Beyoncé’s new album tops Billboard 200 chart with 2022’s biggest debut by a woman

The last female musician at No 1 was Adele with her 2021 album 30

Beyoncé’s new album Renaissance has topped the Billboard 200 albums chart, making her the first woman to achieve this rank in 2022.

The last female musician at No 1 was Adele with her 2021 album 30.

Renaissance is the first of a “three-act project” and includes contributions from Jay-Z, 070 Shake, Tems and more.

It features 16 tracks, including the lead single “Break My Soul”.

The album is Beyoncé’s first solo studio album since 2016’s Lemonade, in which she tackled topics such as infidelity, Black womanhood and forgiveness.

A press release for Renaissance shares the singer’s decision to stray from the visual album format.

Beyoncé “decided to lead without visuals giving fans the opportunity to be limitless in their expansive listening journey,” the statement said. “It is a chance again to be listeners and not viewers, while taking in every gem of the pristine production.”

The release also refers to Renaissance as “a celebration of a club era when anyone who felt like an outsider sought each other and formed a community of freedom-seekers to express themselves creatively through the rhythm, which we still celebrate today”.

According to Billboard, Renaissance logs the largest streaming week for an album by a woman in 2022 by on-demand official streams earned, with 179m.

It’s also the seventh-biggest streaming debut among all albums in 2022, and Beyoncé’s largest streaming week ever.

This news comes after Beyonce removed the interpolation of Kelis’s track “Milkshake” on her new album.

She took that decision after Kelis claimed she was sampled on the “Break My Soul” singer’s new album without permission.

Find The Independent’s verdict on the album here.