List of Billboard 200 number-one albums of 2015

Last updated

English singer Adele's (pictured) third studio album, 25, was the quickest best-seller of 2015 by the year's end and stayed at the top slot on the Billboard 200 for the final three weeks of that year. Adele 'Adele Live 2016' - Nashville DSC04649 (30409997695).jpg
English singer Adele's (pictured) third studio album, 25 , was the quickest best-seller of 2015 by the year's end and stayed at the top slot on the Billboard 200 for the final three weeks of that year.

The highest-selling albums and EPs in the United States are ranked in the Billboard 200, which is published by Billboard magazine. The data are compiled by Nielsen Soundscan based on each album's weekly physical and digital sales, as well as on-demand streaming and digital sales of its individual tracks. In 2015, a total of 39 albums claimed the top position of the chart. One of which, American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's 1989 started its peak issue dated November 15, 2014. [1] 1989 was the longest-running number-one album of the year, staying atop the chart for six weeks and was the best selling album of 2015 before Adele's 25 , which managed to surpass the album's sales but after the year-end cut-off. [2] Canadian hip hop soul artist Drake's fourth commercial release, If You're Reading This It's Too Late , became the third best-selling overall album and top-selling digital album with 535,000 digital units sold, 495,000 of which consisted of traditional whole album sales. [3]

Contents

Other albums with extended chart runs at number one include To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar, Dreams Worth More Than Money by Meek Mill, Kill the Lights by Luke Bryan, Beauty Behind the Madness by The Weeknd, Traveller by Chris Stapleton and 25 by Adele; four of these albums spent two weeks at the top while the other two spent three weeks at the top position. Throughout 2015, only two acts achieved multiple number-one albums on the chart: Drake with If You're Reading This It's Too Late and What a Time to be Alive , and Future with DS2 and also What a Time to be Alive.

Albums that reached number one on the Top Album Sales chart (which takes into account purely sales and not streaming) but did not reach number one on the Billboard 200 include That's the Spirit by Bring Me the Horizon, Got Your Six by Five Finger Death Punch and Cass County by Don Henley. [4]

Taylor Swift's 2014 studio album, 1989, was 2015's best performing album on the Billboard 200. It returned to the number one spot on the chart for six weeks in early 2015, accumulating 11 total weeks at number one. Taylor Swift 16 (18912313709).jpg
Taylor Swift's 2014 studio album, 1989 , was 2015's best performing album on the Billboard 200. It returned to the number one spot on the chart for six weeks in early 2015, accumulating 11 total weeks at number one.

Adele's 25 sold 1.9 million copies after two days of availability, and 2.3 million after three, becoming the fastest-selling album of the 21st century and the best-selling album of 2015. [2] [5] [6] [7] [8] The album reached sales of 2.433 million early on its fourth day, surpassing the single-week record for an album since Nielsen Soundscan began tracking sales in 1991, set by NSYNC's No Strings Attached in March 2000 when it debuted with 2.416 million copies. [9] By its fifth day, 25 had sold over 2.8 million copies, 1.45 million of which were digital sales, breaking the first-week record for a digital set. [10] In total, it sold 3.38 million copies in the US in its first week, becoming the first album to sell over 3 million copies in a week, and only the second to sell over 2 million in a single week. [11]

Since July 2015, the chart's tracking week began on Friday (to coincide with the Global Release Date of the music industry) and ends on Thursday. [12] This change happened between July 25 and August 1.

