{"id":179354,"date":"2025-10-04T20:28:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T20:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/179354\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T20:28:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T20:28:17","slug":"cardi-b-scores-second-no-1-on-billboard-200-with-am-i-the-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/179354\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardi B Scores Second No. 1 on Billboard 200 With \u2018AM I THE DRAMA?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tCardi B<\/a> scores her second No. 1 on the Billboard 200<\/a> albums chart as AM I THE DRAMA? debuts atop the tally (dated Oct. 4) with 200,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending Sept. 25, according to Luminate. That marks 2025\u2019s biggest week for an R&B\/hip-hop album by a woman. AM I THE DRAMA? is Cardi B\u2019s second full-length studio project, and follows her chart-topping debut, Invasion of Privacy, in 2018.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso in the top 10 of the latest Billboard 200<\/a>, Nine Inch Nails<\/a>\u2019 soundtrack to TRON: Ares debuts at No. 5, marking the first top 10 for the band since 2013.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 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 Oct. 4, 2025-dated chart will be posted in full on\u00a0Billboard\u2018s website on Sept. 30. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.<\/p>\n

\n\tOf AM I THE DRAMA?\u2019s 200,000 first-week equivalent album units, SEA units comprise 110,000 (equaling 145.72 million on-demand official streams of the set\u2019s songs during the tracking week \u2014 it also debuts at No. 1 on Top Streaming Albums), album sales comprise 88,000 (it debuts at No. 1 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise 2,000.<\/p>\n

\n\tAM I THE DRAMA?\u2019s opening-week sales were boosted by its availability across an array of permutations. It was issued as a standard 19-song widely available digital download album; 20-song CD and vinyl editions; and a 23-song download and streaming edition. There were also further digital variants: an iTunes Store and Apple Music edition with bonus live video tracks, a 30-track artist webstore-exclusive edition and two widely available expanded editions (with 24 tracks each).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe CD and vinyl variants for AM I THE DRAMA? were largely only available through Cardi B\u2019s webstore and through some independent record stores. AM I THE DRAMA? was issued on two standard CD variants (one signed by the artist), seven additional CD cover variants (four of them signed, inclusive of three versions<\/a> with cover art showing gone-viral photos of the artist on the stand during her assault trial<\/a> in August, dubbed the \u201ccourtroom edition\u201d) and eight deluxe CD boxed sets containing merchandise and a CD. The album was also issued on two standard vinyl editions (one signed) and nine additional vinyl variants (some with different covers and\/or color vinyl, most of them signed, including a \u201ccourtroom edition\u201d cover variant).<\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to a typical promotional press run<\/a> to raise awareness of the album\u2019s release, the artist also mounted<\/a> a busy schedule of in-store appearances during release week, doing photo ops and meet-and-greets with fans purchasing the album. During release week, she hit four independent record stores (Looney Tunes in West Babylon, N.Y.; Spin Me Round in Easton, Pa.; DBS Sounds in Riverdale, Ga.; and Fingerprints in Long Beach, Calif.) and a Hot Topic location in Elmhurst, N.Y. and a Walmart in Cypress, Texas.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe widely available editions of AM I THE DRAMA? contain the Billboard Hot 100-charted hits \u201cOutside\u201d (No. 10 peak in July), \u201cImaginary Playerz\u201d (No. 70 in August), \u201cUp\u201d (No. 1 in March 2021) and \u201cWAP\u201d (featuring Megan Thee Stallion, No. 1 in August 2020).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe chart-topping KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack holds at No. 2 with 104,000 equivalent album units earned (down 7%). The set also notches a 10th week inside the top two on the Billboard 200, marking the most weeks inside the top two for a soundtrack since the Frozen album logged 21 nonconsecutive frames in the top two (13 of them at No. 1) in 2014. KPop surpasses Encanto, which had nine weeks in the top two (all at No. 1) in 2022.<\/p>\n

\n\tMorgan Wallen<\/a>\u2019s former No. 1 I\u2019m the Problem is steady at No. 3 (90,000 equivalent album units, down 7%) and Sabrina Carpenter<\/a>\u2019s chart-topping Man\u2019s Best Friend is stationary at No. 4 (69,000, down 21%).<\/p>\n

\n\tNine Inch Nails are back in the Billboard 200\u2019s top 10 for the first time in over a decade, as the band\u2019s soundtrack to the film TRON: Ares debuts at No. 5 (the highest debut of 2025 for a soundtrack) with 45,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise 39,000 (it debuts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales), SEA units comprise 6,000 (equaling 8.37 million on-demand official streams of the set\u2019s songs) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. Nine Inch Nails have tallied seven top 10 albums on the Billboard 200: TRON: Ares, Hesitation Marks (No. 3 in 2013), Year Zero (No. 2, 2007), With Teeth (No. 1, 2005), The Fragile (No. 1, 1999), The Downward Spiral (No. 2, 1994) and Broken (No. 7, 1992).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first-week sales of TRON: Ares were aided by its availability across four vinyl variants, a cassette, two CD variants and a download and streaming edition (all containing the same tracklist).<\/p>\n

\n\tTRON: Ares is the companion soundtrack to the film of the same name, which will be released on Oct. 10 in movie theaters, and is the third in the Tron film series. It follows Tron: Legacy (2010) and Tron (1982). The TRON: Ares soundtrack is the second Tron movie soundtrack to reach the Billboard 200, following Daft Punk\u2019s TRON: Legacy (which peaked at No. 4).<\/p>\n

\n\tTRON: Ares was preceded by the album\u2019s single \u201cAs Alive as You Need Me To Be,\u201d which has reached the top 10 on both Alternative Airplay and Mainstream Rock Airplay.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso, with KPop Demon Hunters and TRON: Ares at Nos. 2 and 5, there are two soundtracks in the top five simultaneously for the first time in more than six years. It last happened on the March 30, 2019 chart, when Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper\u2019s chart-topping A Star Is Born was No. 3 and Queen\u2019s Bohemian Rhapsody was No. 5.<\/p>\n

\n\tRounding out the rest of the latest top 10 on the Billboard 200: Alex Warren\u2019s You\u2019ll Be Alright, Kid rises 7-6 (35,000 equivalent album units, down 3%); SZA\u2019s chart-topping SOS climbs 8-7 (33,000, down 2%); Wallen\u2019s former leader One Thing at a Time steps 9-8 (32,000, down 3%); Justin Bieber\u2019s SWAG shifts 6-9 (just under 32,000, down 27%); and Bad Bunny\u2019s former No. 1 DeB\u00cd TiRAR M\u00e1S FOToS climbs 13-10 (nearly 32,000, up 21%).<\/p>\n

\n\tLuminate, the independent data provider to the\u00a0Billboard\u00a0charts<\/a>, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with\u00a0Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s free Billboard charts month! Through Sept. 30, subscribers to Billboard\u2019s Chart Beat<\/a> newsletter, emailed each Friday, can unlock access to Billboard\u2019s weekly and historical charts, artist chart histories and all Chart Beat stories simply by visiting the newly redesigned Billboard.com through any story link in the newsletter. Not a Chart Beat subscriber? Sign up for free here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardi B scores her second No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart as AM I THE DRAMA?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[79611,9289,32787,4622,96,7212,128,7213,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-179354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-billboard-200","9":"tag-breaking","10":"tag-chart-beat","11":"tag-charts","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-genre-hiphop","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-music-news","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}