Beyoncé’s new album Renaissance has landed at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, Billboard reports. In its first week, the album earned 332,000 equivalent album units and sold 190,000 physical copies. Renaissance is Beyoncé’s seventh solo album to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (of seven solo albums total), most recently following Lemonade, Beyoncé, and 4. She’s the first female artist to have her first seven solo albums debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
So far in 2022, the only album with a bigger debut week on the Billboard 200 charts than Beyoncé’s LP was Harry Styles’ Harry’s House, which racked up 521,500 total units and set a new record for first-week vinyl sales, beating previous record-holder Taylor Swift.
Beyoncé’s chart success isn’t limited to the 200 albums chart. In 2016, the Houston native set a new record when every song from her sixth studio album Lemonade charted on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first female artist to ever have 12 or more songs on the chart at the same time. Over the course of her solo career, she’s had seven songs rise to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, too, and had 20 tracks land in the top 10.
Renaissance was released on July 29, 2022. The album was billed as “Act I”—the first of a “three act project” that she recorded during the pandemic. On her website ahead of the release, she wrote: “My intention was to create a safe place, a place without judgement. A place to be free of perfectionism and overthinking.” The album’s lead single, “Break My Soul,” was released in June.
Read “5 Takeaways From Beyoncé’s New Album, Renaissance” on the Pitch.
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