Since its release last fall, Adele’s 30 has ruled the charts. It began with the biggest first week in four years thanks to 839,000 album units sold in its debut on the Billboard 200. At one point, 30 was the only album to sell over a million copies in the United States last year. Adele’s fourth album also went on to become the best-selling vinyl of 2021, seizing the crown from Taylor Swift’s Evermore. While 30 eventually became the first No. 1 album of 2022, the album’s uninterrupted reign on the Billboard 200 has come to an end thanks to the soundtrack for Disney’s Encanto film.
For the Billboard 200 chart dated January 15, 2022, the Encanto soundtrack spent its first week at No. 1 thanks to 72,000 album units. That number is comprised of 58,000 streaming equivalent album units and 11,000 pure album sales. Encanto is the sixth soundtrack to reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and it marks two years since the last soundtrack reached the top of the charts, that being the one for Frozen II. Lastly, it marks a rare case of an album going No. 1 for the first time weeks after its release. The last project to do this was The Kid Laroi’s F*ck Love which did so last summer.
The decision to release Encanto on Disney+ a month after it debuted in theaters most likely contributed toward its rise to No. 1. As for Adele’s 30, it checks in at No. 2 with only 57,000 units sold in the week ending on January 6.