Chart history

Rapper Kendrick Lamar (pictured) earned his first number-one album on the chart with To Pimp a Butterfly. Kendrick Lamar @ Grosse Freiheit 36, Hamburg (9498448120) (cropped).jpg
Rapper Kendrick Lamar (pictured) earned his first number-one album on the chart with To Pimp a Butterfly .
Country singer Chris Stapleton's Traveller topped the chart for two consecutive weeks. Stapleton ACL 20161002005.jpg
Country singer Chris Stapleton's Traveller topped the chart for two consecutive weeks.
Luke Bryan's third studio album, Kill the Lights, spent two weeks atop the chart. LukeBryanApr10.jpg
Luke Bryan's third studio album, Kill the Lights , spent two weeks atop the chart.
Pop singer Selena Gomez scored her second chart-topper with her second studio album, Revival. Selena Gomez - Walmart Soundcheck Concert.jpg
Pop singer Selena Gomez scored her second chart-topper with her second studio album, Revival .
Canadian singer The Weeknd gained his first number-one album in the country with his second studio album, Beauty Behind the Madness. The Weeknd 2015.jpg
Canadian singer The Weeknd gained his first number-one album in the country with his second studio album, Beauty Behind the Madness .
Key
Indicates best performing album of 2015 [13]
Issue dateAlbumArtist(s)Album-
equivalent units
Ref.
January 3 1989 Taylor Swift 375,000 [14] [1]
January 10430,000 [15] [16]
January 17244,000 [17] [18]
January 24155,000 [19] [20]
January 31 Title Meghan Trainor 238,000 [21] [22]
February 7 American Beauty/American Psycho Fall Out Boy 218,000 [23] [24]
February 141989Taylor Swift101,000 [25] [26]
February 21108,000 [27] [28]
February 28 If You're Reading This It's Too Late Drake 535,000 [29] [30]
March 7 Smoke + Mirrors Imagine Dragons 195,000 [31] [32]
March 14 Dark Sky Paradise Big Sean 173,000 [33] [34]
March 21 Piece by Piece Kelly Clarkson 97,000 [35] [36]
March 28 Empire: Original Soundtrack from Season 1 Various artists130,000 [37] [38] [39] [40]
April 4 To Pimp a Butterfly Kendrick Lamar 363,000 [41] [42]
April 11123,000 [43] [44]
April 18 The Album About Nothing Wale 100,000 [45] [46]
April 25 Furious 7: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Various artists111,000 [47] [48]
May 2 Handwritten Shawn Mendes 119,000 [49] [50]
May 9 Sound & Color Alabama Shakes 97,000 [51] [52]
May 16 Jekyll + Hyde Zac Brown Band 228,000 [53] [54]
May 23 Wilder Mind Mumford & Sons 249,000 [55] [56]
May 30 Pitch Perfect 2: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Various artists107,000 [57] [58]
June 6 Blurryface Twenty One Pilots 147,000 [59] [60]
June 13 At. Long. Last. ASAP ASAP Rocky 146,000 [61] [62]
June 20 How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful Florence and the Machine 137,000 [63] [64]
June 27 Drones Muse 84,000 [65] [66]
July 4 Before This World James Taylor 97,000 [67] [68]
July 11 Dark Before Dawn Breaking Benjamin 141,000 [69] [70]
July 18 Dreams Worth More Than Money Meek Mill 246,000 [71] [72]
July 25289,000 [73] [74]
August 1 Black Rose Tyrese 77,000 [75] [76]
August 8 DS2 Future 151,000 [77] [78]
August 15 Woman Jill Scott 62,000 [79] [80]
August 22 Descendants (Original TV Movie Soundtrack) Descendants cast42,000 [81] [82]
August 29 Kill the Lights Luke Bryan 345,000 [83] [84]
September 599,000 [85] [86]
September 12 Immortalized Disturbed 98,000 [87] [88]
September 19 Beauty Behind the Madness The Weeknd 412,000 [89] [90]
September 26145,000 [91] [92]
October 399,000 [93] [94]
October 10 What a Time to Be Alive Drake and Future375,000 [95] [96] [97]
October 17 Fetty Wap Fetty Wap 129,000 [98] [99]
October 24 Unbreakable Janet Jackson 116,000 [100] [101]
October 31 Revival Selena Gomez 117,000 [102] [103]
November 7 Pentatonix Pentatonix 98,000 [104] [105]
November 14 Sounds Good Feels Good 5 Seconds of Summer 192,000 [106] [107]
November 21 Traveller Chris Stapleton 177,000 [108] [109]
November 28124,000 [110] [111]
December 5 Purpose Justin Bieber 649,000 [112] [113]
December 12 25 Adele 3,480,000 [114] [115]
December 191,160,000 [116] [117]
December 26728,000 [118] [119]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Billboard 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by Billboard magazine to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Sometimes, a recording act is remembered for its "number ones" that outperformed all other albums during at least one week. The chart grew from a weekly top 10 list in 1956 to become a top 200 list in May 1967, acquiring its existing name in March 1992. Its previous names include the Billboard Top LPs (1961–1972), Billboard Top LPs & Tape (1972–1984), Billboard Top 200 Albums (1984–1985), Billboard Top Pop Albums (1985–1991), and Billboard 200 Top Albums (1991–1992).

The Digital Songs or Digital Song Sales chart ranks the best-selling digital songs in the United States, as compiled by Nielsen SoundScan and published by Billboard magazine. Although it originally started tracking song sales the week of October 30, 2004, it officially debuted in the issue dated January 22, 2005, and merged all versions of a song sold from digital music distributors. Its data was incorporated in the Hot 100 three weeks later. Since October 2004, digital sales have been incorporated into many of Billboard's music singles charts. The decision was based on the dramatic increase of the digital market while commercial single sales in a physical format were becoming negligible.

Top Album Sales is a music chart published by Billboard magazine starting in May 1991, and has existed in its current form since December 2014. It is a weekly chart documenting the best-selling albums on a weekly basis in the United States. Up until December 2014, this had been documented by the Billboard 200 chart, but that chart was altered to factor in music streaming by accounting for album-equivalent units in its tallies to document the effect of the rise of music streaming outlet such as Apple Music and Spotify. Starting in the Top Album Sales chart's debut week of May 25, 1991, Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from Soundscan, now known as Luminate. During the week of December 6, 2014, the chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. The Top Album Sales chart was created to preserve the older methodology of counting pure album sales.

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