Five Usher Albums Shake Up Billboard 200 After Super Bowl
Written by djfrosty on February 21, 2024
Following Usher’s 2024 Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 11, four of his catalog albums surge on the Billboard 200 chart (dated Feb. 24), alongside the debut of his new release, Coming Home, at No. 2.
Coming Home arrives on the list with 91,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Feb. 15, according to Luminate. Of that sum, album sales comprise 53,000 – making it the top-selling album of the week, and the largest sales week for any R&B album in more than four years.
Four more Usher albums dot the Billboard 200: his former No. 1 Confessions, released in 2004, flies 92-15 with 33,500 units (up 199%), 2010’s chart-topping Raymond V Raymond re-enters at No. 68 (14,000; up 154%), 2001’s 8701 re-enters at No. 122 (10,000; up 187%) and 1997’s My Way re-enters at No. 197 (8,000; up 175%). The four albums house songs that Usher performed during his halftime show.
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.
In total, Usher’s catalog of albums, including Coming Home, earned 145,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Feb. 15 – up 428% compared to the previous week (27,500 units). Removing Coming Home from the equation, his albums earned 54,500 units for the week – up 98% compared to the previous week (27,500 units).
Meanwhile, Usher’s halftime closer, “Yeah!,” featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris, re-enters the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart at No. 20 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs at No. 8. It’s the single’s first appearance on either chart since 2004, when the Confessions’ smash spent 12 weeks atop the Hot 100 and eight weeks leading the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs tally. In the week ending Feb. 15, “Yeah!” earned 13.4 million official streams (up 142%), 8.7 million in airplay audience (up 66%) and sold 11,000 downloads (up 636%).