After eight straight weeks at the top of the Billboard album chart — and nine at the top overall — “Encanto”‘s soundtrack has finally been bumped from No. 1 on new releases from Chicago-born rapper Lil Durk and costumed Swedish metal band. ghost.
Lil Durk, a mainstay of the Chicago rap scene who has moved to the Atlanta area and recently reached new audiences through a crossover with country star Morgan Wallen, tops the charts with his album ‘7220’. It had the equivalent of 120,500 sales in the United States in its opening week, including nearly 165 million streams. Those numbers are counted by Luminate, the new name for MRC Data, the tracking service owned by Billboard’s parent company.
It’s the second time Lil Durk has reached number 1 after ‘The Voice of the Heroes’, a joint album with Lil Baby, last June.
#2 is Ghost’s “Impera,” whose members perform in elaborate satanic regalia. The lead singer, Tobias Forge, appears in black robes and skeletal makeup as a demonic antipope named Papa Emeritus IV – his influences include black metal and Andrew Lloyd Webber – backed by a team of Nameless Ghouls. (Forge’s identity only became public knowledge after four former Nameless Ghouls sued him for late payment in 2017; the case was later dismissed.) “Impera”, Ghost’s fifth studio album, had the equivalent of 70,000 sales, mostly from copies sold as complete albums were sold, in formats such as CDs and vinyl LPs.
“Encanto” falls at No. 3, and Wallen’s “Dangerous” is No. 4. British singer Rex Orange County opens at No. 5 with “Who Cares?”