Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart dated March 22. It is the superstar’s seventh album to top the chart. The LP – her seventh studio album – starts with 219,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending March 13, according to Luminate – the biggest week of the year for a female artist. Gaga previously topped the Billboard 200 with Chromatica (2020), the A Star Is Born soundtrack (with Bradley Cooper, 2018), Joanne (2016), Cheek to Cheek (with Tony Bennett), ARTPOP (2013), and Born This Way (2011). In total, MAYHEM is Gaga’s 11th project to enter the top 10, dating back to her debut album, The Fame, which peaked at No. 2 in 2010 after debuting on the chart in 2008. Also in the top 10 of the latest Billboard 200, JENNIE’s solo debut album, Ruby, debuts at No. 7. She is the third member of the quartet BLACKPINK to achieve a top 10 as a solo artist, and all three have done so in the past three months.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the United States based on multi-metric consumption, measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA), and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual track sales from an album, or 3,750 official audio and video streams with advertising, or 1,250 on-demand subscription or paid streams generated by songs from an album. The new chart dated March 22, 2025 will be published in its entirety on Billboard’s website on March 18. For chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of the 219,000 equivalent album units for MAYHEM in its first week, album sales comprise 136,000 (it is the top-selling album of the week and debuts at No. 1 on Top Album Sales), SEA units comprise 80,500 (equivalent to 108.05 million official on-demand streams of the album’s songs; Gaga’s biggest streaming week to date, and debuts at No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart), and TEA units comprise 2,500.
With MAYHEM’s debut at 219,000 equivalent album units, the LP marks the biggest week for a female artist in 2025, and the biggest debut for a female artist in over six months. The last biggest debut for a female artist was Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet, which started with 362,000 units at No. 1 on the chart dated September 7, 2024.
MAYHEM was officially announced on January 27 and was available for pre-order on the same day. The album was released on March 7 and was preceded by a trio of singles that all reached the top 40 on the Billboard chart. The album’s success can also be attributed to Gaga’s highly anticipated return to music after a three-year hiatus, as well as her strong fan base and critical acclaim for her previous albums. With MAYHEM’s debut at No. 1, Gaga solidifies her position as one of the biggest and most influential artists in the music industry.