Black Panther soundtrack tops Billboard 200 for second week

The original soundtrack to the hit movie “Black Panther” tops the Billboard 200 chart of the United States’ most popular albums for the second consecutive week.

After the “The Greatest Showman”, “Black Panther: The Album” is the second movie soundtrack of 2018 to spend two consecutive weeks in the Billboard 200 top spot.

Plus, 2018 is the first year since 2014 to see two soundtracks spend more than one week at number one; the last time being with “Frozen” which spent 14 weeks at number one, and “Guardians of the Galaxy” which spent two weeks at the top.

Billboard also reports that “Black Panther: The Album” scored the biggest second week for a soundtrack since 2015’s “Fifty Shades of Grey”.

The “Black Panther” soundtrack is curated by Kendrick Lamar and features collaborations with the likes of The Weeknd, Future, James Blake and the American rapper’s protégé SZA, who features on the track “All the Stars”.

“Black Panther” is directed by Ryan Coogler (“Creed”, “Fruitvale Station”) and stars some of Hollywood’s most in-demand black actors, including Chadwick Boseman, Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker and Daniel Kaluuya.

This latest Marvel production, released Jan. 29, 2018 in the U.S., follows T’Challa, who returns home to Wakanda, an isolated but technologically advanced African nation, to succeed his father to the throne as king and Black Panther.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (10 song sales) and streaming equivalent albums (1,500 song streams). JB

RELATED STORIES:

Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige on what’s next for female characters after ‘Black Panther’ success

Ed Sheeran named world’s best-selling artist of 2017