PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - AUGUST 31: Juice Wrld performs onstage during Made In America - Day 1 ... [+]
Juice WRLD’s first posthumous album Legends Never Die has only been out for a day and a half, but it’s already on track for a historic debut.
Legends Never Die is projected to move 400,000-440,000 album-equivalent units in its first week, HITS Daily Double reports. That sum includes 110,000-125,000 traditional album sales and a gargantuan 400 million on-demand audio streams. That would give Juice WRLD the biggest streaming week of 2020 according to HITS Daily Double’s calculations. Lil Uzi Vert’s Eternal Atake currently holds the biggest streaming bow of the year; HITS pegs it at 376 million, while Billboard chalked it up to 400 million.
Juice WRLD’s highly anticipated third studio album also has a shot at scoring the biggest overall debut of 2020. The Weeknd currently holds that title with After Hours, which scored a whopping 444,000 album-equivalent units in its first week. That’s currently just above the upper range of the first-week projections for Legends Never Die, but those projections are likely to swell as the week progresses.
Legends Never Die got off to an accordingly astronomical start on Spotify on Friday. The album earned over 73 million streams, the biggest Spotify debut of 2020, and claimed 20 of the top 25 slots on the U.S. chart. “Conversations” topped the U.S. chart with 3.452 million streams, the biggest stateside debut of the year. The only other artists who debuted in Spotify’s top 25 were Kid Cudi and Eminem, whose new collaboration “The Adventures of Moon Man & Slim Shady” racked up 1.868 million U.S. streams Friday.
If—or, more accurately, when—Legends Never Die debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, it will mark Juice WRLD’s second consecutive chart-topper behind 2019’s Death Race for Love. Judging by early streaming numbers, several songs off the rapper’s new album should scale the Billboard Hot 100 as well. Juice WRLD previously peaked at No. 2 on the singles chart with the omnipresent emo-rap smash “Lucid Dreams,” which has racked up over a billion Spotify streams and been certified 6x platinum by the RIAA.
Juice WRLD, born Jarad Anthony Higgins, died on Dec. 8 after suffering a seizure at Chicago’s Midway International Airport, less than a week after his 21st birthday. The Cook County Medical Examiner later determined the death was the result of an accidental overdose of oxycodone and codeine. Juice WRLD’s death prompted an outpouring of love and grief from the likes of Drake, Chance the Rapper, Ski Mask the Slump God, Lil Nas X, Lil Yachty and countless more celebrities and fans. His name became the top U.S. Twitter trend, while sales and streams of his catalog skyrocketed in the week following his death.
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