Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” is the No. 1 album in the United States for a second consecutive week, preventing new releases from J. Cole and Tomorrow X Together from hitting the peak.
“Cowboy Carter” logged 125,500 sales this week, according to the tracking service Luminate, and 133 million streams, propelling the country album to become Beyoncé’s first to spend two weeks at No. 1 since her self-titled set spent its first three weeks at the summit in late 2013 and early 2014.
Meanwhile, J. Cole’s full-length album, “Might Delete Later,” opens at No. 2 this week with 115,000 units earned and 138 million on-demand streams. J. Cole shared the 12-song set — with features from Central Cee, Cam’ron, Gucci Mane and more — on April 5 without much warning. It was bolstered by the Hot 100-topping (currently at No. 6) “7 Minute Drill,” a supposed diss track targeting rapper Kendrick Lamar. Soon after the album’s arrival, J. Cole apologized for the song and later removed it from streaming versions of the album (the song is still available on the set’s digital download edition). Still, “7 Minute Drill” debuts in the Top 10 with 23 million streams.
Meanwhile, Future, Metro Boomin and Kendrick Lamar’s “Like That” — the catalyst to J. Cole’s “7 Minute Drill” response — remains at No. 1 on the Hot 100 with over 40 million streams. Meanwhile, the song’s parent LP, a joint project from Metro Boomin and Future called “We Don’t Trust You,” slips to No. 4 on the Billboard 200 with 99,000 equivalent album units. A sequel to the full-length effort, “We Still Don’t Trust You,” was released on April 12.
Elsewhere on the Billboard 200, South Korean group Tomorrow X Together opens at No. 3 with their seven-song “Minisode 3: Tomorrow” album. The set earned 107,500 sales (topping the album sales charts this week) and was available in 17 collectible CD editions.
Other highlights from the top of the charts include Hozier’s “Too Sweet,” which moves from No. 4 to No. 2 on the Hot 100 as the Irish singer-songwriter’s highest rank on the chart since “Take Me to Church” broke at No. 2 for three weeks in December 2014-January 2015. Also, Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” holds at No. 3 on the Hot 100, after reaching No. 2.
