The Weeknd’s new album doesn’t hit the mark of its successor
Canadian R&B heavyweight The Weeknd unleashed his fifth studio album, Dawn FM, on Friday and now predictions for the first week sales are in. According to projections by HDD and DJ Akademiks, the album will move 150-170k album-equivalent units this week.
Related content: The Weeknd named Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nation’s World Food Program
The project boasts limited guest appearances from Lil Wayne, Quincy Jones, Jim Carrey, & Tyler, The Creator. The first week’s sales for the album come short of its predecessor, 2020’s After Hours, which sold 444k album-equivalent units in the first week. 275k of the units were pure copies, thanks to the physical album bundles that included merchandise.
Towards the end of 2020, a change in Billboard rules disqualified album bundle sales, a reason why the sales bar on Dawn FM lowered. Weeknd did recently reveal that he cares less about numbers with the new album, but more about giving his fans better music.
As we await first week projections for Gunna’s DS4EVER that dropped on Friday as well, it’s only a matter of time before Billboard 200’s chart-topper for this week is known.