Never underestimate the power of the BeyHive. While we’ve witnessed their strength on social media in the past, they made their impact evident during the latest week of album sales. As previously reported, Beyoncé scored the highest first-week numbers for a woman in 2022 with the release of Renaissance. The album moved upwards of 332,000 units in its first week — the second biggest debut week this year following Harry Styles’ Harry House.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Out of the 332K that Beyoncé’s Renaissance moved, over half of those units came from traditional album sales. Per AllHipHop, Beyoncé fans bought 190,000 copies of the album in its first week, marking the most traditional units moved by a woman this year.
Beyoncé hit a career-high with Renaissance on DSPs. Her new album racked up 179M streams in its first week, marking the largest streaming week for a female artist this year. It’s also the largest amount of weekly streams of Bey’s career so far.
Beyoncé’s new album has garnered a lot of praise but just as much scrutiny, as well. Last week, Bey found herself under fire for using an ableist slur, which she immediately corrected by removing it from the album. She later also quietly addressed the controversy surrounding Kelis by removing the “Milkshake” sample from “Energy.”
Over the weekend, Beyoncé dropped the “Break My Soul (Queens Remix)” with Madonna.