Kendrick Lamar’s “Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City” celebrates its 10th year anniversary this week, and with it a huge achievement — the album has remained on the Billboard 200 chart since its release.
According to chart history, “Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City” has spent 520 weeks on the Billboard 200, making an even 10 years. The album peaked at No. 2 on Nov. 10, 2012, about three weeks after its debut.
Lamar’s two followup records, “To Pimp a Butterfly” and “Damn.,” have also spent triple-digit weeks on the Billboard album chart, with the former racking up 135 weeks and the latter at 287. Both of those albums, released in 2015 and 2017, respectively, hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200, as did this year’s “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers” and 2016’s “Untitled Unmastered.”
“Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City” sold 242,000 copies upon its debut, earning the highest first-week sales for a male hip-hop artist in 2012. It is the longest-charting hip-hop album in history.
The album features some of Lamar’s most celebrated songs, including “Swimming Pools,” “M.A.A.D. City,” “Backseat Freestyle, “Money Trees,” “Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe” and the fan favorite “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst,” which clocks a 12-minute runtime.
Earlier this month, the album landed at No. 1 on Rolling Stone’s ranking of greatest concept albums. Mosi Reeves wrote that “Good Kid” is a “complex tale of how Lamar finally manages resist his city’s gangland traps and embrace his Christian faith. Subconsciously but importantly, the album eschews the G-funk style that defined L.A. hip-hop for decades.”
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