Lana Rey - Lust For Life Video / Interscope
Not simply a tight race, the US album battle between Lana Del Rey’s “Lust For Life,” Tyler, The Creator’s “Flower Boy,” and Meek Mill’s “Wins & Losses” was also a controversial one.
“Wins & Losses” was made available for free streaming on TIDAL (an account was not even required), which prompted debate about potential chart manipulation. Some argued that because they generate no revenue and could be vulnerable to manipulation by bots, such streams should not count.
Billboard, however, maintained that “revenue” was never a requirement for streaming. It also maintained that it had an “intense vetting process” to prevent bot manipulation.
The numbers are in, and while “Wins & Losses” definitely benefited greatly from streams, it did not take first place on the Billboard 200.
“Lust For Life” takes #1 with what Billboard reports as 108K units. Units are the sum of pure album sales, track sales/10 and track streams/1500.
“Flower Boy” takes #2 with 106K, while “Wins & Losses” grabs #3 with 102K.
Linkin Park’s “One More Light” grabs #4 with 50K units, while Kendrick Lamar’s “DAMN.” takes #5 on the strength of 48K The new “Descendants 2” soundtrack starts at #6 with 46K.
— In addition to leading in overall units, “Lust For Life” was the clear leader in pure album sales (80K). It, accordingly, takes #1 on the Billboard Top Album Sales chart.