Blake Shelton’s If I’m Honest is the week’s top-selling album in America in terms of physical product, with more than 153,000 copies sold. Released nearly one year after a very public split from ex-wife Miranda Lambert, the album rounds up a new batch of songs that deal with heartbreak, healing and hell-raising.
Although it sold more physical albums than any of its competition, If I’m Honest actually lost the Number One position on the Billboard 200 chart to Drake’s Views, whose overwhelming number of online streams helped extend the rapper’s chart-topping reign for a fourth week. Views only sold 50,000 traditional album units this week, but it racked up 166.2 million streams for its tracks, adding an additional 138,000 sales to his total in the form of album equivalent sales and track equivalent sales. The same goes for Ariana Grande’s Dangerous Woman, which debuts at Number Two on the Billboard charts this week despite trailing If I’m Honest by 24,000 traditional albums. When online streams are taken into account, though, Grande’s album sales total jumps to 175,000.
Despite a smaller amount of digital streaming activity, Shelton’s If I’m Honest still tops both the Billboard Country Albums Chart and Top Albums Sales Chart, giving the country singer his biggest sales week since 2013. Once Shelton’s equivalent album sales are taken into account, If I’m Honest jumps up by 17,000 album sales, topping out at a debut week of 170,000 units. Still, with the majority of those sales coming from traditional purchases, If I’m Honest doubles as another reminder that country fans remain some of the industry’s most loyal — and old-school — consumers.
– Rolling Stone
