Billboard 200: Kendrick LaMarr Returns To Number 1

Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. returns to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, notching its fourth total week atop the tally. Meanwhile, Brett Eldredge scores the week’s top debut, as his new self-titled album bows at a career-high No. 2.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The new Aug. 26-dated chart (where DAMN. returns to No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard’s websites on Tuesday, Aug. 15.

Lamar’s DAMN. climbs 2-1 on the latest Billboard 200, clocking a fourth nonconsecutive week at No. 1, and its first since the May 20-dated tally. The set earned just under 47,000 equivalent album units (down less than 1 percent) in the week ending Aug. 10, according to Nielsen Music.

DAMN.’s four weeks at No. 1 is the most by an album since The Weeknd’s Starboy claimed its fifth nonconsecutive frame on the Feb. 11-dated chart.DAMN. was last No. 1 on the May 20 chart. The album’s 13-week break from No. 1 is the longest gap between weeks at the top in more than four years.

Notably, DAMN.’s sum at No. 1 -- a little under 47,000 units -- is the second lowest weekly total for a No. 1 album since the chart began raking by consumption units in late 2014. The only time the No. 1 album clocked a smaller total was on the Aug. 22, 2015-dated list, when the Descendants soundtrack bowed at No. 1 with 42,000 units.

At No. 2 on the new Billboard 200 is Brett Eldredge’s self-titled album, which bows in the runner-up slot with 45,000 units (36,000 in traditional album sales). It’s the highest charting album yet for the country singer, surpassing the No. 3 peak of his Illinois album in 2015. In total, his new album is his fourth charting effort; he also visited the list with the 2016 Christmas album Glow (peaking at No. 29) and his debut album Bring You Back (No. 11 in 2013).

Brett Eldredge is the fourth country album to debut at No. 2 in 2017, following Zac Brown Band’s Welcome Home (June 3), Chris Stapleton’s From A Room: Volume 1 (May 27) and Brantley Gilbert’s The Devil Don’t Sleep (Feb. 18). So far, however, no country albums have hit No. 1 in 2017 (all those No. 2-debuting sets peaked in the runner-up slot). The last country album to be No. 1 was Jason Aldean’s They Don’t Know, when it bowed at No. 1 on the Oct. 1, 2016 chart. (It spent one week at No. 1.)

With 36,000 copies sold, Eldredge’s new album is also the top selling album of the week, and debuts at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart.