Kanye West's Jesus Is King debuts at no. 1, tying Eminem's record

Jesus Is Kingby Kanye West has debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart, becoming his ninth consecutive number one album, which tiesarecord, even as earlyreceptionappears mixed.

Soon after its October 25th release date, music review website Pitchfork called the gospel inspired album "a richly produced but largely flawed record," while Rolling Stone described West's rapping as "uniformly lacklustre," and that hisperformance"weakens his work as a producer," givingthealbum two and a half stars out of a possiblefive.

Fans also questioned and critiqued merchandise released alongside the album, which includes socksand hats bearing the album's name, along withsimply designed shirts, sweaters and sweat pants.

Some on Twitter called the use of Jesus' image on the merchandise disrespectful,even blasphemous.

Despite this, the album has managed to topple records, and has catapulted West into hismost successfulstreaming week ever. According to Billboard,Jesus Is Kinglaunched with 196.9 million streams, beating West's previous record of 180.1 million with his previous solo album, 2018'sYe.

Jesus Is Kingalso brought about the second-largest sales week for an R&B/hip-hop album of 2019, selling a total of 264,000 equivalent album units in its first week.

West is now tied with Eminem for consecutive albums to debut at number one, with only his first album The College Dropout falling short. Rapper Jay-Z is ahead of both artists withthe most number one debuts on the chart, having 14, but they are not consecutive.