Lainey Wilson Nabs First Top 10 on Billboard’s Album Sales Chart With ‘Whirlwind’
Written by Keith Caulfield on September 5, 2024
Lainey Wilson scores her first top 10, with her best sales week ever, on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart (dated Sept. 7) as her fifth studio album Whirlwind arrives at No. 3 with 34,000 copies sold in the U.S. in the week ending Aug. 29, according to Luminate. The set is the follow-up to her breakthrough album Bell Bottom Country, which was her only other charting set on Top Album Sales, peaking at No. 15 in November 2022.
Whirlwind also arrives in the top 10 across an array of Billboard album charts, including Independent Albums (No. 1), Top Country Albums (No. 3), the Billboard 200 (No. 8), Vinyl Albums (No. 3) and Indie Store Album Sales (No. 10).
Also in the top 10 of the latest Top Album Sales chart, Travis Scott’s Days Before Rodeo charges in at No. 1 with the second-largest sales week of 2024, Sabrina Carpenter notches her biggest sales week ever – and the year’s second-largest for a vinyl album – with the No. 2 bow of Short n’ Sweet, Thomas Rhett achieves his seventh top 10 with the No. 5 debut of About a Woman, and FONTAINES D.C. land its first top 10 – and best sales week – with the No. 8 start of Romance.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Whirlwind begins with 34,000 copies sold, and of that sum, physical sales comprise 22,000 (16,000 on CD and 6,000 on vinyl) and digital download album sales comprise 12,000.
The set’s first-week sales were bolstered by its availability across eight vinyl variants, three CD editions (including a signed edition sold in Wilson’s webstore, and a Walmart-exclusive CD containing a branded patch and a bonus track), a standard digital download album, and a deluxe digital album variant with four bonus “worktape” recordings (sold via Wilson’s webstore).
Scott’s 2014 mixtape Days Before Rodeo roars at No. 1 on Top Album Sales with 331,000 copies sold – the second-largest sales week of 2024 and Scott’s best sales week ever. (The year’s largest sales week remains the debut frame of Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, with 1.914 million copies sold.) Days was released on Aug. 23 commercially and widely through streaming services for the first time. Digital download album sales comprise 300,000 of Days’ first-week sum, while CD sales account for the remaining 31,000.
Days’ first-week sales figure was aided by its availability across eight digital album variants, seven of which included bonus tracks (ranging from unreleased studio cuts, to live tracks, to remixes), and most were sold exclusively via Scott’s official webstore. The album’s CD sales were generated by a stand-alone CD, as well as a CD that was part of a deluxe boxed set containing a branded hat – both of which were exclusive to Scott’s webstore.
In the coming weeks, the album will profit from two vinyl variants that are yet to ship to customers, in addition to two deluxe boxed sets containing the vinyl LP and branded merchandise – all of which are exclusive to Scott’s webstore.
Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet starts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales with 184,000 sold – her biggest sales week and the fifth-largest sales debut week of 2024.
Short n’ Sweet’s sales were enhanced by its availability across nine vinyl variants, five CD editions, two cassettes and four digital album download variants (three of which were exclusive to her webstore). Vinyl sales combined totaled 105,000 – Carpenter’s best week on vinyl and the second-largest sales week of the year for a vinyl album. Short n’ Sweet also debuts at No. 1 on the Vinyl Albums chart. (The largest vinyl sales week in 2024 for an album is owned by the debut week of Swift’s Poets, with 859,000.)
As for the rest of Short n’ Sweet’s first-week sales, it sold 33,000 on CD; 45,000 digital download albums; and 2,000 cassettes.
Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is pushed down 3-4, despite a 20% gain in sales to 18,000 sold for the week.
Thomas Rhett racks up his seventh top 10-charting effort on Top Album Sales as his latest studio album, About a Woman, arrives at No. 5 with 13,000 sold. Of that sum, nearly 4,000 were from vinyl LP sales – Rhett’s best vinyl sales week ever. Its sales were helped by its availability across more than a dozen vinyl variants.
Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion falls to No. 6 after debuting atop the list a week ago. It sold 12,000 copies in its second week (down 84%). Stray Kids’ former No. 1 ATE dips 4-7 with 12,000 sold (down 17%).
FONTAINES D.C.’s Romance starts at No. 8 with nearly 9,000 sold – the first top 10 and best sales week for the act. The set was available across six vinyl variants (which sold a combined 6,000 – the act’s best week on vinyl).
Closing out the Top Album Sales’ top 10 are EHYPEN’s chart-topping Romance: Untold (moving 5-9 with 8,000; down 19%) and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft (7-10 with 7,000; down 9%).
