Kirstie Maldonado is ready to rule the roost…
The 24-year-old half-Mexican, part Spanish-American singer and her fellow Pentatonix members are on track for the vocal group’s second No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as industry forecasters believe the a cappella act’s latest release, the holiday effort A Pentatonix Christmas, could rise to the top of next week’s list.
Prognosticators say the album could earn over 175,000 equivalent album units in the week ending December 22. That should be enough to easily take over the top spot, as the next closest competitors will likely be The Weeknd’s Starboy album and Bruno Mars’ 24K Magic, with both albums predicted to sell around 100,000 copies for the week.
The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). The top 10 of the new January 7, 2017-dated Billboard 200 chart — where A Pentatonix Christmas could rise to No. 1 — is scheduled to be revealed on Billboard’s websites on Monday, December 26.
A Pentatonix Christmas was released through RCA Records on October 21. It debuted at No. 3 on the November 12-dated chart, and has never ranked lower than No. 6 on the list in its eight weeks on the chart. On the latest tally, reflecting the tracking week ending December 15, it climbed from No. 3 to No. 2 with 156,000 units (up from 128,000 the week previous).
The album is basking in the glow of holiday-fueled purchases, as well as a sale price in the iTunes Store (for just $7.99), as well as due to a number of television appearances from the group during the tracking week. The act’s December 7 performance on ABC‘s Jimmy Kimmel Live! repeated on December 16, NBC‘s A Pentatonix Christmas Special (which premiered on Dec. 14) received an encore airing on December 17, and they sang on NBC’s America’s Got Talent Holiday Spectacular on December 19.
If the album reaches No. 1, it will give Pentatonix its second leader, following their self-titled album, which debuted atop the Nov. 7, 2015-dated list. A Pentatonix Christmas is the group’s sixth top 10 album overall, and third holiday effort to reach the region, following 2014’s No. 2-peaking That’s Christmas To Me, and the 2013 PTXmas EP, which climbed to No. 7.