Kylie Minogue’s ‘Tension’ Lands U.S. Top 40 Debut

Kylie Minogue’s Tension arrives at No. 21 on the Billboard 200, for her highest charting album in the United States in over a decade, The Music Network can confirm.

Kylie’s 16th studio album eclipses the U.S. chart peak of its predecessor Disco from 2020 (No. 26) and Golden from 2018 (No. 64).

The last time Kylie enjoyed a loftier start on the U.S. albums tally was with Aphrodite, which debuted and peaked at No. 19 in July of 2010.

Tension (via BMG internationally) appears on the latest Billboard 200, dated Oct. 7, led for a second week by Rod Wave’s Nostalgia and featuring top 10 debuts by Doja Cat and Zach Bryan. The album also starts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Albums Chart.

Staying in the U.S., Tension shifted 24,500 combined units in its first week, including 19,500 sales. That’s her biggest sales week for an album in nearly 20 years, Billboard reports.

Kylie Minogue

Though Kylie is a pop music juggernaut in the U.K. and Australia, the U.S. remains largely untapped for the “Spinning Around” star.

Across her 35-year recording career, Kylie has impacted the top 10 on the Billboard 200 just once, with 2002’s Fever, and hit the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart twice, with “The Loco-Motion” (No. 3 in 1988) and “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” (No. 7 in 2002).

It’s a different tale on the other side of the Atlantic, where Tension sailed to No. 1 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart, published last Friday, Sept. 29, with 53,000 first-week chart sales in its first week — including a market-leading volume on wax.

Tension outsold the rest of the U.K. top 5 combined, the Official Charts Company reports, for Kylie’s ninth U.K. No. 1.

Her U.K. leaders date back to her 1988 debut Kylie, and include 1989’s Enjoy Yourself, 1992’s Greatest Hits, 2001’s Fever, 2010’s Aphrodite, Golden, 2019’s Step Back in Time: The Definitive Collection and Disco.

Among female solo artists, only Madonna (with 12) and Taylor Swift (10) have racked up more No. 1s on the U.K. albums chart.

There was no stopping Tension from topping the ARIA Chart, for Kylie’s eighth leader in Australia, also confirmed last Friday.

Tension was released through Liberator Music in these parts, a division of Mushroom Group.

“Kylie is a force to be reckoned with,” comments Mushroom Group CEO Matt Gudinski. “She is such an important part of Mushroom’s history and her continuous evolution throughout her iconic career shows why she is without a doubt Australia’s queen of pop. It’s exciting to see her current success globally and at home and we are very proud to see her latest album at the top of the ARIA charts.”

Tension adds to Kylie’s list of Australian No. 1s, which includes Light Years (2000), Fever (2001), X (2007), Kiss Me Once (2014), Golden, Step Back In Time: The Definitive Collection (2019) and Disco.

Australia’s highest-selling female artist, Kylie has shifted over 80 million albums sold worldwide, according to Mushroom Group.

She’ll play a batch of those hits and new works when she settles in for her first residency this November in Las Vegas. Kylie will call The Venetian home for several months, as the inaugural headline act for a new club night, Voltaire.