Capitol Records/UMeAfter debuting at #1 on his U.K. homeland’s Official Albums Chart, Paul McCartney‘s latest studio album, McCartey III, was kept off the top of the United States’ Billboard 200 tally by his pal Taylor Swift‘s latest record, evermore.
Evermore nabs the #1 slot for a second consecutive week. Interestingly, Swift recently revealed that because of her friendship with McCartney, she moved evermore‘s release so as not to conflict with his new album’s arrival.
McCartney III lands at #2 on the Billboard 200 after amassing 107,000 equivalent album units, 104,000 of which were for traditional album sales, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data. The former Beatles legend has now become the first artist to have at least one new album reach the #2 spot or higher on the Billboard 200 in each of the last six decades — with eight albums in the 1970s and one each in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s and 2020s.
That 104,000 figure also puts McCartney III at #1 on Billboard‘s Top Albums Sales chart.
According to Billboard, the album’s strong sales were helped by its availability in a variety of CD and vinyl editions — including versions with alternate covers and different colored vinyl — as well as on cassette. In total, McCartney III sold 32,000 vinyl copies during its first week of release, the third-highest number of vinyl copies sold by any album in one week since 1991, when Nielsen Music/MRC Data began tracking music sales electronically. The only albums with higher one-week sales figures on vinyl were Jack White‘s Lazaretto with 40,000 and Pearl Jam‘s Vitalogy with 34,000.
The 104,000 copies of McCartney III sold also is the highest figure for an album sold by a solo rock artist since Sir Paul’s previous studio effort, 2018’s Egypt Station, which sold 147,000 copies.
By Matt Friedlander
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