RS Charts: Lady Gaga Charges to Number One With ‘Chromatica’

Lady Gaga’s Chromatica swept to Number One on the latest Rolling Stone Top 200 Albums chart. The singer sold over 200,000 copies of her sixth studio album, a total boosted by a variety of merchandise bundles as well as ticket bundles linked to scheduled tour dates in August. The 16 songs on Chromatica, many of which aim to evoke Nineties crossover house music, also earned over 76 million streams. 

Jimmy Buffett slid into Number Two with Life on the Flip Side. Like Lady Gaga, Buffett benefitted from bundling — nearly all of his 74,100 album-equivalent-units came from sales, and many of those sales were packaged with tickets to upcoming shows. Life on the Flip Side amassed just over one million streams. 

The rest of the RS 200’s Top Ten was filled with sets from streaming stalwarts like Lil Baby, DaBaby, Polo G, Future, and Drake. Run the Jewels’ RTJ4, which dropped early on June 3rd, came in ninth with 37,200 album units. Emmanuel, a sprawling double-album from Anuel AA, arrived at Number Ten, with the Puerto Rican rapper earning more than 38 million streams. 

The Rolling Stone 200 Albums chart tracks the most popular releases of the week in the United States. Entries are ranked by album units, a number that combines digital and physical album sales, digital song sales, and audio streams using a custom weighting system. The chart does not include passive listening such as terrestrial radio or digital radio. The Rolling Stone 200 Albums chart is updated daily, and each week Rolling Stone finalizes and publishes an official version of the chart, covering the seven-day period ending with the previous Thursday.

Five other new albums debuted in the Top 40 this week. The leader was Lil Yachty’s Lil Boat 3, which picked up over 35 million streams. In addition, the electronic producer Kygo arrived at Number 15 with Golden Hour (26.4 million streams), while Diplo’s awkwardly named country excursion Diplo Presents Thomas Wesley, Chapter 1: Snake Oil arrived at Number 26 (19.9 million streams). The country singer Kip Moore arrived at Number 38 with Wild World; like many country sets, Moore’s total was powered largely by album sales rather than streams. 

Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly re-entered the chart Number 146, as “Alright” was one of many songs that saw a surge in streams amid nationwide Black Lives Matter protests. 

Few new albums were released last Friday, so Lady Gaga might have a chance to repeat at Number One.