'Cowboy Carter' becomes the first album by a Black woman to top the country chart
Beyoncé has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with “Cowboy Carter,” marking the biggest sales for an album so far in 2024.
As expected, Beyoncé has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with “Cowboy Carter,” marking the biggest sales for an album so far in 2024.
“Cowboy,” which released on March 29, arrives with 407,000 equivalent album units, giving Beyoncé her eighth topper on the chart. It marks the highest-performing bow since Taylor Swift’s “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” which moved 1.653 million units upon release in November, and earns Beyoncé her biggest streaming week ever.
The album, which is Beyoncé’s biggest sales week since 2016’s “Lemonade” (653,000 units), also makes her the first Black woman to ever debut at No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart. It’s the best sales week for a country album since last July, when Swift’s “Speak Now” landed at the summit with 716,000 copies.
Of the 407,000 units, 232,000 are attributed to streaming equivalent albums (300.41 million official streams), while traditional album sales encompass 168,000 and track equivalent albums total 7,000. Its four limited edition vinyl, which many fans noticed was missing five of the streaming tracks, sold 62,000 copies, gave Beyoncé her biggest week in the format and the largest for any vinyl album in 2024.
Additionally, with her eighth No. 1 on the Billboard 200, Beyoncé pulls out of a tie with Janet Jackson for the fourth-most toppers among women. Ahead of her are Madonna with nine, Barbra Streisand with 11 and Swift with 12.
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