JAY-Z and Beyoncé's surprise joint album Everything Is Love is projected to move 120,000 units in its first week, according to Hits Daily Double.
That number would put Everything Is Love in a battle for the No. 1 position on Billboard's albums chart with Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer, who are also projected to move 120,000 units with their new album, Youngblood. HDD also points out that XXXTentacion could also challenge for the top position due to an uptick in streams following his death on Monday.
The projections may seem low for an album from two massive stars like JAY-Z and Beyoncé, but there are a few factors in play that could explain a modest first week for Everything Is Love. First, the album was released on a Saturday afternoon, so it has had less time to accumulate sales and streams this week than other projects that dropped Thursday at midnight. It was also available exclusively on TIDAL throughout the weekend, before showing up on competing streaming services on Monday morning. Once the project did make it on Spotify, it was only available to premium subscribers and has been kept off major playlists and promoted pages.
Of course, as Beyoncé kindly explains on "Nice," her success can't be quantified, and she doesn't give two fucks about Spotify.
Patiently waiting for my demise
'cause my success can't be quantified
If I gave two fucks - two fucks about streaming numbers,
would have put Lemonade up on Spotify
Meanwhile, Nas is reportedly expected to move up to 80,000 units with his Kanye West-produced album NASIR and Jay Rock is projected to move 27,000 units with Redemption.
