Travis Scott’s Utopia blasts in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (dated Aug. 12), capturing the third-biggest week of 2023 for any album and the largest for any R&B/hip-hop or rap release.
The star-laden hip-hop effort bows with 496,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 3, according to Luminate. Among the guests featured on Utopia are 10 acts who have all topped the Billboard 200 on their own: 21 Savage, Bad Bunny, Beyoncé, Drake, Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, SZA, The Weeknd and Young Thug.
Utopia is Scott’s third No. 1 and first solo album since 2018’s Astroworld, which started atop the chart. In between Astroworld and Utopia, the Jackboys supergroup – led by Scott – notched a No. 1 with its self-titled release in early 2020. Utopia has been teased for years, as Scott first shared the album title in a series of social media posts in the summer and fall of 2020.
Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200, Post Malone clocks his fifth consecutive top five-charting effort as Austin bows at No. 2.
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 Aug. 12, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Aug. 8. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Utopia’s 496,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Aug. 3, SEA units comprise 243,000 (equaling 330.68 million on-demand official streams of the streaming set’s 19 total songs – the second-biggest streaming week of 2023), album sales comprise 252,000 (the second-largest sales week of 2023) and TEA units comprise 1,000.
Streaming activity comprises nearly half (49%) of Utopia’s first-week activity, with almost all of the remainder generated by album sales. The set’s streaming activity was so robust that the album would have been No. 1 from only its SEA units (and still have twice the total units of the No. 2 album on the chart, Post Malone’s Austin). The most-streamed song on the Utopia album, by official on-demand streams, is “Meltdown,” featuring Drake. It accounted for nearly 10% of the album’s streams during the week.
Utopia was preceded by its first single, “K-POP,” with The Weeknd and Bad Bunny, which debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated Aug. 5.
Utopia is available with three different track lists: a standard 18-song edition through all major digital retailers (including the iTunes Store and Amazon), a 19-song set at digital retail and streamers (which includes the song “Meltdown,” featuring Drake), and a 19-song version available on CD, vinyl and a “First Edition” digital album sold through Scott’s webstore (that includes the song “Aye” with Lil Uzi Vert). All of the standard digital retail release’s 18 songs are on both 19-song expanded versions. The “First Edition” digital album was released at the end of the tracking week, in the closing hours of Aug. 3, and sold for just $4.99. The “First Edition” variant sold exceptionally well, due to fan speculation as to the set’s track list, which was not advertised by Scott’s webstore.
Utopia’s sales were also enhanced by its availability across five CD variants (each with a different cover), five vinyl LP variants (with different covers and color vinyl), 15 deluxe boxed sets – each containing a piece of branded clothing and a copy of the album on CD or vinyl, six zine/CD deluxe editions (where a copy of the CD is housed inside a magazine-like package branded to the album), and two Fan Pack offers in which customers could choose to purchase a copy of the CD or vinyl LP with a piece of branded merchandise for a discounted price. Initially, the assorted CD and vinyl album cover art was not displayed to customers on Scott’s webstore. When fans placed orders, they selected one of five covers, not knowing what the final design would look like. Eventually, closer to street date, the cover art for all variants was revealed.
All physical formats of the album are exclusively sold through Scott’s official webstore. It has not been announced when, or if, any of the physical versions of the album will be released wide to any other retailers.
Scott drove customers to his webstore during Utopia’s pre-order campaign and during its first-week thanks to frequent new merchandise releases. Alongside merch drops, the webstore promoted discounted pricing on the Utopia album – going as low as $4.99 for its digital album.
In total, Utopia sold 252,000 copies in its first week. Of that sum, digital downloads comprise 111,000 (with 79% of that sum from the “First Edition” variant), CD sales comprise 63,000 (80% of that figure were CDs housed in boxed sets and zine packages) and vinyl sales comprise 79,000 (30.5% were vinyl housed in boxed sets). Of the album’s 252,000 sold across all formats (digital download, CD and vinyl), deluxe boxed sets and zine packages combined to sell 30% of that figure (about 75,000 of 252,000).
Utopia’s vinyl sales were so big, they mark the largest sales week for an R&B/hip-hop or rap album on vinyl since Luminate began tracking sales in 1991. Notably, Scott sold 55,000 copies of the vinyl edition of Utopia as individual purchases – those not contained inside a deluxe boxed set with merch. That figure would still represent the largest week for an R&B/hip-hop or rap set on vinyl in the Luminate era.
[Source: Billboard]