Streaming is starting to become the norm on how people listened to music. Before that, people had to purchase physical copies of albums. In today’s culture, it is hard to tell when one will go away while the other flourishes. Both trends are still competing with one another in sales. This is especially true when it comes to Billboard Charts. This past couple of weeks, those finding themselves at the top of the charts have thanked both streaming and physical sales for their victories.

Rapper XXXTentacion reached the number one spot last week due to a huge streaming number, that number being 159 million tracks played but had just 20,000 album sales. This week, the victory comes to Jack White who’s Boarding House Reach took the top spot due with 121,000 sales and just 4.2 million streams.

The former White Stripes frontman recently released his third solo album this past month on March 23rd. Boarding House Reach reached the top spot in the US due to the physical sales of the album which propelled it to climb increasingly in a time dominated by streaming. Mr. White also sold 27,000 copies of the album as vinyl LPs, more than XXXTentacion’s entire album haul. The record gives White his third consecutive chart-topping record as a solo artist.

Boarding House Reach’s first week of release, it sold 124,000 total copies, including 121,000 traditional copies, the second-best traditional copies haul of 2018 behind Justin Timberlake’s Man of the Woods. 

Though streaming is still the dominated force in how music fans get their music, sales in both albums and vinyl are continuing to show that it is not slowing down at all.

Photo credit by Photo: Raymond Flotat