Rod Wave captures his third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart (dated Sept. 30) as his latest release, Nostalgia, opens atop the tally. The set bows with 137,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 21, according to Luminate — the rapper/singer’s biggest week yet by units earned. Nearly all of the album’s first-week sum was driven by streaming activity of the set’s 18 tracks.
The artist previously led the Billboard 200 with his last two full-length projects, Beautiful Mind (2022) and SoulFly (2021). He’s only the second artist, following Taylor Swift, to have notched a new No. 1 album in each of the last three years. In total, Nostalgia is his sixth top 10-charting effort — the entirety of his entries on the Billboard 200.
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, compiled by Luminate. 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 Sept. 30, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (Sept. 26). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Nostalgia’s 137,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending Sept. 21, SEA units comprise 135,000 (equaling 187.51 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 18 songs — the third-largest debut streaming week for an R&B/hip-hop album in 2023), album sales comprise 1,500 (it was only available to purchase as a digital download album) and TEA units comprise 500.
Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts falls to No. 2 after debuting atop the tally, as the set earned 134,000 in its second week (down 56%). Four more former No. 1s round out the top six, as Zach Bryan’s self-titled album is a non-mover at No. 3 (79,000; down 17%), Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time is stationary at No. 4 (76,000; down 3%), SZA’s SOS rises 6-5 (53,000; up 17%) and Travis Scott’s Utopia falls 5-6 (47,000; down 16%).
Peso Pluma’s Génesis is steady at No. 7 (46,000 equivalent album units; up 7%), Swift’s chart-topping Midnights stands still at No. 8 (42,000; up 1%) and Wallen’s former leader Dangerous: The Double Album holds at No. 9 (38,000; down 2%). The Barbie film soundtrack closes out the top 10, as it steps 11-10 with 36,000 units (down 4%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
