As the saying goes, third time is a charm for Gwen Stefani as she tops the Billboard 200 chart for the first time in her career as a solo artist with her latest album, This Is What the Truth Feels Like.
Led by her current Top 30 hit single, “Make Me Like You,” TIWTTFL tallied 84K equivalent albums (76K in pure sales) to claim the crown for the week and dethrone Rihanna’s Anti, which slipped down to number three.
With her new album topping the charts, Stefani now joins a pretty exclusive club of female recording artists, becoming only the fifth woman in history to have a solo album go number one after being a member of a band or group with a previous number one effort. Other members of the exclusive club include Beyoncé, who’s had five number one solo albums since Destiny’s Child’s Survivor hit number one in 2001, Lauryn Hill, whose classic 1998 album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, came just two years after the number one album, The Score, by her former group, Fugees, and rock and pop legends Janis Joplin (Big Brother and the Holding Company) and Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac).
Elsewhere on the chart, last season’s “The Voice” champ, Jordan Smith, debuts at number two with his album Something Beautiful. The top three albums from last week all fall in line at the 3-5 slots with Rihanna’s Anti placing third, Adele’s 25 landing at four, and Justin Bieber’s Purpose coming in at the number five spot.
Other new entries into the top ten for the week included the soundtrack to Fox TV’s live special The Passion: New Orleans (No. 8) , and country artist Kane Brown’s latest, Chapter I (No. 9).
Check out the complete list of top 10 albums below.
1. Gwen Stefani – This Is What the Truth Feels Like
2. Jordan Smith – Something Beautiful
3. Rihanna – Anti
4. Adele – 25
5. Justin Bieber – Purpose
6. Chris Stapleton – Travelier
7. Twenty One Pilots – Blurryface
8. Various Artist – The Passion: New Orleans soundtrack
9. Kane Brown – Chapter I
10. Joey + Rory – Hymns
