Laufey Logs Biggest Jazz Debut in Nearly Two Years With ‘Bewitched’

September 21, 2023 E Jazz Reporter

Artistes

The album bows in the top 40 on the all-genre Billboard 200 and at No. 1 on both the Jazz Albums & Traditional Jazz Albums charts.

Laufey

Gemma Warren

Rising jazz artist Laufey scores her first entry on the Billboard 200 albums chart with her sophomore release Bewitched, debuting at No. 23 on the Sept. 23-dated list. Further, the set launches atop both the Traditional Jazz Albums and overall Jazz Albums charts – marking the first No. 1 on both rankings for the 24-year-old Icelandic singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist (real name: Laufey Lin Jónsdóttir).

In addition, with 23,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending Sept. 14, Bewitched snares the largest debut week for a jazz album in nearly two years – since Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga’s Love for Sale started with 41,000 on the Oct. 16, 2021-dated charts. Notably, 68% of Bewitched’s first-week activity was driven by streaming (with the set’s 14 songs collecting 22.36 million on-demand official streams).

Prior to the release of Bewitched, Laufey amassed a sizable following on TikTok (nearly 3 million followers) and collected 339 million on-demand official song streams in the U.S.

Laufey notched one previous entry on both the Traditional Jazz Albums and Jazz Albums charts, the Typical of Me EP, which has peaked at No. 2 on both rankings (dated Sept. 2).

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The Traditional Jazz Albums and Jazz Albums charts rank the most popular traditional and overall jazz albums of the week by equivalent album units. (The Jazz Albums chart is inclusive of all styles of jazz, including both traditional and contemporary jazz titles.)

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