U2 Hits Hot 100 with Kendrick Lamar, Highest Charting Song Since “Vertigo”

Original Story by Aaron J. Sams (2017-04-24)

Whether you liked the track “XXX” by Kendrick Lamar featuring U2, or not, there is no arguing that U2 have found a spot on the biggest album of 2017 to date appearing on Lamar’s album DAMN.

U2 have arrived back in the Billboard Hot 100 charts with their appearance on Kendrick Lamar’s “XXX”. The song charted at number 33 in the Hot 100 chart with an estimated weekly streaming count of 23.3 million. All of the tracks from the album have hit the Hot 100, and “XXX” was the seventh highest placed song from DAMN. on the charts. The last time U2 appeared on the chart, it was on their own, in 2014, and they reached #84 with “Ordinary Love” in the wake of their performance of the song on the Oscars. The last time they had a song in the Hot 100 chart higher than “XXX” placed this week was 2004, when “Vertigo” reached #31.

Kendrick Lamar’s album DAMN. also debuted at the number 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart dated May 6, 2017. Billboard also revealed that the album had the biggest week for any album in 2017 to date. The album was listed with 603,000 equivalent album units in the album charts for the week ending April 20.

Equivalent Album units includes actual physical sales, digital sales, and equivalents calculated for partial sales (where a user might only buy certain songs) and for streaming. The album actually sold 353,000 traditional albums.

At 353,000 traditional albums, that is the largest album sales week in 2017, and it is a career record for Lamar. That number surpasses Ed Sheeran’s recent album launch at 322,000 traditional albums.

The 603,000 equivalent albums is also the most units earned by any album in a single week in almost a full year, since Drake’s Views was released in May 2016. The previous record for 2017 was also Drake, and his release More Life had sold 505,000 equivalent albums the week ending March 23.

The album DAMN. is Kendrick Lamar’s third number 1 album.

The album also had a strong debut in the UK charts where the album DAMN. was the second best selling album in its debut week.

Our discography entry for the album DAMN. is available.

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