ILLIT Takes First No. 1 on Billboard's Top Album Sales Chart
ILLIT has its first No. 1 on Billboard's Top Album Sales chart. The four-song EP BREAK EVEN takes the top spot on the chart dated Nov. 14, Billboard reported on Nov. 11.
The Top Album Sales chart ranks the week's best-selling albums by sales alone. It adds together physical copies and digital downloads, and streams do not count. That makes it a different measure from the main Billboard 200, which also takes streaming into account.
According to Luminate, the company that tracks music consumption in the United States, BREAK EVEN sold 32,000 copies in the country in the week ending Nov. 5. That was ILLIT's largest sales week so far. It is also the group's fifth top 10 on the chart, and all five have come in a row.
A large part of the total came from choice. BREAK EVEN was sold in more than 24 CD versions, and each one came with collectible extras such as photocards, stickers and posters. Some of those extras were randomised, so buyers did not know in advance which one they would find inside.
Other entries in the same chart week were busy too. Queens of the Stone Age's Perfecth debuted at No. 2, the rock band's sixth top 10. Nickelback's Everything Under the Sun arrived at No. 5, giving the Canadian group its ninth top 10. IVE's Looks Can Kill entered at No. 6 with 10,000 copies sold, the K-pop group's first top 10 on the chart and its best sales week.
Older albums also climbed back up. Michael Jackson's Thriller rose from No. 14 to No. 3 after a reissue on three vinyl variants and on cassette tape. blink-182's 2001 album Take Off Your Pants and Jacket re-entered at No. 8 after a vinyl reissue marking its 25th anniversary. Mariah Carey's Glitter soundtrack returned at No. 9 after its own 25th-anniversary reissue. $uicideboy$'s 2020 album Stop Staring at the Shadows debuted at No. 10 after its first vinyl release.
Each of those chart places rests on a simple count. Someone chose a copy, paid for it, and waited for it to arrive. For a label, that count can decide whether a release is a chart story or a quiet one, and for a group, it is a clear record of how many people bought the music in one week.
The chart names the winners of one week of buying. It does not measure how long an album keeps selling, and it does not show how many people streamed it. Those figures appear on other charts and in other reports.
