What led to Beyoncé's 'Cowboy Carter' surpassing her debut album 'Renaissance' in its first week?

 This week's Five Burning Questions examines Beyoncé's impressive debut with 'Cowboy Carter', setting a new high standard.

Beyoncé's 'Cowboy Carter' album dominated conversations last week for a good reason: It was well on its way to achieving the highest single-week sales for an album in 2024 by a significant margin. This highly-anticipated country-infused project, the second part of Beyoncé's planned Renaissance trilogy, debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart with 407,000 units sold in its first week. This impressive figure easily surpassed the 251,000 units sold by Future & Metro Boomin's 'We Don't Trust You' upon its release, previously holding the top spot for the year. Additionally, 'Cowboy Carter' outperformed Beyoncé's own 'Renaissance Act I', which sold 332,000 units in its debut week, marking her best album launch since 'Lemonade' garnered over 650,000 units in 2016.