On the Charts: J. Cole Lands Fourth Number One Album With ‘4 Your Eyez Only’
With just two weeks left in 2016, J. Cole notched the third-bestselling week of the year with 4 Your Eyez Only. The record sold 492,000 total copies in its first week, between 363,000 physical copies and another 118,000 from streaming equivalent albums (SEAs), Billboard reports. 4 Your Eyez Only is Cole’s fourth consecutive Number One album following 2011’s Cole World, 2013’s Born Sinner and 2014’s Forest Hills Drive.
Eyez is also the third time in recent weeks the title of “third biggest opening week of 2016” has been passed to a new release: Metallica’s Hardwired… to Self-Destruct obtained the distinction in November, only to lose it to the Weeknd’s Starboy a week later, who in turn bestowed it to J. Cole. In all three cases, the opening week sales of Drake’s Views (1.04 million) and Beyoncé’s Lemonade (653,000 copies) were unreachable.
After Cole, only one other new release debuted inside the Top 10: Post Malone’s Stoney, which bowed at Number Six and 58,000 copies.
A pair of Pentatonix Christmas albums – 2016’s A Pentatonix Christmas and 2014’s That’s Christmas to Me – continued their seasonal charts climb, with the former landing at Number Two (156,000 copies) and the latter reaching Number Five (65,000 copies). The Weeknd’s Starboy finished the week at Number Three, ahead of Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic (Number Four), the Moana soundtrack (Number Eight), Michael Buble’s Christmas (Number Nine) and the Rolling Stones’ Blue & Lonesome (Number 10).
Although The Hamilton Mixtape ruled the Billboard 200 last week, the compilation spiraled out of the Top 10 and down to Number 14 in its second week on the charts. However, the original Broadway cast recording found itself back in the upper echelon, jumping from Number 11 to Number Seven.