Machine Gun Kelly Earns First No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart With ‘Tickets to My Downfall’
Machine Gun Kelly earns his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart with the chart-topping arrival of his latest studio effort, 'Tickets to My Downfall.' Plus: SuperM, Joji, Deftones, Carrie…
Machine Gun Kelly earns his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with the chart-topping arrival of his latest studio effort, Tickets to My Downfall. The set earned 126,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 1, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. It was released on Sept. 25 via EST19XX/Bad Boy/Interscope, and marks the fifth top 10 effort overall for the artist.
Machine Gun Kelly has described the new album as “pop-punk,” and it was largely produced and written with Travis Barker of rock band Blink-182. Notably, Tickets to My Downfall marks the first rock album at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in over a year. The last rock set to top the tally was Tool’s Fear Inoculum, which bowed at No. 1 on the Sept. 14, 2019-dated list and spent one week in charge.
Tickets also debuts at No. 1 on the Top Rock Albums chart, Machine Gun Kelly’s first entry on the list. He previously logged six top 10s on the Top Rap Albums chart, including the chart-topping General Admission in 2015.
Machine Gun Kelly previously reached the Billboard 200’s top 10 with Hotel Diablo (No. 5, 2019), Bloom (No. 8, 2017), General Admission (No. 4, 2015) and Lace Up (No. 4, 2012).
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Oct. 10-dated chart (where Tickets to My Downfall starts to No. 1) will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Oct. 6. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Tickets’ 126,000 units earned in the tracking week ending Oct. 1, album sales comprise 63,000, SEA units total 60,000 (equaling 81.1 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs) and TEA units comprise 3,000. Tickets logs Machine Gun Kelly’s largest week, in terms of equivalent album units earned, since the Billboard 200 began ranking albums by units in December 2014. Tickets also yields the biggest sales week ever for the artist, surpassing the 51,000 posted in the debut week of Lace Up in 2012.
Tickets’ album sales were supported by an array of merchandise/album bundles sold via Machine Gun Kelly’s official webstore. The set also sold well with more conventional music sellers, such as iTunes and Target (the latter carried an exclusive version of the album sporting bonus tracks). Tickets was also reissued in a deluxe format on Sept. 30 across digital retail and streaming services (dubbed the Sold Out Deluxe edition), with six bonus tracks.
Among the tracks leading the streaming charge from the album are “My Ex’s Best Friend,” with Blackbear; “Forget Me Too,” with Halsey and “Bloody Valentine.” Preceding the album’s arrival, the set notched a pair of top 10 hits on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart with “Bloody Valentine” (No. 3) and “My Ex’s Best Friend” (No. 6). On the Alternative Songs airplay chart, the album yielded Machine Gun Kelly’s first top 10 hit on the list, with “Blood Valentine” having peaked at No. 2 on the most recently published tally (dated Oct. 3).
Meanwhile, Tickets grants Interscope Records its sixth No. 1 of 2020, after Juice WRLD’s Legends Never Die, Lady Gaga’s Chromatica, DaBaby’s Blame It On Baby, Eminem’s Music to Be Murdered By and Selena Gomez’s Rare. Tickets also brings Bad Boy Records back to No. 1 for the first time since 2008, when Danity Kane’s Welcome to the Dollhouse and Day26’s self-titled album went back-to-back atop the list (April 5-12, 2008).
Machine Gun Kelly leads a busy top 10, as Tickets is one of six albums that bow in the region — the most in nearly two years. Also starting in the top 10 are new efforts from SuperM, Joji, Deftones, Carrie Underwood and Tory Lanez.
K-pop supergroup SuperM debuts at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with the act’s first full-length album, Super One: The 1st Album, which bows with 104,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, 101,000 are from album sales, 3,000 from SEA units (equaling 5.2 million in on-demand streams of the set’s tracks) and a negligible sum from TEA units.
