Carrie Underwood's Cry Pretty had the biggest female album debut of 2018

All hail the queen of country.

Carrie Underwood’s sixth album, Cry Pretty, notched an impressive opening weekend — the biggest female album debut of the year so far, in fact. After selling 265,654 equivalent album units this weekend, Cry Pretty unseated Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy as the biggest debut from a female artist in any genre this year. With Cry Pretty debuting at no. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, Underwood became the first woman in history to land four country albums at the top of that chart.

Cry Pretty is the biggest country debut of 2018, and also one of the best-selling country albums in a while. It had the biggest debut since Luke Bryan’s Kill The Lights in August 2015, and the biggest female debut since Taylor Swift’s Red in October 2012 (the last Swift album that could be described as “country”).

In EW’s B+ review for Cry Pretty, Marissa R. Moss writes, “At its best, she’s never sounded more vulnerable, or more willing to play within the definitions of country music.” Read the full review here.