Genre chameleon Post Malone begins his country era with ‘F-1 Trillion’ atop the Billboard 200 albums chart

Post Malone made yet another successful genre pivot with his new country album “F-1 Trillion.” The rap-rock-pop star debuted at number-one on the Billboard 200 with 250,000 equivalent album units based on his combined traditional album sales, individual track sales and online streams. It’s also the artist’s first number-one album on the Top Country Albums chart. Read all about this week’s chart here at Billboard.com.

“F-1 Trillion” is a bit of a commercial comeback for Post Malone. While “Hollywood’s Bleeding” launched at number-one with a whopping 489,000 album units in 2019, his 2022 followup “Twelve Carat Toothache” topped out at number-two with 121,000 album units, and his 2023 set “Austin” also peaked at number-two with 113,000 album units. Those were still solid initial numbers — six figures is nothing to sneeze at — but neither album had the staying power that “Hollywood’s Bleeding” did. The longevity of “F-1 Trillion” is yet to be determined, but the success of lead single “I Had Some Help” with Morgan Wallen, which spent six weeks at number-one on the Hot 100, is a good sign.

At number-two for the second week in a row was Chappell Roan‘s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” with 72,,000 album units. Taylor Swift‘s “The Tortured Poets Department” was back down to number-three with 62,000 album units. Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” slipped to number-four with 60,000 album units. And Billie Eilish rounded out the top five with “Hit Me Hard and Soft” with 53,000 units.

In our weekly Billboard 200 predictions contest, most game players correctly bet on “F-1 Trillion” for the number-one slot, though we greatly underestimated how strong its debut would be. Most of us had it falling in the 100,000 to 149,999 unit range. Only one person anticipated that it would rack up 250,000 to 299,999 units. We also underestimated “Midwest Princess.” Many predicted it to fall to number-three or number-four with “Tortured Poets” in the number-two slot, but it turned out to be the other way around. Meanwhile, 23 users forecast “One Thing at a Time” at number-four, and our consensus was right about “Hit Me Hard and Soft” at number-five. Ultimately, 16 players topped our predictions results with three out of six questions answered correctly. How did you do? Find out here.