The road to Selena Gomez’s latest album, Rare, has been full of difficulties — a kidney transplant, a breakup, and mental health troubles among them — but it seems that perseverance, and a number-one single, have paid off spectacularly for the singer. Rare reached number one on the Billboard 200 Chart earlier today, with 112,000 albums sold in its first week. Gomez is no stranger to the Billboard charts; her albums Revival and Stars Dance both earned number-one spots in 2015 and 2013, respectively. Rare edged out Roddy Ricch’s Please Excuse Me for Being Antisocial, which is seeing huge sales after his single, “The Box,†went viral. According to Billboard, Rare’s number-one spot is particularly interesting because it didn’t get a boost from concert-ticket sales, like many number-one earners.
Gomez took to Instagram to celebrate the news, noting in her caption: “I was a bit embarrassed asking so often for you to stream or buy my album. It felt inauthentic.†This feels like a not-so-subtle reference to a certain ex-boyfriend’s desperate plea to fans to get his song to number one earlier this month, but that’s neither here nor there. In the words of Gomez herself, “Enjoy the music and spread the love.â€