nick Jonas, Ariana Grande and Radiohead had previously been unable to knock Drake from the Billboard 200 top spot.
Shocked that Blink was the act that finally dethroned Drake from his Billboard throne? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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