J. Cole has found a lot of neat ways to roll out his new album The Fall-Off, whether it's the Birthday Blizzard '26 tape he put out before it or his more recent "Trunk Sale" tour. He's going around various United States cities to connect with fans and sell CDs of the project. As such, many folks wonder whether or not these sales will count towards The Fall-Off's first week sales, which currently have very strong projections.
According to Billboard, Luminate compiles all data for their sales charts, which comes from "a universe of retailers that represents more than 90% of the U.S. music retail market." This includes retail sales, "direct-to-consumer" transactions, and Internet sales, whether it's buying a digital download of an album or purchasing a physical copy online. Also, the chart takes into account verifiable sales from concert venues.
"The Luminate system utilizes that same point-of-sale [POS] that music merchants use to track their inventory," the publication states in their charts legend. "So an itemized receipt from one’s last visit to a music retailer essentially doubles as a ballot cast for our charts."
We saw the Dreamville artist use a POS system in footage from his "Trunk Sale" tour. However, per Complex, no official information has emerged at press time to confirm that these sales tie to a Billboard-approved retailer. We will see if that changes soon.
Elsewhere, though, Dreamville's Ibrahim "Ib" Hamad confirmed on Twitter that The Fall-Off CDs are not going for a dollar each. So there are other questions about sales that Cole's team is clarifying; we'll see if they clear this up.
Read More: J. Cole "The Fall-Off" Review
J. Cole's The Fall-Off's First Week Sales Projections
However, if this doesn't count towards final chart numbers, J. Cole's The Fall-Off's first week sales projections are still very impressive. It will land at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart (Cole's seventh album to do so), moving an estimated 291K units in its first week. We will see what the final numbers actually are.
Perhaps J. Cole's dynamic "Trunk Sale" tour will actually boost these numbers even more. But the special and connective nature of this initiative matters much more than any commercial success.
