Pearl Jam’s ‘Dark Matter’ Debuts in Top Five on Billboard 200 Chart

Pearl Jam debuts at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 chart (dated May 4) with its latest studio album, Dark Matter, marking the 13th top 10-charting effort for the band. The set launches with a little over 59,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending April 25, according to Luminate.

Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200, as earlier reported, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department makes a milestone debut atop the list, with 2.61 million equivalent album units earned in its first week.

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. The new May 4, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on April 30. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.

Of Dark Matter’s first-week sum of 59,000 units, album sales comprise 52,000, SEA units comprise 7,000 (equaling 9.33 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 11 songs) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. Notably, of its 52,000 sales sum, vinyl sales comprise a little over 24,000, enhanced by its availability across 12 different color vinyl variants.

The new album was led by the set’s title track, which hit No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart in March (the group’s fourth No. 1 and first since 1998) and has reached the top 10 on Alternative Airplay (the act’s 20th top 10 hit).

At No. 2 on the new Billboard 200, Future and Metro Boomin’s former leader We Don’t Trust You rises one spot with 69,000 equivalent album units earned (down 17%). Beyoncé’s chart-topping Cowboy Carter slips 2-3 with 66,000 (down 33%), and Morgan Wallen’s former No. 1 One Thing at a Time is a non-mover at No. 4 with 64,000 (down 11%).

Future and Metro Boomin’s We Still Don’t Trust You falls 1-6 with 54,000 equivalent album units earned (down 57%), Noah Kahan’s Stick Season slips 5-7 with 45,000 units (down 11%) and Benson Boone’s Fireworks & Rollerblades glides 7-8 with 40,000 units (down 8%). Rounding out the top 10 is a pair of former No. 1s: SZA’s SOS dips 8-9 with 39,000 units (down 2%) and Swift’s Lover climbs 11-10 with 37,000 (down 6%).

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