Luke Combs Sets Streaming Record, Tops Billboard 200 With ‘What You See Is What You Get’
Luke Combs did something no country artist has done in five years on the way to setting a streaming record with his latest album, What You See Is What You Get.
A deluxe version of the album featuring six new songs dropped on Oct. 23, and the new music and added promotion was good enough to vault his 2019 release to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart — an all-genre chart that figures in sales and streaming each week. That's where he debuted one year ago, so with a second week on top, his album becomes the first country album in five years to spend multiple weeks at No. 1. The last album to do it was Chris Stapleton's Traveller, which was No. 1 for back-to-back weeks after his breakthrough performance at the 2015 CMA Awards.
A breakdown of Combs' week at Billboard shows that of the 109,000 units earned, 76,000 were streaming unites (on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music), 22,000 were album sales (physical or downloads) and 11,000 were track equivalents (10 downloads of any song from the album equals one unit). For comparison, Combs earned 172,000 units upon the album's original release in 2019, with 109K of those coming from straight album sales (also per Billboard).
What's Luke Combs' No. 1 Song?
During release week, songs from What You See Is What You Get were streamed more than 102 million times, setting a new country record. Combs set the previous record at 74 million with the original release of his album, but Billboard notes that video streams are now included, something that wasn't true last November. However, an apples-to-apples audio stream comparison would still mean a new record.
Both of Combs first two albums have consistently been among the Top 3 country albums on Billboard's chart every week since the most recent album's release. Morgan Wallen is typically among the Top 3, as well. His If I Know Me album was released in April 2018.
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