Empire Soundtrack beats Madonna on Billboard 200

The musical drama series by Fox has its soundtrack debut at number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Well it comes as a surprise too many as Fox TV’s hit musical drama series ‘Empire’ has its soundtrack debut at the first position on the Billboard 200 chart. The soundtrack has moved 130,000 equivalent album units in the week ending March 15th.

The Billboard 200 chart basically ranks the most popular and famous albums of the week based on multi metric consumption. This then includes traditional album sales, streaming equivalent albums and track equivalent albums.

The musical drama series ‘Empire’ continues to attract big TV ratings and this can be seen from its 11th march episode which was seen by 14.9 million viewers. This made the show the third most watched primetime broadcast of the week. This means that the drama series is only behind NCIS and The Big Bang Theory, both having more than 16 million viewers.

The soundtrack has been overseen by the show’s executive music producer, Timbaland and also includes contributions from the cast members of the drama series such as Terrence Howard, Jennifer Hudson, Courtney Love, Juicy J and Jussie Smollett.  

As the drama is getting so much popular so is its soundtrack. The soundtrack for the drama series has beaten Madonna’s 13th studio album ‘Rebel Heart’ which debuts at number 2 on the Billboard with 121,000 units.

Madonna has got all of her 13 studio efforts in the top 10. She also has the second most top 10 albums among women and trails only Barbara Streisand who has 33. Apart from Madonna we also have Luke Bryan rounds are at the third position with his latest spring break themed album ‘Spring Break…Ckeckin Out’.

Then there is ‘The Fifty Shades of Grey’ soundtrack which has gone down by 25 percent with 72000 units while Taylor Swift’s 1989 have also dropped from the third to fifth position with 62000 units. This means a 10 percent decrease for Taylor Swift’s 1989.

Then we have Sam Smith’s ‘In the Lonely Hour’ which has jumped up to number six from number eight. Sam Smith’s album is spending its 32nd nonconsecutive week in the top 10. This is the most weeks in the top 10 for an album by a male artist since we saw Usher’s Confessions that stayed for 41 weeks. 

Then Drake’s former number 1 on the chart has dropped to number 7 with 58000 units and is a decrease of 20 percent. We also have Ed Sheeran’s album at number 8 and then Maroon 5’s V moves at number 9 which was at number 7 before. Finally at the 10th spot we have big Sean’s Dark Sky Paradise which dropped from the number 6th position.

The interesting thing is that previous week’s number 1 album ‘Piece by Piece’ by Kelly Clarkson has dropped out of the top 10 and now has the 12 place on the Billboard 200 chart.