The Weeknd’s Debut Mixtape Returns, More Than A Decade After Its Release

Last week, The Weeknd scored a brand new No. 1 album with Hurry Up Tomorrow, his highly-anticipated new project. The set debuted in first place on six different Billboard tallies, and though it’s started to decline, the title remains hugely popular in America.

As millions of people continue to stream–and fewer keep buying–Hurry Up Tomorrow, the project that started it all for The Weeknd returns. House of Balloons, his first mixtape, breaks back onto a pair of Billboard tallies this frame, becoming a success story once more.

House of Balloons performs best on the Top R&B Albums chart, Billboard’s ranking of the most-consumed full-lengths and EPs that are specific to that genre. On that tally, The Weeknd is back at No. 16. House of Balloons joins four other releases by the Canadian superstar on that list.

The same project also rises onto the Billboard 200 once more. On that ranking, which lists the most popular albums of any style and via any format throughout the country, the mixtape reappears at No. 136.

Originally released in the spring of 2011, House of Balloons introduced the then-anonymous The Weeknd to millions of people. The mixtape was released for free and quickly generated a lot of discussion among music journalists and fans who loved discovering brand new acts.

The title eventually reached the top 10 on a handful of Billboard lists, such as the Vinyl Albums and Top Album Sales lists. So far, it has topped out at No. 14 on the Top R&B Albums chart. It once climbed to No. 113 on the Billboard 200, where, despite the fact that it’s well over a decade old, it has only racked up five stays.

House of Balloons is one of five albums by The Weeknd to appear on several Billboard charts this week. Hurry Up Tomorrow is still present inside the top five on all six rankings it debuted on last frame, and it only dips a single space to No. 2 on half of them.

His greatest hits compilation, The Highlights, is his next-best performer. That gathering of smashes lives on four different rankings, and it’s present inside the top 10 on just one, the Top R&B Albums list, where it slides backward ever so slightly to No. 4.

Both Starboy and After Hours manage to find a home on a trio of tallies in the U.S. Those sets experience something of a mixed performance, as they both climb on the Billboard 200, decline on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums ranking, and hold steady on the Top R&B Albums list.