Metallica have indeed bested Katy Perry to grab the biggest-selling new album of this week, according to the latest Billboard numbers.
Loudwire reported last week that the Bay Area metal veterans were on track to top the pop singer on the Billboard 200 album chart for the week ending Sept. 12. Both Metallica’s S&M2 and Perry’s Smile were released Aug. 28. Industry projections accounting for both albums’ first full weeks out had Metallica edging out Perry with a few thousand more in physical sales. The prediction had the metal act at No. 4, Perry at No. 5. (All higher entries were estimated as previously charting albums released in July.)
Now, those chart births have been confirmed by Billboard. On Monday (Sept. 7), the music industry magazine reported S&M2‘s chart debut at No. 4 with 56,000 equivalent album units moved. Perry’s Smile lagged behind at No. 5 with 50,000 equivalent album units earned.
According to Billboard, 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. 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.”
Taylor Swift‘s Folklore stays at No. 1 for its sixth straight week. No. 2 and No. 3 are Pop Smoke‘s Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon and Juice Wrld‘s Legends Never Die, respectively.
The new Billboard 200 numbers should reflect on the chart by Tuesday (Sept. 8).
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