New Delhi, July 14 -- LOS ANGELES - The chart position arrived on Sunday, and the number itself told a story the music industry has not seen at this scale in decades. "Confessions II" opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, giving Madonna her 10th chart-topping album and confirming that the promotional architecture her team built over five months had worked precisely as intended.

The album's first-week performance was built on 134,000 total album-equivalent units, including 114,000 in traditional sales and 20.1 million streams, according to Billboard's official chart data. Those numbers placed "Confessions II" well ahead of the week's No. 2 album, Olivia Rodrigo's "You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love," which opened to 97,000 units. T...