SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – DECEMBER 08: Bono and Adam Clayton of U2 perform on stage during ‘U2 The Joshua … [+]
Irish rock band U2 is back with some semi-new music, and fans have rushed to snap it up, helping their favorite band make history once again.
U2 returns to the top 10 on the Billboard 200 with their latest album, Songs of Surrender. The set debuts at No. 5 this week, marking the band’s thirteenth visit to the highest tier on the important tally, which ranks the most-consumed titles in the U.S. every week.
Songs of Surrender managed to shift 46,500 equivalent units in its opening frame, including 42,000 album sales and a few streaming and track sale album equivalents. U2’s latest is the only debut inside the top 10 on this week’s Billboard 200, which is once again controlled by Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time.
As Songs of Surrender debuts, U2 joins an exclusive club of bands that have proved their sustained popularity over an incredibly long period of time. According to Billboard, U2 is now just the fourth group in U.S. history to chart a top 10 album on the Billboard 200 in each of the past five decades. The band has now placed a new title inside the uppermost region on the tally in the ’80s, ’90s, 2000s, ’10s, and now the ’20s, joining the ranks of AC/DC, Def Leppard, and Metallica with their latest win.
Of U2’s thirteen top 10 albums, eight have gone on to take the top spot on the Billboard 200. The band has also managed to secure No. 1 albums in each of the past four decades, though they have yet to do so in this current period.
Songs of Surrender features reworkings of the band’s biggest hits and tunes they love. The group reexamined their songwriting and even rewrote some of the singles during the pandemic, adding lyrics, updating themes, and more. The album does not feature traditional remixes, but rather reworkings of classic tracks. U2 also released a Disney+ documentary about this process called A Sort of Homecoming.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2023/03/28/u2-makes-history-with-their-new-top-10-album/