On the Charts: ‘Furious 7’ Rides to Number One
Furious 7, the seventh installment in the Fast & Furious saga, is now the king of both the box office and the Billboard 200 as the film’s soundtrack landed at Number One in its third week of release. Ignited by another $60 million weekend and Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again,” the soundtrack’s breakout single and Paul Walker tribute, Furious 7 moved 111,000 in total album sales to claim the top spot. In its three weeks on the charts, Furious 7 has ascended from Number 17 to Number Two to Number One, Billboard reports.
Furious 7‘s Billboard 200 victory was also heavily aided by the fact that only one new album, All Time Low’s Future Hearts, managed to sneak into the Top 10. The Maryland punk bank scored their career-best debut as Future Hearts earned a Number Two spot on the strength of 80,000 total albums sold.
All Time Low sold more “pure” albums than Furious 7, but because the Billboard 200’s new metric allows for single downloads to count toward album sales, the 464,000 standalone purchases of Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again” last week propelled the soundtrack to Number One on the album chart. The song broke Spotify’s single-day and weekly plays records with 4.2 million listens on April 13th and 21.9 million the week of April 6th.
Meanwhile, the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack has proven to be more enduring than the film itself, finishing the week at Number Three. By comparison, the film has dropped to Number 21, according to Box Office Mojo. Maroon 5’s V jumped from out of the Top 10 up into Number Four thanks to the continuing success of the album’s smash single “Sugar.” For the fifth straight week, Taylor Swift’s 1989 remained locked onto Number Five; the album hasn’t dropped out of the Billboard 200’s Top Five since it was released last October.
Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly was pushed out of the Top Five for the first time on its way to Number Seven, while Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late dropped to Number 10. Good news for the Toronto rapper: The album’s physical release on April 21st should provide some much-needed sales reinforcements. Last week’s Number One, Wale’s Seinfeld-inspired The Album About Nothing, was relegated to Number 11.
Furious 7 might finally face some competition next week thanks to new releases from Tyler, the Creator and Dwight Yoakam.