One Direction singer Styles’ solo album tops US Billboard chart

Reuters: One Direction singer Harry Styles cemented his transition into a solo career with a chart-topping debut album on Monday, the second member of the band to top the chart.

Styles’ self-titled effort sold 193,000 albums, 100,000 songs and was streamed 39 million times in its first week, totalling 230,000 album units according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.

Styles, 23, is the second member of the British boy band to score a No. 1 solo album after Zayn Malik’s “Mind of Mine” debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart last year.

After Malik left One Direction in 2015, the band went on hiatus and three of its members released solo music.

Styles outpaced country group Zac Brown Band’s latest album “Welcome Home,” which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart this week with 146,000 album units.

The Billboard 200 album chart tallies units from album sales, song sales (10 songs equal one album) and streaming activity (1,500 streams equal one album).

Other new entries in the top ten of the chart include pop-rock group Paramore at No. 6 with “After Laughter” and rapper Machine Gun Kelly at No. 9 with “Bloom.”

On the Digital Songs chart, which measures online single sales, Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” featuring Justin Bieber held onto the top spot for a second week with another 115,000 copies sold.