Debuts take up the No. 1 spots on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums, Alternative Albums and Hard Rock Albums charts dated Oct. 30, thanks to strong numbers for Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres and Ice Nine Kills’ Welcome to Horrorwood: The Silver Scream 2.
Spheres, Coldplay’s ninth studio album, bows at No. 1 on Top Rock Albums and Alternative Albums with 57,000 equivalent album units earned in the Oct. 15-21 tracking period, according to MRC Data.
It’s the Chris Martin-led band’s sixth ruler on Top Rock Albums, which started in 2006, and fifth on Alternative Albums (2007). 2008’s Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends was the band’s first to lead both, and just one – 2019’s Everyday Life – only managed the No. 1 spot on Top Rock Albums while not crowning Alternative Albums (No. 2).
With six Top Rock Albums leaders, Coldplay slots into a three-way tie for the third-most No. 1s in the chart’s history, alongside Dave Matthews (solo and with Dave Matthews Band) and Tom Petty (solo and with the Heartbreakers). Only John Mayer (eight) and Bruce Springsteen (seven; solo and with the E Street Band) have more.
On Alternative Albums, meanwhile, Coldplay’s fifth No. 1 has the band in a three-way tie for the most all time, with Foo Fighters and Lana Del Rey.
Concurrently, Spheres begins at No. 4 on the all-format Billboard 200, Coldplay’s eighth top 10 and highest-ranking album since A Head Full of Dreams bowed at No. 2 in December 2015.
Multiple songs from Spheres reach the Oct. 30-dated Billboard song charts, led by BTS collaboration “My Universe,” which rebounds 18-13 on the Billboard Hot 100 with 8.8 million U.S. streams, 13.9 million radio audience impressions and 35,000 digital downloads – metrics that also drive it back to a third week at No. 1 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs and Hot Alternative Songs.
A second song from Spheres, “Let Somebody Go,” with Selena Gomez, debuts at No. 91 on the Hot 100 with 4.6 million streams and 4,000 downloads. It also starts at No. 9 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, where it and “Universe” are joined by two additional Coldplay entries: “Higher Power” (No. 23) and “Humankind” (No. 47).
The Hard Rock Albums chart is paced by Ice Nine Kills’ Welcome to Horrorwood: The Silver Scream 2, which snagged 25,000 units to become the band’s first Hard Rock Albums ruler, beating the No. 2 peak of The Silver Scream in 2018.
Horrorwood also marks new bests for Ice Nine Kills on Top Rock Albums (No. 3, up from Scream’s No. 4) and the Billboard 200, where it’s the band’s first top 20 (No. 18).
Nine of the album’s 14 songs reach Hot Hard Rock Songs, led by “Funeral Derangements” at No. 8 (818,000 streams). Its nine simultaneous appearance tie the band for the second-most tunes on Hot Hard Rock Songs at any given time since its 2020 inception, alongside Greta Van Fleet. Only Deftones, with 10 toward the Oct. 10, 2020, survey, has ever boasted more.
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