According to sales projections from Hits Daily Double, the Weeknd's new project My Dear Melancholy will be another commercial success when Billboard's charts update in a week.
The six-song project is expected to be next week's highest-selling release, moving between 150,000 and 175,000 equivalent album units. 55,000 to 65,000 of that number are expected to come through traditional sales.
In 2016, the Weeknd's third studio album Starboydebuted at No. 1 with 348,000 equivalent album units. My Dear Melancholy would be Abel's third consecutive project to top the Billboard 200 chart if Hits Daily Double's projections are correct. 2015's Beauty Behind The Madness was also a chart-topper with SoundScan sales of roughly 412,000 during its opening week.
Hits Daily Double also projects Rich The Kid's debut album The World Is Yours to move between 50,000 and 60,000 units.
The commercial success comes while the Toronto singer's lawyers are in the midst of a legal battle with a realtor who filed to trademark "Starboy" for his own creative projects—long after the Weekend's album and hit song of the same name.
As for the material on My Dear Melancholy itself, some fans are noticing thinly veiled references to two of Abel's former love interests: Selena Gomez and Bella Hadid. You can watch a rundown of some of the references below.
