SZA’s Sophomore Album ‘SOS’ Continues to Dominate the Billboard 200 Chart

*SZA’s new album “SOS” continues to dominate the Billboard 200 chart (dated Dec. 31) as it spends a second week at No. 1. 

Her sophomore album moved 315,000 album equivalent units in its opening week Billboard reports, and earned 180,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 22, according to Luminate. Taylor Swift’s latest full-length project, “Midnights,” is holding down the No. 2 spot. 

Not since Beyoncé’s self-titled 2013 album has a Black female artist had an album spend its first two weeks atop the Billboard 200. 

Per Billboard, “The 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.”

READ MORE: SZA Regrets Performing on SNL as Grandmother Was Dying

 

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“I never thought in a million years that people would like it,” SZA said of the response to her new album during an interview on the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. “My dad’s visiting right now, with my mom. Everybody came down to make sure I didn’t lose my mind if the album went bad once it came out. And now we’re just hanging out, ’cause it didn’t go badly!”

She also unpacked some of the themes behind her new album.

“I think this album was partially inspired by love lost, but mostly inspired by my departure from attempting to be a nice girl. I’ve tried to be a nice girl for so long and it’s just not who I am, inherently. And I think I’ve done nice things and I am a kind person, but I’m not a nice girl. And that’s okay. And I think coming to terms with that and really expanding upon that and exploring that is kind of like this new chapter in my life.”

SZA is set to embark on her first arena tour, which reportedly sold out instantly, and she’s “excited to give people whatever they want,” she said on the podcast.

“Because I feel I’ve been gone for so long and people have been kind enough to watch me perform the same set for f*cking five years, and that is really annoying, and I get that, and the patience and the love that they’ve shown me the whole way… I just wanna give them the craziest experience they could ever have and play whatever they want,” she added. “Whether it’s unreleased songs that they thought they heard on the internet, or their favorite album cuts or f*cking deep cuts from 2012, I don’t care. I just wanna give them what they deserve and make it beautiful. That’s my biggest goal, and I’m really excited and there’s nothing I enjoy more than being on stage and performing.”

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