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Ariana Grande has earned her seventh No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart with “Petal,” which bows in the top spot with 295,000 equivalent album units, her best opening-week figure this decade.
“Petal” and its songs
and videos have been the topic of considerable conversation — before and after the singer’s declaration that she is looking to take a sabbatical from public life — and any controversy seems to have only helped the album find more traction. The first-week number is the best Grande has had for any album since 2019. It’s a sizable uptick from the 227,000 that her previous album, “Eternal Sunshine,” opened with in 2024. It also outdoes the first weeks for “Sweetener” and “Positions.” Among all of her eight studio albums, only “Thank U, Next” had a bigger opening, with 360,000 units in 2019.
Of the 295,000 units Grande registered for the week, album sales were responsible for 168,000 of those, adding up to her second-best sales week ever, according to Billboard. (Only “My Everything” in 2014 had a bigger sales week for Grande.) A sizable 96,000 of those units were sold on vinyl. The new album’s on-demand streams added up to 128.83 million, translating to 126,000 SEA units.
Apart from Grande’s entree on top, there was little difference in this week’s top 10 from last week’s top 10 — with the exception of Charli xcx’s latest, “Music, Fashion, Film,” dropping out of the top 10, after debuting last week at No. 3 with 75,000 units. (How far Charli fell isn’t yet known; Billboard only releases the top 10 on Sunday, with the remainder of the Billboard 200 being published Monday.)
Morgan Wallen and Noah Kahan remain the only artists to each have two albums in the top 10 at present.
The other nine albums following Grande’s in the top 10: Wallen’s “I’m the Problem,” which was No. 1 last week, falling a spot to No. 2, with 75,000 units; Olivia Rodrigo’s “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love,” down one slot to No. 3 with 74,000; and Ella Langley’s “Dandelion” at No. 4, Kahan’s “The Great Divide” at No. 5, Drake’s “Iceman” at No. 6, Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” at No. 7, Olivia Dean’s “The Art of Loving” at No. 8, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” at No. 9 and Kahan’s “Stick Season” at No. 10.
Grande has an excellent shot at being No. 1 for at least one more week after this, as well, given the lack of newly arriving superstar releases. The most notable releases from this past Friday that may impact the next chart came from Role Model and Ravyn Lenae, who aren’t likely to topple Grande. The week after that, she might face competition from Phoebe Bridgers’ first new album in six years.
“Petal” had the sixth-best opening so far in 2026. The leaders in big debuts have been BTS’ “Arirang” (with 641,000 equivalent album units in its debut), Rodrigo’s “You Seem Pretty Sad…” (485,000 opening units), Drake’s “Iceman” (463,000), Harry Styles’ “Kiss All the Time. Disco Occasionally” (430,000) and Kahan’s “The Great Divide” (389,000).