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The set’s sales were bolstered by many merchandise/album bundles sold via the group’s official webstores, including a range of items co-branded with Marvel. In addition, sales were encouraged by more than a dozen variants of the album released across digital and CD formats, including a Target-exclusive version with different packaging and a poster. As is usual for many K-pop acts, the CD editions of the album were issued in elaborate collectible packaging containing such items as a poster and a postcard.
Super One: The 1st Album follows the act’s introductory EP, SuperM: The 1st Mini Album, which debuted at No. 1 in 2019 with 168,000 equivalent album units earned in its first week.
Joji notches his second top 10 album, as Nectar debuts at No. 3 with 92,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that figure, 50,000 are from SEA units (equaling 71.13 million in on-demand streams of the set’s songs), 41,000 from album sales and less than 1,000 from TEA units. Nectar’s sales were enhanced by merchandise/album bundles sold via Joji’s official webstore.
Nectar secures Joji’s biggest week, both in terms of equivalent album units earned and album sales, beating his previous high, logged with the debut week of his last release, Ballads 1 (57,000 units; 34,000 sales). Ballads 1 also marked his previous top 10 set, bowing and peaking at No. 3 (Nov. 10, 2018-dated chart).
While Tickets to My Downfall and Super One both had CD editions available widely at retail, Nectar had a limited number of CDs available through Joji’s webstore. Tickets sold 16,000 on CD, while Super One shifted 61,000. Nectar moved just under 2,000 CDs. Pop Smoke’s former No. 1 Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon descends from No. 2 to No. 4 with 71,000 equivalent album units earned (down 5 percent).
Rock band Deftones drives in at No. 5 with its new studio album Ohms, launching with 49,000 equivalent album units earned. It’s the sixth top 10 effort for the group.
Of Ohms’ starting sum, 43,000 are from album sales, 6,000 from SEA units (equaling 7.97 million in on-demand streams of the set’s songs) and a negligible number of TEA units.
Ohms was a hot seller on vinyl, as well, selling 14,000 vinyl copies, and was the top selling vinyl LP of the week. (It debuts at No. 1 on the Vinyl Albums chart.)
Ohms comes 25 years after the release of the band’s first album, Adrenaline, in October of 1995. Adrenaline didn’t make the Billboard 200 chart, but it did peak at No. 23 in 1996 on Heatseekers Albums (Billboard’s developing artists albums chart). The band inked its first entry on the Billboard 200 with its second set, Around the Fur, which peaked at No. 29 in 1997. The group later racked up top 10s with White Pony (No. 3, 2000), its self-titled set (No. 2, 2003), Saturday Night Wrist (No. 10, 2006), Diamond Eyes (No. 6, 2010) and Gore (No. 2, 2016).
A pair of previous No. 1 albums are next on the new Billboard 200, as Juice WRLD’s Legends Never Die dips 5-6 with 48,000 equivalent album units earned (down 7 percent) and Taylor Swift’s Folklore falls 1-7 with 45,000 units (down 48 percent).
Carrie Underwood rings in the Christmas season early, as her first holiday album, My Gift, debuts at No. 8. Of that figure, 41,000 are from album sales, 1,000 from SEA units (equaling 1.9 million in on-demand streams of the set’s songs) and 1,000 from TEA units.
My Gift is Underwood’s eighth consecutive top 10 album on the Billboard 200 — the entirety of her releases. Underwood first visited the Billboard 200 chart nearly 15 years ago, with her debut studio effort Some Hearts (No. 2, Dec. 3, 2005-dated chart).
YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s former No. 1 Top falls from No. 3 to No. 9 in its third week, with 42,000 equivalent album units earned (down 33 percent). Tory Lanez wraps up the new top 10, as Daystar debuts at No. 10 with 36,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that figure 34,000 are from SEA units (equaling 47.7 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs), 2,000 from album sales and a negligible figure from TEA units.
Daystar is the artist’s sixth total and consecutive top 10, and his second of 2020, following The New Toronto 3 (debut and peak at No. 2 on the April 25-dated chart).
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