Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, first released in 1982, returns to Billboard’s charts following its expanded reissue. The set, which peaked at No. 3 on the overall Billboard 200 in its release year, re-enters that list (dated Nov. 8) at No. 26 for its first week on the chart since 1985 and its highest rank since 1982.
Further, Nebraska debuts on a host of charts that didn’t exist in 1982: Americana/Folk Albums (No. 3), Indie Store Album Sales (No. 3), Catalog Albums (No. 4), Top Album Sales (No. 5), Top Rock & Alternative Albums (No. 6), Vinyl Albums (No. 6) and Top Rock Albums (No. 7).
Nebraska was reissued on Oct. 24 with 27 additional tracks via streaming services, and to purchase on digital download, CD and vinyl. (The reissue came on the same day as the theatrical debut of the biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, starring Jeremy Allen White as The Boss.) All versions of Nebraska, old and new, are combined for tracking and charting purposes. In the tracking week ending Oct. 30, Nebraska earned 18,000 equivalent album units in the United States, according to Luminate. Traditional album sales (purchases of digital and physical copies of the album) comprise nearly 15,000 of that sum, with the rest largely powered by streaming activity of the album’s songs.
That 15,000 sales figure equates to a No. 5 debut on Top Album Sales, where Nebraska stands alongside five other debuts in the top 10: Brandi Carlile’s Returning to Myself (No. 1), Demi Lovato’s It’s Not That Deep (No. 2), Daniel Caesar’s Son of Spergy (No. 4), BOYNEXTDOOR’s The Action (No. 7) and Mammoth’s The End (No. 8). As for the holdovers in the top 10, Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl falls 1-3, the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack slips 3-6, Stray Kids’ former leader KARMA is pushed down 5-9 despite a 4% gain in sales, and Sabrina Carpenter’s chart-topping Man’s Best Friend falls 6-10.
