Luke Bryan’s “Kill the Lights” Tops the “Billboard” 200

His latest release sold 345 thousand units for the week ending Thursday to debut atop the Billboard 200 album chart.

Luke Bryan’s “Kill the Lights” has made its way out to No. 1 on this week’s Billboard 200.

Dr. Dre’s comeback release Compton debuts at #2 with 295,000 equivalent units. This gives him the third largest opening week for a release in 2015, following Drake and Kendrick Lamar. This is the hip-hop mogul’s third album overall and his first in 16 years.

However, Jim Farber of the New York Daily News gave Like Bryan his worst review.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Dr. Dre debuts with about three times the sales of most albums that have been debuting at No. 1. Compton is an Apple/iTunes exclusive release for its first two weeks of availability.

Though the album is named Compton, it is not a soundtrack to Straight Outta Compton, the new film about Dre’s breakthrough years in the group N.W.A.

The Telegraph goes on to summarize that despite all the new rappers coming on board, Dre has “still got it”. Closing out the top 5 is Taylor Swift’s “1989” that slips from last week’s No. 3 with a little over 33,000. 1 and 2 on the new Billboard 200, there is of course other news in the Top 10. Luke Bryan has fallen to No. 3, but could climb back up as the week progresses.

In addition to Kill the Lights and Crash My Party, Bryan also led the list with his Spring Break… Let us know in the Comments section. The album, which moved 276,000 pure copies during its initial August 7-13 tracking period, is pacing to move 45-50,000 inside the August 14-20 frame.