Ken Carson Claims First No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 With ‘More Chaos’
Written by djfrosty on April 20, 2025
Ken Carson lands his first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, as the rapper’s latest project, More Chaos, enters atop the list dated April 26.
The set earned 59,500 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending April 18, according to Luminate. Of that sum, nearly 82% was driven by streaming activity. More Chaos is Carson’s first top 10 effort as well and follows two charted titles: A Great Chaos (No. 11 peak in 2023) and X (No. 115 in 2022).
More Chaos, released via Opium/Interscope Records, replaces Opium label founder Playboi Carti atop the Billboard 200, as the latter’s MUSIC moves to No. 7 after three nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1.
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Carson is the third act in 2025 to land their first No. 1 this year, following Tate McRae (with So Close To What) and PARTYNEXTDOOR (with the Drake collaboration set $ome $exy $ongs 4 U). In all of 2024, there were five acts that got their first No. 1: Ty Dolla $ign (with the Ye collab Vultures 1), TWICE (With YOU-th), Sabrina Carpenter (Short n’ Sweet), Jelly Roll (Beautifully Broken) and Yeat (Lyfestyle).
With More Chaos earning 59,500 units in the latest tracking week, that marks the smallest weekly sum for a No. 1 album in nearly three years, since the May 2, 2022-dated chart, when Pusha T’s It’s Almost Dry opened at No. 1 with just under 55,000 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. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new April 26, 2025-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on April 22. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of More Chaos’ 59,500 first-week equivalent album units, SEA units comprise 48,500 (equaling 67.3 million on-demand official streams of the songs on the streaming editions of the album; it debuts at No. 3 on the Top Streaming Albums chart), album sales comprise 11,000 (it debuts at No. 4 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum.
More Chaos was available in its first week as a standard 18-song album (on color vinyl and a widely available CD and in three deluxe boxed sets containing a T-shirt and CD) and in two widely available expanded digital/streaming editions that added three and four songs, respectively.
The rest of the top 10 on the Billboard 200 is fairly low-key, as Carson is the lone debut in the region. The Nos. 2-10 titles are also all former No. 1s. (The top 10 was last comprised entirely of No. 1s on the Dec. 9, 2023-dated list.) Kendrick Lamar’s GNX rises 5-2 with nearly 55,000 equivalent album units earned (up 3%), while SZA’s SOS climbs 4-3 with 53,000 (down 2%). The pair kicked off their co-headlining Grand National Tour on April 19 at Minneapolis’ U.S. Bank Stadium.
Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet is up two spots to No. 4 (52,000 equivalent album units; up 6%), $ome $exy $ongs 4 U falls 3-5 (nearly 52,000; down 8% — as the set climbs 2-1 on Top Streaming Albums for a fourth nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1); Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time ascends 7-6 (46,000; up 4%); Playboi Carti’s MUSIC falls 1-7 (45,500; down 29%); Bad Bunny’s Debí Tirar Más Fotos is steady at No. 8 (nearly 42,000; down 2%); Ariana Grande’s Eternal Sunshine falls 2-9 (40,000; down 29%); and Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM rises 12-10 (39,500; up 11%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.