(AllHipHop News) Some observers questioned whether Frank Ocean’s long delay between releasing albums would cost him when it comes to sales. It appears the fans were not deterred by the singer’s hiatus.
According to Billboard, Ocean’s new LP Blonde opened with 276,000 equivalent album units in its first week. That puts the project only behind Drake’s Views (1.04 million) and Beyoncé’s Lemonade (653,000) for the highest EAU opening numbers in 2016.
The “Nikes” performer also follows just Drizzy (852,000) and Bey (485,000) as far as the top one-week album sales for the year. Blonde totaled 232,000 in actual sales in its initial week.
Ocean’s latest LP landed at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart. channel ORANGE, released in 2012, debuted at #2 with 131,000 copies sold in its first week.
The rollout for the independently released Blonde included Ocean dropping a “visual album” titled Endless mere hours before the official studio album. The move reportedly led to the New Orleans-bred musician being free from his record contract with Def Jam.