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Justin Bieber Debuts Atop Albums Chart With ‘Changes’

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As expected, Justin Bieber cruised to the top of the Rolling Stone albums chart with “Changes,” his first album in more than four years. The new set bowed with 232,700 album units. New releases counted for four of the week’s top 10 albums, with A Boogie wit da Hoodie and Tame Impala coming in in second and third place, and South Korea’s Monsta X entering at No. 7.

On the Rolling Stone songs chart, Roddy Ricch’s “The Box” remained at No. 1 for an eighth week, with 35.5 million song streams. The highest debut on the chart was Billie Eilish’s James Bond theme, “No Time to Die,” at No. 4.

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For Bieber’s “Changes” album, the 232,700-unit tally included 128,800 traditional album sales, 42,500 individual song sales and 122 million total streams. Rolling Stone reported that ticket and merchandise bundles contributed to the album sales total.

Bieber’s previous album, “Purpose,” came out in November 2015 and was reported to have debuted with more than 600,000 album units, more than a half-million of which came in traditional album sales — still one of the biggest first weeks for an album this decade.

At No. 2 on the albums chart, A Boogie wit da Hoodie’s “Artist 2.0” debuted with 112,600 album units. Nearly the entirety of that came via streaming, with a total of 137.3 million song streams for the week. “Artist 2.0” was ahead of Bieber in streams by 15 million — but the album still came in at a distant No. 2 because of nearly non-existent full-album sales (2,400) and song sales (8,000).

Tame Impala had taken even a few months longer off from releasing albums than Bieber. The act’s previous album, “Currents” came out in July 2015. The new one, the “The Slow Rush,” bowed with 96,400 album units, with 57,700 of those in traditional album sales, plus 5,100 song sales and 36.1 million streams. That marked a significant improvement on the first-week performance of the last album, with Tame Impala nearly doubling that record’s 50,000-unit debut.

At No. 7, Monster X’s “All About Luv” was not quite the monster that some other K-pop albums have been, but it still got a lot of love. The collection premiered with 41,600 album units, with album sales accounting for 38,400 of the total, and the rest coming via 2,400 song sales and 3.2 million song streams.

The top 10 in the albums chart was rounded out by Roddy Ricch, falling from No. 1 to No. 4 amid the slew of new releases, plus Post Malone, Billie Eilish, Pop Smoke, Eminem and Harry Styles.

On the RS songs chart, behind Ricch, “Life is Good” by Drake and Future and “Intentions” by Bieber held fairly steady at Nos. 2-3. Eilish’s “No Time to Die” bowed at No. 4 and A Boogie wit da Hoodie’s “Numbers” came in at No. 5.

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