Eagles Fly Back Onto Charts With ‘To the Limit: The Essential Collection’
Eagles fly back onto Billboard’s charts with the band’s new best-of, To the Limit: The Essential Collection. The retrospective debuts at No. 9 on Top Album Sales, No. 6 on Top Rock Albums, No. 8 on Top Rock & Alternative Albums and No. 8 on Top Current Album Sales (all charts dated April 27). It also launches at No. 30 on the Billboard 200 – the group’s 12th top 40-charting effort on the tally.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Top Rock Albums and Top Rock & Alternative Albums rank, respectively, the week’s most popular rock, and rock and alternative albums by equivalent album units. Top Current Album Sales ranks the week’s top-selling new/current albums (non-catalog/older titles).
To the Limit: The Essential Collection sold 7,000 copies in the U.S. in the week ending April 18 (as reflected on the charts dated April 27). Physical sales comprise 6,500 of the album’s first-week sales (5,000 on CD and 1,500 on vinyl) while digital download sales comprise 500.
At No. 1 on Top Album Sales, Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter rises two spots to capture its second week atop the list (28,000 sold; up 37%). The album’s physical edition (on CD and vinyl) became widely available to all retailers during the tracking week, after previously been sold exclusively through the artist’s webstore.
Linkin Park’s first greatest hits album, Papercuts, debuts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales with 20,500 copies sold. The album’s sales were bolstered by its availability across eight vinyl variants, as well as a CD, cassette and digital download. It’s the 11th top 10-charting effort on Top Album Sales for the band.
TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s minisode 3: TOMORROW falls 1-3 in its second week with 19,000 sold (down 82%).
Lana Del Rey’s Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd re-enters Top Album Sales at No. 4 with 10,000 sold (797%), largely from sales of a new vinyl variant, an “festival orange”-colored edition.
Maggie Rogers’ Don’t Forget Me opens at No. 5 with 10,000 sold, marking the artist’s third top 10-charting effort. Its sales were supported by its availability across eight physical iterations (among them were two signed editions) and a digital download.
Noah Kahan’s Stick Season surges 28-6 with nearly 10,000 sold, following the release of the Stick Season (We’ll All Be Here Forever) deluxe edition across four vinyl variants and on CD. The deluxe set was originally released on June 9, 2023, as a digital download and streaming album.
Mark Knopfler is back on Top Album Sales with his first new entry since 2018, as his latest studio effort, One Deep River, starts at No. 7 with 8,000 copies sold. It’s his first entry on the list since his last studio album Down the Road Wherever debuted and peaked at No. 6 on the Dec. 1, 2018-dated list.
Rounding out the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart are Taylor Swift’s chart-topping Lover (9-8 with nearly 8,000; up 4%), Eagles’ To the Limit at No. 9 and Swift’s former leader 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (holding at No. 10 with nearly 7,000; up 2%).
In the week ending April 18, there were 1.117 million albums sold in the U.S. (down 13.7% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 828,000 (down 14.1%) and digital albums comprised 289,000 (down 12.4%).
There were 422,000 CD albums sold in the week ending April 18 (down 19.6% week-over-week) and 401,000 vinyl albums sold (down 7.5%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 7.121 million (down 31.9% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 7.259 million (down 49.9%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 19.293 million (down 37.3% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 14.454 million (down 42.5%) and digital album sales total 4.839 million (down 14.7%).
Keith Caulfield
Billboard