Cardi B scores her second No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart as AM I THE DRAMA? debuts atop the tally (dated Oct. 4) with 200,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending Sept. 25, according to Luminate. That marks 2025’s biggest week for an R&B/hip-hop album by a woman. AM I THE DRAMA? is Cardi B’s second full-length studio project, and follows her chart-topping debut, Invasion of Privacy, in 2018.
Also in the top 10 of the latest Billboard 200, Nine Inch Nails’ soundtrack to TRON: Ares debuts at No. 5, marking the first top 10 for the band since 2013.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Oct. 4, 2025-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Sept. 30. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of AM I THE DRAMA?’s 200,000 first-week equivalent album units, SEA units comprise 110,000 (equaling 145.72 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs during the tracking week — it also debuts at No. 1 on Top Streaming Albums), album sales comprise 88,000 (it debuts at No. 1 on Top Album Sales) and TEA units comprise 2,000.
AM I THE DRAMA?’s opening-week sales were boosted by its availability across an array of permutations. It was issued as a standard 19-song widely available digital download album; 20-song CD and vinyl editions; and a 23-song download and streaming edition. There were also further digital variants: an iTunes Store and Apple Music edition with bonus live video tracks, a 30-track artist webstore-exclusive edition and two widely available expanded editions (with 24 tracks each).
The CD and vinyl variants for AM I THE DRAMA? were largely only available through Cardi B’s webstore and through some independent record stores. AM I THE DRAMA? was issued on two standard CD variants (one signed by the artist), seven additional CD cover variants (four of them signed, inclusive of three versions with cover art showing gone-viral photos of the artist on the stand during her assault trial in August, dubbed the “courtroom edition”) and eight deluxe CD boxed sets containing merchandise and a CD. The album was also issued on two standard vinyl editions (one signed) and nine additional vinyl variants (some with different covers and/or color vinyl, most of them signed, including a “courtroom edition” cover variant).
In addition to a typical promotional press run to raise awareness of the album’s release, the artist also mounted a busy schedule of in-store appearances during release week, doing photo ops and meet-and-greets with fans purchasing the album. During release week, she hit four independent record stores (Looney Tunes in West Babylon, N.Y.; Spin Me Round in Easton, Pa.; DBS Sounds in Riverdale, Ga.; and Fingerprints in Long Beach, Calif.) and a Hot Topic location in Elmhurst, N.Y. and a Walmart in Cypress, Texas.
The widely available editions of AM I THE DRAMA? contain the Billboard Hot 100-charted hits “Outside” (No. 10 peak in July), “Imaginary Playerz” (No. 70 in August), “Up” (No. 1 in March 2021) and “WAP” (featuring Megan Thee Stallion, No. 1 in August 2020).
The chart-topping KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack holds at No. 2 with 104,000 equivalent album units earned (down 7%). The set also notches a 10th week inside the top two on the Billboard 200, marking the most weeks inside the top two for a soundtrack since the Frozen album logged 21 nonconsecutive frames in the top two (13 of them at No. 1) in 2014. KPop surpasses Encanto, which had nine weeks in the top two (all at No. 1) in 2022.
Morgan Wallen’s former No. 1 I’m the Problem is steady at No. 3 (90,000 equivalent album units, down 7%) and Sabrina Carpenter’s chart-topping Man’s Best Friend is stationary at No. 4 (69,000, down 21%).
Nine Inch Nails are back in the Billboard 200’s top 10 for the first time in over a decade, as the band’s soundtrack to the film TRON: Ares debuts at No. 5 (the highest debut of 2025 for a soundtrack) with 45,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise 39,000 (it debuts at No. 2 on Top Album Sales), SEA units comprise 6,000 (equaling 8.37 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum. Nine Inch Nails have tallied seven top 10 albums on the Billboard 200: TRON: Ares, Hesitation Marks (No. 3 in 2013), Year Zero (No. 2, 2007), With Teeth (No. 1, 2005), The Fragile (No. 1, 1999), The Downward Spiral (No. 2, 1994) and Broken (No. 7, 1992).
The first-week sales of TRON: Ares were aided by its availability across four vinyl variants, a cassette, two CD variants and a download and streaming edition (all containing the same tracklist).
TRON: Ares is the companion soundtrack to the film of the same name, which will be released on Oct. 10 in movie theaters, and is the third in the Tron film series. It follows Tron: Legacy (2010) and Tron (1982). The TRON: Ares soundtrack is the second Tron movie soundtrack to reach the Billboard 200, following Daft Punk’s TRON: Legacy (which peaked at No. 4).
TRON: Ares was preceded by the album’s single “As Alive as You Need Me To Be,” which has reached the top 10 on both Alternative Airplay and Mainstream Rock Airplay.
Also, with KPop Demon Hunters and TRON: Ares at Nos. 2 and 5, there are two soundtracks in the top five simultaneously for the first time in more than six years. It last happened on the March 30, 2019 chart, when Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s chart-topping A Star Is Born was No. 3 and Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody was No. 5.
Rounding out the rest of the latest top 10 on the Billboard 200: Alex Warren’s You’ll Be Alright, Kid rises 7-6 (35,000 equivalent album units, down 3%); SZA’s chart-topping SOS climbs 8-7 (33,000, down 2%); Wallen’s former leader One Thing at a Time steps 9-8 (32,000, down 3%); Justin Bieber’s SWAG shifts 6-9 (just under 32,000, down 27%); and Bad Bunny’s former No. 1 DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS climbs 13-10 (nearly 32,000, up 21%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
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