QUEEN BEY'S ALBUM MATCHUP

Columbia's Beyoncé will once again top the chart with her latest release, Lemonade. Though it didn't have the sneak-attack jolt of her last album, 2013’s Beyoncé, Lemonade is currently projected to sell somewhere around 500k albums, 900k tracks and generate up to 45m streams. While those album sales represent a 19% decline over her previous first week, Lemonade is likely to come out ahead when revenue is compared, thanks to the addition of TEA and SEA.

Beyoncé, the album, was initially bundled at iTunes without the ability to purchase individual tracks. Streaming at the time was still in its infancy in the US. Neither of these components contributed to first week sales.

Lemonade, however, will benefit from both the sale of tracks and the album being available to stream at Tidal. Lemonade is also priced at $17.99, two dollars more than Beyoncé. Here’s the revenue breakdown.

Beyoncé sold approximately 618k in its first four days of release at $15.99. Assuming the standard 70/30 split for digital albums, Beyoncé generated $6.9m in revenue. Lemonade, selling at $17.99 and projecting to 500k, will generate $6.3m in sales. Lemonade, however, has the two additional revenue, um, streams. 900k in track sales will generate $810k in revenue at 90 cents per track. Tidal is expected to generate up to 45m streams for additional revenue of up to $250k. This gives Lemonade a total of $7.36m in revenue in its first four days, which will beat Beyoncé by nearly $400k.