Matchbox Twenty’s ‘Light’ Shines in Top 10 on Album Sales Chart
Matchbox Twenty returns with its first studio album in a decade, as Where the Light Goes debuts at No. 2 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated June 10). The set marks the group’s sixth top 10-charting effort on the tally and its second-highest charting title ever, second only to the No. 1 North (the band’s last studio set) in 2013.
Light bows with 12,000 copies sold in the United States in the week ending June 1, according to Luminate.
Also in the top 10 of the new Top Album Sales chart, Taylor Swift’s Midnights rushes 10-1, logging its 14th nonconsecutive week atop the list after new deluxe editions and a color vinyl variant of the album were released. Midnights sold 196,000 copies in the week ending June 1 (up 1,529%) – the largest sales week of 2023. With a 14th week at No. 1, Midnights surpasses the Frozen soundtrack (13 weeks at No. 1 in 2014) for the most weeks atop the chart since Adele’s 21 spent 24 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 2011-12.
Plus, the soundtrack to the live-action The Little Mermaid film swims 41-6 on Top Album Sales (9,000; up 172%).
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.
SEVENTEEN’s former No. 1 SEVENTEEN 10th Mini Album: FML rises 5-3 (12,000; down 26%), the Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3: Awesome Mix Vol. 3 climbs 9-4 (10,000; down 15%), SZA’s SOS falls 3-5 (10,000; down 65%), LE SSERAFIM’s Unforgiven jumps 12-7 (9,000; down 3%), TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Name Chapter: Temptation bumps 15-8 (8,000; up 1%), Ed Sheeran’s chart-topping – (Subtract) ascends 13-9 (7,000; down 25%) and (G)I-DLE’s I Feel falls 7-10 (nearly 7,000; down 59%).
In the week ending June 1, there were 1.802 million albums sold in the U.S. (up 0.3% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.358 million (down 5.4%) and digital albums comprised 443,000 (up 23.5%).
There were 602,000 CD albums sold in the week ending June 1 (down 3.6% week-over-week) and 747,000 vinyl albums sold (down 6.5%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 14.520 million (up 4.1% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 20.335 million (up 24.7%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 42.929 million (up 9.1% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 35.084 million (up 15.1%) and digital album sales total 7.846 million (down 11.5%).
Keith Caulfield
Billboard