With the Black Friday shopping rush on its side, “Unapologetic” is expected to deliver a career high-mark for Rihanna.
Based on data from the first few days of release, Billboard is forecasting 225-250,000 opening week sales for the album. If that forecast holds, “Unapologetic” will have delivered Rihanna’s best opening sales week to date, topping the 207,000 amassed by “Loud” in 2007.
Billboard’s report does not clarify the extent to which the 225-250,000 projection takes into account the expected Black Friday surge, but due to the chaotic shopping nature of this coming weekend, no projection is likely to be especially accurate anyway.
New releases from Kid Rock (“Rebel Soul”) and Phillip Phillips (“The World from the Side of the Moon”) will also perform well this week, with Billboard forecasting at least 150,000 sales for both. Due to their family-skewing nature, holdover releases from One Direction (“Take Me Home”) and Taylor Swift (“Red”) will also be competitive on the charts this week.
