’Black Panther’ soundtrack makes history on the music charts

In addition to setting records at the box office, Black Panther is making history on the music charts. The Kendrick Lamar-produced soundtrack enters the Billboard 200 at No. 1, even though Billboard’s sales tracking week ended Feb. 15 — the day before the movie opened in theaters. Now that the movie is out (and is the No. 1 film in the country), the soundtrack is a lock to hold at No. 1 next week.

Black Panther: The Album posted 138.9 million on-demand audio streams for its songs in the week ending Feb. 15. That’s the biggest streaming week ever for a soundtrack — more than tripling the 40.4 million on-demand audio streams The Greatest Showman collected in the week ending Jan. 25.

Black Panther: The Album is also the first hip-hop soundtrack to reach No. 1 since Furious 7 in April 2015, and it will be the first hip-hop soundtrack to log two or more weeks at No. 1 since Bad Boy IIspent four weeks on top in August 2003.

Black Panther has attracted considerable media attention because it features a mostly African-American cast (and director, Ryan Coogler) — important breakthroughs in a superhero film. In the same way, the soundtrack features an array of top black stars including Lamar, the Weeknd, Future, SZA, Schoolboy Q, 2 Chainz, Khalid, and Travis Scott. (Lamar curated and produced the album with music mogul Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith.) Black Panther: The Album has already spawned one top 10 hit on the Hot 100, the Weeknd and Lamar’s “Pray for Me.” The song was the top new entry on last week’s Hot 100 at No. 7.

Black Panther: The Album moved 154,000 “equivalent units” — a figure that combines traditional album sales (52,000, in this case), digital sales, and streaming activity. This is the biggest week for a soundtrack — in terms of total “equivalent units” earned — in 18 months. The last soundtrack to score a larger week was Suicide Squad: The Album, which debuted atop the Aug. 27, 2016-dated chart with 182,000 units earned.

Here’s an odd wrinkle: Of Black Panther: The Album ’s 14 songs, just three are heard in the film. This isn’t the first chart-topping soundtrack to consist mostly of music inspired by, but not actually heard in, its companion movie. This was also the case with such soundtracks as The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 and Beyond (2012) and Men in Black: The Album (1997).

Black Panther is the second soundtrack to reach No. 1 so far in 2018. It follows The Greatest Showman, which spent two weeks on top in January. This is the first time since 1997 that soundtracks to two theatrically released films have reached No. 1 in the first quarter of the year. The soundtracks that topped the chart in the first quarter of that year were Gridlock’d and Private Parts.