RS Charts: The Weeknd Beats Out 5 Seconds of Summer in Tight Race for Number One

The Weeknd won a very close race for Number One on the latest Rolling Stone Top 200 Albums chart. His After Hours album earned 146,500 album equivalent units, just enough to squeeze by 5 Seconds of Summer’s Calm, which arrived at Number Two with 144,300 units. 

After Hours enjoyed robust sales in its second week on the chart — 48,500 copies — as well as 113.9 million streams. 5 Seconds of Summer out-sold the Weeknd, moving nearly 70,000 copies of Calm. But the Weeknd enjoyed a massive edge in streaming (113.9 million to 21.5 million) and song sales (42,700 to 7,000), and that was enough to keep him at Number One.

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.

Aside from the competition at the top of the chart last week, three other albums debuted in the Top Ten. The leader was Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, which arrived at Number Four with 46.6 million streams. Pearl Jam debuted at Number Seven with Gigaton; as is often the case with veteran rockers, the majority of the band’s consumption was driven by album sales. The R&B singer PartyNextDoor trailed behind with Partymobile, which arrived at Number Nine thanks mostly to 43.9 million streams.