I guess this really isn’t that surprising, considering the trajectory Sleep Token have been on since their debut full-length Sundowning came out in 2019. We’re here to speak on another one of their albums, though—their latest Even In Arcadia. It’s only been out for about a week, and it’s already doing better than others of its ilk.
As our own Laviea Thomas predicted a few days ago, Sleep Token have topped the charts. Specifically, they’ve snagged the No.1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart with their first-week sales for the record hitting 127,000 equivalent album units. This means that they’ve had the biggest week for any rock album in nearly a year, and it’s the biggest week any hard rock album has had in nearly two years.
For those not in the now, the Billboard 200 chart ranks the most poppin’ albums in the States for the week. It uses Luminate-compiled equivalent album units
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. It’s definitely a lot of shop talk, but it all breaks down as follows: units are made up of album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold off an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from said album.
Here’s how Even In Arcadia‘s 127,000 first-week equivalent album units broke down: album sales were 73,500, SEA units were 53,000 and TEA units comprise 500. According to Billboard, this is the biggest streaming week ever for a hard rock album. The album even sol 47,000 vinyl units, which has also marked the largest vinyl sales week for a hard rock album since Luminate started sales tracking back in 1991.