Lorde hits No 1

The Herald reports:

Lorde has narrowly secured her first number one album, with her new album Melodrama making its debut in the top spot of the Billboard 200 chart today.

She scored the top spot by just 3000 album sales over her nearest competitor, rapper 2 Chainz.

The news was confirmed today by Billboard magazine, with the magazine reporting Melodrama secured 109,000 album units in the first week after release.

The achievement makes Lorde the first-ever Kiwi artist to top the Billboard 200 chart. New Zealand-born country singer Keith Urban has topped the chart twice, but is an Australian-American citizen.

 

Melodrama is her first No. 1 album in America. Despite her first album Pure Heroine earning more copies in its first week with 129,000 units, it debuted and peaked at No. 3 in 2013.

When you consider how tiny our population is, I’m always amazed and delighted when Kiwis dominate globally. And to top the US Billboard 200 is a huge achievement.