Nicki Minaj’s Queen released on Aug. 10 instead of Aug. 17, giving her fans a week in advance to stream the album before it officially hits stores. It debuted on her Beats 1 show Queen Radio, which also featured live commentary for each track. Now, Hits Daily Double has projections for how Queen will fare on the Billboard 200 chart.
According to HDD, Queen will move between 135,000 to 150,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Aug. 17. Of that amount, HDD reports 45,000 to 55,000 will be pure album sales. If those numbers hold up, Queen will be the lowest debut of her career. Pink Friday sold 375,000 in the first week, whereas Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded earned 253,000 and The Pinkprint racked up 244,000.
If Minaj wants to make history this week, she has some fierce competition. Drake currently holds the largest overall week of 2018 with Scorpion, which moved 732,000 units. Travis Scott has the second largest week for an album, as ASTROWORLD earned 537,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Aug. 9. Of that total, 270,000 were traditional album sales.
Other notable first week tallies in 2018 include J. Cole's KOD (397,000), Post Malone's Beerbongs & Bentleys (461,000), and Cardi B's Invasion of Privacy (255,000).
