While many fans expected 2024’s Eternal Sunshine to be the last new album we got from Ariana Grande in a long while, she’s back atop the Billboard 200 just two and a half years later — and posting some of her strongest numbers yet.
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Grande’s eighth solo full-length Petal bows atop the chart with 295,000 first-week units — her best single-week performance of the 2020s thusfar. Meanwhile, it charts all 12 of its tracks in the Billboard Hot 100‘s top 40, while notching two songs in the top five: chart-topping lead single “Hate That I Made You Love Me” (No. 2) and the new title track (No. 4), whose video has heated a discourse about the pop star’s physical appearance that has at times threatened to overwhelm the album’s debut week.
How do those Petal numbers compare with our expectations? And will the album era ultimately stand strong on its own? Billboard staffers discuss these questions and more below.
