Beyoncé’s genre-bending “Cowboy Carter” has become her eighth No. 1 album, opening with the biggest sales of any release so far this year.
“Cowboy Carter,” billed as “Act II” of a trilogy that began with Beyoncé’s dance-oriented album “Renaissance” almost two years ago, had been expected by fans, and the music industry at large, as primarily a country project. And indeed it features banjos, lyrics about hoedowns and a remake of Dolly Parton’s classic “Jolene.” But Beyoncé’s new release turned out to be a much broader take on modern pop music, with a kaleidoscopic array of references to the Beatles, Nancy Sinatra, Chuck Berry, rap and mellow rock, and critics praised it as a bold vision and a challenge to the historical segregation of pop genres.
“Cowboy Country” arrives with the equivalent of 407,000 sales in the United States, and in addition to topping the all-genre Billboard 200 chart it is also No. 1 on the magazine’s Top Country Albums chart, the first time a Black woman has led that tally in its 60-year history. Each of Beyoncé’s eight solo studio LPs, going back to “Dangerously in Love” in 2003, has hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
Of its composite total sales figure, “Cowboy Country” sold 168,000 copies as a complete album, including 62,000 on vinyl versions sold through Beyoncé’s website. The 27-track full album also racked up 300 million streams, according to the tracking service Luminate — a blockbuster number, but less than Future and Metro Boomin had for their new joint release, “We Don’t Trust You,” which opened at No. 1 last week with 324 million clicks. (That album falls to No. 2 this week, with its overall numbers down 48 percent from the opening.)
As impressive as Beyoncé’s numbers were, they may not hold for long as the year’s biggest, with Taylor Swift’s latest, “The Tortured Poets Department,” set for release next week.
Also this week, Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” is No. 3, Ariana Grande’s “Eternal Sunshine” is No. 4 and “Hope on the Street Vol. 1,” a six-track release by J-Hope of the K-pop giants BTS, opens at No. 5.
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