Album poised for 2017’s biggest bow as first-week forecast grows to more than 530,000 units.
Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. album just keeps on getting bigger. With the tracking week nearly over (it ends at the close of business on April 20), industry prognosticators have updated their forecast for the set’s first week. It could now launch at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with between 530,000 to 550,000 equivalent album units — the biggest week of 2017 for an album. The current largest week of the year is owned by Drake’s More Life, which debuted with 505,000 units earned in the week ending March 23, according to Nielsen Music.

DAMN.’s latest first-week forecast is an upgrade from April 19, when its estimate stood at 500,000. (And that number itself grew from two days earlier, when the album was aiming for a start of 475,000.)

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). The top 10 of the new May 6-dated Billboard 200 chart (where DAMN. will likely debut at No. 1) is scheduled to be revealed on Billboard’s website on Sunday, April 23.