Photo: Press

Lorde has been having one hell of a weekend. In addition to her show stopping performance on the Other Stage at the Glastonbury Festival on Friday night (June 23), her second album, Melodrama, has topped the Billboard 200 chart, so giving the singer her first US Number One.

The album shifted the equivalent of 109,000 album units, if which 82,000 were traditional album sales. The Billboard 200 measures album popularity by a combination of traditional album sales, track equivalent albums and streaming equivalent albums.

Here 2013 debut album, Pure Heroine, debuted at Number Three in the Billboard Top 200 after selling 129,000 copies in its first week. By following chart toppers Katy Perry (Witness) and Halsey (Hopeless Fountain Kingdom), Lorde has become the third woman in a row to gain pole position in the US and also the first New Zealander to hit Number One in the American album chart.

She beat off competition from rapper 2 Chainz’s Pretty Girls Like Music, which went in at Number Two, and also Jason Isbell whose The Nashville Sound debuted at Number Four to give him his highest charting album following sales of 54,000.

It’s not a feat that was achieved in the UK album charts. Melodrama debuted at Number Five and was held off the top slot by Royal Blood’s How Did It Get So Dark which went straight to Number One.

Elsewhere, the ubiquitous Ed Sheeran was just below the Brighton duo with ÷ and Canadians Nickelback entered the charts at Number Three with Feed The Machine. Rag ‘N’ Bone Man’s Human remained static at Number Four. Also entering the Top 10 are Fleet Foxes whose third album, Crack-Up, settled in at Number Nine. It’s the folkies’ first album since 2011’s Helplessness Blues.