Spoiler alert: Beyoncé has the #1 album in the country.

That's not exactly a surprise, given the copious coverage and frenzied sales projections her self-titled album has generated since being released out of nowhere at midnight on Thursday. But the number of copies she managed to sell — more than 617,000 — in such a short amount of time (Nielsen SoundScan's sales week concluded on Sunday, December 15, giving Bey just three full days to rack up sales), well, that was definitely shocking.

All Hail The Queen
Beyoncé's first-week numbers were not only the best of any female artist in 2013, easily outpacing Katy Perry's Prism, but they give her the fourth biggest debut of the year, trailing only Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience, Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP 2 and Drake's Nothing Was The Same. And again, she did it in just three days.

It's also her fifth-consecutive #1 debut, making her the first female artist to have her first five albums bow atop the Billboard charts. She's also the third artist to ever accomplish that feat, along with DMX (!) and the Kingston Trio. The 617,000 copies Beyoncé sold are also the most she's ever sold in a single week, eclipsing the 541,000 she sold when B'Day premiered in 2006.

And there's a pretty good chance she'll remain at #1 next week too, as Beyoncé will finally have a full week of sales to count.

Via MTV