Red Hot Chili Peppers' new album Unlimited Love has debuted at number one in the US and UK.
Released on April 1 via Warner Records, it's the Californian funk-rockers' first chart-topping release in America since 2006’s Stadium Arcadium.
According to Luminate, formerly MRC DataSelling, 97,500 equivalent album units were sold in U.S. in the week ending April 7.
For those unfamiliar with chart terminology, '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, 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album.
Of Unlimited Love's 97,500 units, there were 82,500 album sales, 14,500 streams and 500 track equivalent albums.
The new album marks the return of guitarist John Frusciante, who last played with the band on the aforementioned Stadium Arcadium. Producer Rick Rubin, who had previously worked on 1991's Blood Sugar Sex Magik, 1999's Californication and 2002's By The Way, as well as Stadium Arcadium, also returned for Unlimited Love.
In total, eight RHCP albums have reached the Billboard 200 top 10.
Unlimited Love knocked Machine Gun Kelly’s Mainstream Sellout from the top spot to the ninth position, giving America back-to-back chart-topping rock albums for the first time in over four years. The last time rock ruled the US charts like this was in 2017, when The Killers’ Wonderful Wonderful debuted at No. 1 on the October 14, chart, a week after Foo Fighters’ Concrete and Gold opened at No. 1.
In the UK, the album became the LA quartet's fifth number one release, following By The Way (from 2002), Live in Hyde Park (2004), Stadium Arcadium (2006) and I’m With You (2011).
In a collective statement, the band discussed the making of the new record, and stated, "Our only goal is to get lost in the music. We (John, Anthony, Chad and Flea) spent thousands of hours, collectively and individually, honing our craft and showing up for one another, to make the best album we could. Our antennae attuned to the divine cosmos, we were just so damn grateful for the opportunity to be in a room together, and, once again, try to get better.
"Days, weeks and months spent listening to each other, composing, jamming freely, and arranging the fruit of those jams with great care and purpose. The sounds, rhythms, vibrations, words and melodies had us enrapt.
"We yearn to shine a light in the world, to uplift, connect, and bring people together. Each of the songs on our new album Unlimited Love is a facet of us, reflecting our view of the universe. This is our life’s mission. We work, focus, and prepare, so that when the biggest wave comes, we are ready to ride it. The ocean has gifted us a mighty wave and this record is the ride that is the sum of our lives. Thank you for listening, we hope you enjoy it."
