×
Skip to main content

Beyonce’s ‘Renaissance’ Secures One of 2022’s Biggest First Weeks After Just 4 Days

The album is heading for a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Beyoncé’s Renaissance is heading for a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 albums chart with one of the biggest weeks of the year. Notably, if it opens atop the chart, it will be the first album released by a woman in 2022 to hit No. 1.

According to initial reports to Luminate, Renaissance, which was released on July 29, has earned over 275,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first four days (through Aug. 1). Of that sum, more than 175,000 are in album sales, with the rest mostly streaming-generated activity. (Luminate’s data powers Billboard’s weekly charts.)

Related

For comparison, only three albums have posted larger debut weeks in 2022 by equivalent album units – and Renaissance still has three days left of activity in the tracking week ending Aug. 4. The three biggest weeks of the year are the debut frames of Harry StylesHarry’s House (521,000 units), BTSProof (314,000) and Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers (295,000).

Initial Sales & Streams

Renaissance’s initial album sales figure is largely driven by direct-to-consumer sales of the album through Internet retailers, including Beyoncé’s official webstore (where she has sold deluxe boxed set editions of the album containing a T-shirt and a CD). Her webstore is currently the exclusive seller of the album’s vinyl LP, which has sold over 25,000 copies – already Beyoncé’s largest sales week ever for a vinyl album.

Renaissance generated 50.6 million on-demand official streams in the U.S. for its tracks on its first day of release. On its second and third days of release, its songs generated 30.9 million and 21.7 million clicks, respectively.

Looking Ahead

Barring any unexpected turns in the closing days of the current tracking week, Renaissance seems like a lock for a No. 1 debut on the Billboard 200 chart dated Aug. 13. The top 10 of the tally is scheduled to be announced on Sunday, Aug. 7, and will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday, Aug. 9.

Meanwhile, if Renaissance opens at No. 1, it will be the first album released by a woman in 2022 to top the chart. The last woman at No. 1 was Adele with 30, which ruled for its first six weeks on the list (charts dated Dec. 4, 2021-Jan. 8, 2022). Notably, both 30 and Renaissance were released via Columbia Records (with Renaissance issued through Parkwood/Columbia).

Renaissance is Beyoncé’s seventh solo studio album, and first since the chart-topping Lemonade in 2016. Since then, she teamed with husband Jay-Z on The Carters’ Everything Is Love (2018), released Homecoming: The Live Album and led The Lion King: The Gift soundtrack (both in 2019; all three reached the top five of the Billboard 200). If Renaissance debuts at No. 1, it will mark Beyoncé’s seventh chart-topper. All six of her solo studio albums also opened atop the tally (outside of her output as part of Destiny’s Child), starting with Dangerously in Love in 2003.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes an exhaustive and thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data, removing any suspicious or unverifiable activity using established criteria before final chart calculations are made and published. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious and unverifiable is disqualified prior to the final calculation.