"The biggest rock week since 2014": Noah Kahan hits US No.1 with The Great Divide
Noah Kahan has secured his first US No.1 album, with The Great Divide opening atop the Billboard 200 chart. The Vermont singer-songwriter’s fourth studio album earned 389,000 equivalent album units in the week ending 30 April.
That figure marks Kahan’s largest weekly haul to date, and the biggest week for any 'rock' album since Billboard began using the units system in December 2014. The Great Divide also claims 2026’s biggest streaming week for any album, alongside the largest vinyl sales week for a rock album in the modern era (since Luminate started electronic tracking in 1991).
Of that 389,000 total, streaming equivalent album (SEA) units make up 212,000 – representing 215.37 million on-demand official streams. Pure album sales sit at 175,000, with vinyl purchases accounting for 118,000 of that sum: “the best sales week on vinyl for a rock album in the modern era,” according to Billboard data.
For pure sales, Kahan’s figure is the largest since Tool’s Fear Inoculum debuted with 248,000 copies in September 2019.
The Great Divide is Kahan’s fifth charting project on the Billboard 200 and his second top ten. His 2024 breakthrough Stick Season, which previously peaked at No.2, returns to the top ten this week by rising 11-10 in its 179th week on the chart.
Sign up to Best Fit's Substack for regular dispatches from the world of pop culture