RS Charts: The Weeknd Holds at Number One, Bill Withers and John Prine Albums Surge

The Weeknd coasted to his third consecutive week at Number One in the Rolling Stone Top 200 Albums chart. After Hours picked up more than 22,000 album sales, more than 29,000 song downloads, and 79 million streams.

While the Weeknd enjoyed a victory lap, the rapper Rod Wave arrived at Number Two with his new album, Pray 4 Love, which amassed 81.3 millions streams. The country singer Sam Hunt also debuted in the Top Five, with his long-awaited Southside album, which earned more than 15,000 album sales and more than 33 million streams. 

[rs-chart chart_type=”albums” date=”2020-04-07″ display=”short” num=”5″ start=”1″]

The Rolling Stone 200 Albums chart tracks the most popular releases of the week in the United States. Entries are ranked by album units, a number that combines digital and physical album sales, digital song sales, and audio streams, using a custom weighting system. The chart does not include passive listening such as terrestrial radio or digital radio. The Rolling Stone 200 Albums chart is updated daily, and each week Rolling Stone finalizes and publishes an official version of the chart, covering the seven-day period ending the previous Thursday.

Rod Wave and Hunt were the only artists with high-flying debuts in another quiet week on the RS 200. Bill Withers‘ Greatest Hits collection surged to Number 15 following the soul singer’s death at age 81; the album was boosted by more than 91,000 song downloads as well as 14.4 million streams. Two other Withers sets, the early-Seventies classics Just As I Am and Still Bill, jumped to Number 67 and Number 128, respectively.

A pair of John Prine albums also flew on to the RS 200 after the singer-songwriter died of complications related to COVID-19. John Prine arrived at Number 49, while The Tree of Forgiveness came in at Number 92.